This time of year, as a matter of habit and curiosity, I look at the Chinese zodiac forecast. This past year was the Year of the Ox, and the coming is the Year of the Tiger, fraught with change and unpredictability. It will have a different resonance for the different zodiac animal and element you are, but the broad forecast holds that everyone will experience change this year.
Astrology is a funny practice. It's founded on the basic idea that when you were born influences your basic temperament and personality, which in turns influences your future. Relegated to the New Age section in the contemporary mind, astrology can seem as foreign as the pre-industrial, star gazing cultures that birthed it. Yes, it is remarkable that the vast majority of my close friends are astrologically compatible with me, but I don't know many people these days who take astrology much more seriously than a casual read through their online horoscope.
And yet, I wonder if the contemporary mind has just channeled this energy elsewhere. The future, after all, is a muddy thing. We all know there are no guarantees, but we still wish we could know what lies ahead for us. Wouldn't it be great if we could find out? I'm thinking about Facebook quizzes, thin slicing, Myers-Briggs types, career placement tests, the quest to understand the human genome--all of these practices seem to draw from a basic human need to understand and to encapsulate the core of our selves, and to then draw larger inferences from that understanding.
Whether it's a palm reading or drawing of stalks, an online quiz or a brief behavioral observation, we want to believe that this is easy, that we can indeed understand who we are and predict what the future holds for us. We want a word like "tiger" or "ENTP" to tell us this, and to tell us what we need to do to live a maximally happy and fulfilling life.
The adage to "know thyself" is hard work. Yes, thin slicing can be remarkably accurate, but understanding the underlying causes of behavior and personality is another story entirely. Any psychologist can tell you that personal therapy is a long-term process, that the Myers-Briggs type is not destiny, that disciplined self-discovery is key.
A skilled, honest fortune teller will say the same thing. One of the more interesting and popular books of Chinese divination, the I-Ching, is famously opaque, and perhaps deliberately so. Translator Richard Wilhelm apparently once called it "a work that represents thousands of years of slow organic growth and that can be assimilated only through prolonged reflection and meditation."
It's silly, but I think back to that line from The Matrix, after Neo met with the Oracle. She had just told him his future, and his mentor, Morpheus, replied: "She told you exactly what you needed to hear, that's all. Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize, just as I did, there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. " It was a perfect example of upaya, or expedient means, the notion that there are many ways to trigger self-learning. But in all of this, the act of self-learning remains central. Neo received a thin slice forecast; his own travels through the Matrix led him to a more compelling answer.
In any case, I am sensing change all around. A number of friends are planning career moves, city/country moves, getting ready for a fresh start. And more broadly, we're supposedly recovering from the recession here in the U.S., and now jobs and industry just need to catch up. The Year of the Tiger is just around the bend, and whether you can subscribe to astrology or not, it seems like a good idea to take this limbo week between Christmas and New Year for self-reflection, and to be ready for change. It is, as they say, the one true constant in life.
Labels: chinese, philosophy, psychology, zen
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