Every once in a while—like every other year or so—I try to believe in astrology, the way some people talk about how they wish they could believe in God. I do believe in God but all that jerk ever gave me was free will. Astrology, on the other hand, gives me constraints: don’t send that email, Mercury’s in retrograde! And look, I never want to send an email. So I’m always open to that kind of input.
It’s not that I want to believe I’m an X or a Y because I’m a Z, it’s that I like the way that in things like the Tale of Genji they’re always planning things around “auspicious days.” If I had a belief in this sort of thing, the thoughts in my head go, I would wake up on auspicious days (or whatever) and tell myself hit the ground running and then on the lesser days I could just sleep until noon.
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