The Grumpy Realist’s Guide to Mythbusting Self-Help: Astrology

The Grumpy Realist was born under a raggedy scrap of tarp in the Dust Bowl during The Great Depression. He was raised hardscrabble in an era when “self-help” just meant bootstrapping your own damn life and getting on with it, dang it.

With the world now overrun by life coaches, motivational charlatans and wackadoo health cults, all vying to defraud you of your dignity, the Grumpy Realist is here to call bullshit on all this bullshit. He cares about you, and that’s why he’s so grumpy, because he’s sick and tired of seeing the vipers take advantage of you.

He’s fist-shakingly, finger-waggingly and bulgy-eyed furious, so all the fakers, haters and scammers are now officially on notice and best beware!

I Call Bullsh*t On:  Astrology.

What’s The Bullsh*t? Sigh. Didn’t we go over this already, like in the Dark Ages, and the 1970s? Hey look, you know what, we can all have a laugh about what a shitty astrological sign we are (I’m looking at you, Libra, you flip-flopping milquetoast), or how we’d never be compatible with that dingus Tinder date, but c’mon seriously now.

Like a glassy-eyed spirit from beyond the grave moaning about charts and stars, astrology’s popularity is on the rise -- again!!! -- emerging from what should have been it’s airtight tomb - science, maturity, intelligence - and that doesn’t bode well for me, you or the future of the human species.

Who’s Bullsh*tting? Millennials - along with being, deservedly so, by far the most maligned generation in centuries -- have not done themselves any favours to be taken seriously (outside of their parents co-dependent, intoxicating, smothering love) by flocking to astrology in droves; astrology being, of course, one the spiritual equivalents of, say, shooting yourself in the f*cking face to spite your life.

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Type in “millennials and astrology”, and every major press publication has longform articles on why millennials are not just gobbling up anything astrological, but -- and here’s the scary part -- actually believing it to be true, and worse, scientific.

Yup. Let the sink in for a second. A recent survey has found that a WHOPPING 60% of 18-24 year-olds think astrology is “scientific”. On par with physics and chemistry and biology. On par with why we have penicillin, spaceship and iPhones. Hey, let’s call the Nobel committee and see if they have any spare awards to give to Nostra-f*cking-damus or Frankie from up the street, who works in catering but is really thinking of starting her own chart-reading business; better yet, let’s steal it from that dumb chump Einstein, who’s too busy rolling in his mother f*cking grave.

See, people in times of uncertainty turn towards the heavens -- more specifically in this case, random bursts of light million of years away that come to represent zoo animals, along, weirdly, with a scale -- for answers and to give their life meaning. Instead of, you know, I don’t know, a book or 5,000 thousands years of philosophy or a deeply intimate relationship or ideals like truth or justice. Nope, bursts of light, planetary orbits and zoo animals.

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In these pre-apocalyptic, perpetually-recessionist and data-overdosed times, millennials have been tri-skewered by environmental, economic and informational collapse: the world is falling apart, they will never find meaningful work, the internet is a river of shit with no meaning.

On top of that, millennials also have less sex, date less frequently and more casually, more likely still live with parents, and are less likely to marry. They have also ruined avocados and Christmas trees, so no wonder they feel lost and are paving over their self-hatred with pretty star charts.

But, instead of tackling the problems head on, getting their hands dirty and solving shit -- whether it’s the aforementioned problems, or just the most human one of all: how to find meaning in a meaningless (spoiler alert: life has no meaning) -- they’re running scared like the helicoptered babies they always prove themselves to be, escaping straight into the warm, comforting arms of Mommy Gemini or Daddy Mercury in mother f*cking retrograde, who are going to lull them into complacency.

Do you know what an entire generation did after experiencing the incomprehensible horrors of WWII? Palm reading? Seances? Nope. They couldn’t plunge their head in the sand like these kids these days, because the sand was mostly blood. Instead, they looked meaninglessness right in its f*cking eye, grappled with it individually and collectively, and came out the other end with a deeper understanding of the human condition.  What they emerged with was a renewed faith in the dignity of the struggle of being alive, even if that life is ultimately absurd.

So when millennials are scoffing the only destiny that matters -- the real future of the human species -- by putting all their energy into ones that don’t exist outside of a paint-by-numbers book for toddlers, then they’re being infantile and silly, dangerously so.

Why is it Bullsh*t?  I’m not even going to waste my words refuting it. Just click here.

What’s the Final Verdict on this Whole Bullsh*t?

Do anything but this. Juggle, Rollerblade, f*cking mime for all I care.  Or, learn about the scientific method and how to separate fact from fiction, stars from zoo animals.