It’s Gemini Season!
I follow some people on Twitter who are very into astrology, and announcements of Gemini season opening have been streaming across my timeline. They all come with warnings to batten down the hatches, fortify the battlements, protect the livestock, and hide the children. Apparently, my fellow Geminis and I are about to unleash some sort of chaotic Armageddon. I didn’t know so many people hated and feared us.
I don’t know much about astrology, and all the discussions of rising and descending planetary bodies are deeply confusing to me. Nevertheless, there was a time when I used to check my daily horoscope, even though I don’t believe the way the planets were aligned at my birth affect my personality. Whatever is written in any horoscope is usually general enough to apply to almost anyone, because human emotion is so complex. Even so, I saw each snippet of information as a filter through which I could examine myself. When I switched up, was I being Janus-like and deceptive? Or was I deploying the strategic masks we all use in different environments? We aren’t the same with our friends as we are with our bosses.
I rarely lie overtly. I’m silent as the grave about a lot of things, though. Omission does a lot of heavy lifting in a world full of people who can’t stand silence. I understand some of the misapprehensions people form, but I rarely correct them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Is that feeling that I don’t have to explain myself to anyone confidence or is it arrogance? Is it self-assuredness or a superiority complex? I have enough self-awareness to understand that it often plays as standoffish haughtiness. At other times, it’s intriguing mysteriousness. It always keeps me at arms-length from nearly everyone, though.
I think about these kinds of things a lot. I recently had my mind blown when I learned some people don’t experience inner speech — they don’t hear their own voice in their head and have no internal monologue. I’m all internal monologue, and I’m constantly debating myself. I call myself “we” sometimes without thinking. That duality people ascribe to Geminis is turned up to 11 in me. Geminis aren’t the only ones who feel “split,” though. I think anyone who’s self-aware and capable of self-improvement is waging some sort of battle inside themselves. I don’t think it’s possible to achieve personal growth otherwise.
I discovered some time ago that I was born in the Chinese year of the Horse, and that supposedly amplifies my Gemini traits. I’m a Reed in Mayan astrology, and I think that kicks things up a notch too. As for the astrology of intellectuals — the Myers-Briggs personality type — I’m an INTP. It’s all a bit of a jumble, but I think this makes me some sort of supercharged Gemini.
This season, fear me!
