By Jasmin Ada

Edited by Abigail Davina

Beta read by Tina Huynh

Everything, and I do mean everything, in the stars say I should be something more.

I'm a Capricorn rising and Sun, and an Aquarius moon and Venus. I'm Arcana IV (aptly titled ‘The Emperor’), and I'm a January baby. I major in Psychology and Politics. I'm Turkish. Depending on who you ask, those facts are supposed to explain everything about me. But I think it’s got the wrong girl. 

I found myself earlier today sitting in the quad, browsing the web instead of doing my assignment. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, why don't zodiacs describe me? Why is astrology wrong only when it comes to me?”, I search, only to be faced with an article saying, well, you might just have a zodiac too grounded to admit that it's right. 

Uh-huh.

Dear reader, Saturn was about to catch these hands. 

A Capricorn, an Arcana IV, and a January baby (and someone on ‘life path 1’, as TikTok so graciously informed me literally last night) should be all money, money, money. Hard-working, greedy, stoic, striving for only the best, competitive, punctual. Dominant. Cold. 

Let’s consider it – what do you think? I’m a chronic procrastinator. I'm procrastinating as I write this very article (yes, dear reader, you’re complicit! Sorry not sorry!) I'm in a constant state of disorganisation, and my mum makes a point of asking if a bomb went off in my room whenever my clothes inevitably get strewn all over the place. I'm a self-described "creative." I edit for BLITZ’s sister magazine UNSWeetened, voluntarily, mind you, yet I put more effort into it than my actual schoolwork (to both the delight and concern of our coordinator). I'm constantly on my phone and have, on more than one occasion, literally run away from networking opportunities, and with them, the chance to better myself and grow up as a ‘Responsible Adult.’ I’m a spiritual girlie, or something. 

Though, of course, it’s hard to lean into it at all when the spirituality spaces spit: you’re a spreadsheet spinner! Let me be a springy sparkle of joy! Goddamnit!

My upbringing and the education that came with it have drilled it into me to reject materialism. I know well the evils capitalism has caused in its wake; I know well how productivity culture can be a way to force people into becoming slaves of their own making. I’ve never seen relentless ambition as a virtue; rather, I’ve increasingly interpreted it as something manufactured at best, all-consuming at worst (thanks, Mary Shelley.)

So when astrology throws a cursed little manifestation at me in the form of a corporate executive with no morals, I resist not solely because I think it's false, but because I dislike what it celebrates. I don’t want to accept a birth chart that reads as the exact opposite of everything I’ve stood for. I don’t want to tell someone my Zodiac sign and instantly have them think I’m something I’m not. I resent being seen that way. Anyone would.

The downside of it all is that if I outright reject astrology, that’s oh so Capricorn of me. And then we’re right back where we started! 

You cannot win an argument against a system that interprets disagreement as evidence! It’s astral ragebait!

Psychology has a name for this: confirmation bias. We notice the hits, forget the misses, and somehow leave feeling more convinced than when we arrived. The Barnum effect works similarly: give people descriptions vague enough to apply to almost anyone, and they'll recognise themselves anyway. "You care deeply about others, but sometimes need time alone." Revolutionary!

And yet, I still know my birth chart. I know my Moon, my Venus, my rising sign. I know what tarot card supposedly governs my life path. I know the colours and gems associated with January birthdays, and what they’re supposed to mean, too. I know which fictional characters I apparently relate to, and what my favourite ice cream says about my political alignment.

Almost every culture has invented some way of sorting people into stories. Myers-Briggs, love languages (which, mind you, are deeply steeped in misogyny, but that’s a whole other article), attachment styles, political compass quizzes, Spotify Wrapped. We are all constantly having little mirrors thrown at us and asked “IS THIS YOU!?” and you scream back, desperately grabbing at them to try and gain a sense of control over this inane world and your complex human personality: “LITERALLY ME!!” The glass shards have cut your hands. That has a name, too: fatalism.

Astrology survives all the scientific criticism because it isn’t competing with astronomy, but with loneliness: it says someone has thought about people like you. Someone has a category waiting. Your contradictions are already mapped in the stars.

I feel like I’m living in that square hole meme. The universe keeps insisting all these different shapes fit into my square hole. Where's the damn square?

Perhaps the most blatant issue with modern astrology is that it is a version filtered through other people’s assumptions. 

Astrology began, in its earliest documented forms, as a way of interpreting the relationship between the heavens, the gods and events on Earth. In ancient Mesopotamia, celestial observations were interpreted as omens from the gods; divination; individual birth charts emerged in Babylonia; by the Hellenistic period, astrologers were using elaborate combinations of planetary positions and zodiac signs to interpret individual lives. These interpretations weren’t created in a cultural vacuum! Ancient astrologers worked within societies with their own ideas about gender, temperament, morality, and social status. Zodiac signs were assigned masculine and feminine qualities, while planetary and elemental associations drew on contemporary understandings of the natural world and the human body.

Now, I'm not suggesting that every modern astrologer is secretly conspiring to uphold the patriarchy, or that every astrological tradition shares the same assumptions. But I do wonder how much of what we treat as timeless wisdom is actually just a reflection of the societies that produced it. How much of my supposedly cosmic ambition is just a cultural ideal of success dressed up in celestial language?

…There's something strangely unsettling about not recognising yourself in a story that insists it knows you. 

I think that's why I kept searching; I wanted an explanation for why I never connected. I find myself questioning whether there’s something wrong with me, whether I’m going down the wrong path, making the wrong choices. The Jas I was meant to be probably wouldn’t have this sort of an issue. Then again, I know there’s no Jas I was meant to be. The only Jas is the one here and the one now; the future is unwritten until you pick up a pen. 

My favourite pen is sparkly and pink.

…The stars tell me I'm practical. Psychology tells me personality is more complicated than that. Politics tells me identity is shaped by history, culture, institutions and power. The internet tells me I'm in denial.

Honestly, it’s best not to trust anything entirely.

But tomorrow, when another post along the lines of “Earth Signs Be Like...” appears on my feed, I'll probably stop scrolling. Just for a second.

Just to see whether this one got me right.