I am not an Aquarian, but both my parents are UBER-Aquarian so I know quite a bit about the sign. And my editor, HQ who keeps a blog was jerking my chain today. He accomplished this by posting a blog using my language. Yeah. Slick.
So I saw this, ignored it and left a comment. Because I don’t own the English language, right? People can use whatever words they want, whenever they want, however, etc. And I know that. But after I commented, he emailed to bring my attention to his craft.
“Did you notice?” he asked? “Ha ha that was my little joke to you…”
Because he knows me well enough to know this would piss me off. And I know I got this from my mother. And with Pluto transiting my Moon… my mother would be on my mind of course.
But anyway, my mother (a double Aquarius) was an innovator. She was a freak, Henry’s daughter, she was a very unusual woman. That’s her in the picture on her birthday. And if you look closely you can see the wrapping on her present says “Food For The Soul” which is of course wildly ahead of it’s time considering it was the 1940’s.
So my mother always distinguished herself and she did it in all ways. By her dress, her mode of transportation, her speech, her philosophy, you name it. And she was generally 7 years ahead of the pack (Uranus) but eventually whatever she was doing would catch on with the masses and boy would she be pissed!
Because she was not going to be caught dead doing what everyone else was doing, right? So when the trends caught up she was back to the drawing board having to innovate again and I think I inherited this from her to a degree.
How come everyone on the block has to paint their house the same color I painted mine? How come people name their dog (and one person, their child) what I named my dog? Don’t you think when you name your dog what I named my dog, I’m going to notice that? Egads.
Someone on this blog quoted my mother from 40 years ago, “It is a sin to bore people”, in a comment, as if this were their personal philosophy they came up with a week ago. Er… ‘scuse me but you read that here.
And this is exactly the kind of thing that would drive my mother insane.
Ben too. (Aquarius rising). He pulls his hair out over this as well.
“I don’t see why people can’t have their own ideas. Why is that? Can’t these people think? Is it that hard to come up with something original? I get so tired of being copied. I know it’s supposed to be flattering but I am not one bit flattered by it. I am sickened by it! What’s so wrong with the person you are, you have to try to be the person I am? I swear Elsa. So many people do this. Have they no identity of their own? Does nothing originate inside of them? Never mind! Let’s not talk about this anymore. It gets me too upset. So how are you anyway? Have you done something original lately? Do you have a thought of your own to share?”
I snorted.
Can you relate to this? Are you Aquarius?
Yeah, I have aquarius moon. I get real pissy when other people ‘copy’ me. I am an artist and was creating certain things way ahead of the trend. When they became vogue, I quit making them and looked for something better.
two gemini planets, three libra planets, libra rising + mars sextile uranus, a big influence of sagittarius/jupiter/9th house stuff, heavy first house… i HATE being copied. if anyone follows me, literally or metaphorically, i’ll purposely go down a path they don’t want to go until they get scared and retreat. get them off my back that way, and have fun watching them squirm while doing it. i also don’t like following other people, at least for any length of time. it’s unavoidable in learning something new, of course.
ELSA!!!!!You did it AGAIN! I just came in from crying with my bf how an ex-friend keeps following ‘too closely behind’ in a creative sense. (Like your writing? But a different medium).
I don’t get pissed off likeyou and your Mum, though, I cry my head off because I think everyone is better and I suck bum (pardon the rudeness). Even if I gave them the idea! I paint ____, now you’re screen-printing____? And people are paying you money and I’m just this dolt tinkering in her studio?
It’s effen insecure of me, but I guess deep down I am still like a worrying, insecure child. And I say this not of myself in a purely derogative way. I just want to understand my impulses, so I am not controlled by them emotionally.
I have no Aquarius, but I have Uranus (Aq. ruler) conjunct my MC in Scorpio. I don’t want to feel like I am following.
I don’t have much Aquarius, but my mother is, as are several of my friends and I know that kind of thing drives them crazy. Me, I’m pretty mutable, so I’m adapting and don’t even realize..like picking up accents and phrasing, and they would take it as an insult, when I would see it as a compliment. But I love my Aquarians…they keep me on my toes!
I can relate to both, the aquarian and the copier. aquarius rising with uranus rulling the chart.
I hate to be copied, it’s very unconfortable. When someone else inspires me I tend to copy it in a subtle way if possible, hopefully learn from the meaning of what i’m seeing, grasp the essence I mean. as a good sag moon would.
I have to offer a counterpoint here. I am an artist, poet, etc…but I have to say that it’s a bit of a sin to not recognize the great legacy and impact of other poets, artists and fellow man on our work. We act like we’re such ‘originals” so “boheme’ but the truth is, we’re all connected. Sure, some DNA is different, each experience is just a little bit unique, and even if it isn’t unique–well who cares? It’s unique to you. Case in point..having a child may not be “original” but it’s a very important experience.
I’ve seen it too many times. People thinking they’re being original but really they’re trying too hard and missing the point. As an artist/teacher of mine said “If you think you HAVE to include something in a piece of artwork, just to make it interesting…well chances are you shouldn’t even put it in there in the first place”
I am not saying that I totally eschew originality or the creative process. On the contrary it’s a thrill, but I won’t kid myself into thinking it’s so fresh and original. If anything it’s an offshoot of everything that has come and will ever come. As John Lennon says in “All You Need is Love”:
“There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy.”
This illustrates a point of what I think we’re a bit addicted to. Trying to hard to be ‘smart’ and ‘original’ and ‘fresh’…I think we should concentrate more on doing what is RIGHT and what is REAL in any given point in time. If it’s something that seems new, then that’s fine. If it’s something that is tried and true, that’s fine too. I had a MUCH better time of it as an artist when I didn’t try so hard to come up with new tricks–I lost some of my authenticity and soul that way.
I think blatantly making money off of copying someone is bad–that’s probably where I’d draw the line…but simultaneous and similar creation is sort of exciting if you ask me.
What ever happened to great minds think alike?
We humans are all the same if you really think about it.
Yes, I have this. I have an aquarius moon. For me it means I can’t recycle my ideas, and it’s hard, especially now I’m working in academia, because how many real good ideas do you get anyway? It’s a trade here to get ONE good idea and then recycle, recycle, recycle and develop it til it becomes really good. Now I have no patience for that, and also I feel it’s cheating in a way. I said x 100 times, I can’t say x the 101th time, because it has expired. To my big astonishment, it is often highly valued to recycle ideas: it makes them easy for people to digest, they know who you are and what you think and people like that. It helps them put you in a box. Now that’s the last place I want to be. But no, people don’t copy me – not that I notice anyway. My style is a bit particular.
It isn’t hard to be original. It is easy to behave in an eccentric or abnormal way. What is hard is being original and tasteful. And the way I see it is that both your parents are foremost creative, and secondly able to walk the thin line between normality and abnormality, predicting social trends before they happen.
The most ‘original’ people are insane, polemical, iconoclastic, or anti-social.
When I hear or see people echoing my ideas, tastes or style I take it as a compliment. I have no planets in Aquarius, Uranus squares my Leo Stellium and sextiles my AC-Saturn conj
Sun, Mercury and Venus in Aquarius here. 🙂 Yes, I can definitely relate to this. Of course, I lean towards the more wacky ideas, like trying to convince my co-workers that we should be paid in pizza rather than money. 😀
“”It is a sin to bore people”, in a comment, as if this were their personal philosophy they came up with a week ago. Er… ‘scuse me but you read that here. blush”
I said that. And I didn’t read that here. So don’t flatter yourself. And I like to be original and distinguish myself so the implication that I copied someone and tried to pass it off as my own really pisses me off. Maybe it is possible for two people to have the same philosophy at the same time? Hmm, maybe?
Aquarian Sun, here 8th house. Uranus on South Node.
I don’t feel as some others here. I don’t feel that I’m “an original” or anything “different”. I’m the sum of my experiences, which have included learning from others, maybe copying from them or trying to emulate them. This is how we learn is it not? To resent someone learning from you or your “style” seems to me to be selfish and quite un-Aquarian.
oh… i was thinking it might have been me that made the “sin to bore people” comment. you did a fabulous post about your parents once (here or the other) that really, *really* resonated with me. i showed it to a few of my friends who agreed that what you wrote definately could be applied to me as well. in responding to one of your later posts, i think i said something about being an aquarius which meant, “As you [Elsa] would know” that i felt it was a sin to bore people. i tried to phrase it in a way that indicated my source, and that showed how your thoughts were impacting someone else’s way of thinking.
because that’s my drill. most of my coolest shtick i’ve borrowed from someone else. but all my cool shtick eventually gets borrowed BY someone else. if you credit your sources, it can be a kind of homage. passing it off as your own when you really got it somewhere else is a kind of theft – or plagiarism. which, as far as i am concerned, is a sin at least on par with being boring.
silverfoot – it was not you. I remember what you said. You said it was the best thing you’d heard in a long time and you were going to adopt it… which I thought was respectful and flattering.
The other comment came about a week later (and I had forgotten who left it). But she has now surfaced and has her own story… 🙂
Oh! And there was another gal, an artist and model (I clicked her link) who also complimented the quote
and said they were also going to adopt it.
Well, *I* wouldn’t notice if someone else named their dog the same thing I had named mine… A few years ago, my daughter was one of four girls in the same class with the same name (it was a multiple age/grade class, my kid was the oldest, btw). We thought it was funny! I know exactly why my daughter bears the name she does–the reason is unique to her & I–so even if other parents had copied us (obviously not in this case, as we didn’t know these families back then) it still wouldn’t have bothered me. Like snowflakes, an appearance of sameness might sometimes prevail but no two of anything are ever truly identical. And as far as my daughter was concerned, it didn’t matter at all since she is her own self and no one ever confused her with the others.
I’m far to busy being myself to care about what others are doing, or why. And on the rare occasion I float to the surface long enough to get some kind of clue and happen to see any similarities, mostly I just laugh. “Oh, hey–guess I must’ve had a good idea in there at some point!” Hopefully it was an idea that *enhanced* the world, not one that cheapened it…
Good thing I’m not Aquarian, huh? I would be quite terrible at it!
Thanks Twilight and Uncle Hannah and Marly! Of course, it is not only possible but likely that someone will inspire you, resonate with you, and frankly, lead you with their creativity.
I recognize why it bothers me: straight up insecurity that they (the copy-cats) will do it better than me. I mean, it’s so obvious to me why it bugs me! How about anyone else? Why is is so painful to have someone adopt your _____ when the world is too beautiful not to be inspired by?
Elsa – cool. i don’t know if it’s the saturn/neptune thing or what, but lately there’s been a number of situations where i think i’ve said one thing, and the person listening has heard something totally different. like i compliment someone for their individuality, and they get insulted because i think they’re “wierd.” wanted to make sure i hadn’t offended, and it seems i haven’t. rah! 😀
silverfoot – I appreciate that but please don’t worry about this kind of thing when it comes to me. I know you “get” me. You’ve shown me (and the people I love) this many times.
I think life is too short to dwell too much on what other people are doing.
I get why Ben gets irritated by the ‘homage’ but I think it’s normal for kids to learn through copying. When they copy, take on something of someone else’s… they’re checking for fit. To see if it resonates or it doesn’t. It used to drive me insane in my teenage years when people kept going ‘oh you should just be yourself’ because then I had no idea who I was. As soon as I learned it, then I embodied it, but while I was struggling for self-definition (and having Neptune transits to the Sun) I was experiemnting with the styles, and thoughts and characteristics of others – whether consciously or not.
I would be seriously pissed off if I found people plagiarising my art or my writing but I wouldn’t if people said they felt inspired by it and wanted to connect to it and incorporate its elements. Similarly, I can actively recognise elements in my own work of artists who have inspired me – but would be shocked if say Patricia McKillip sent me an email going ‘Oh noes! Your poetic prose copies my own special style of poetic prose! Please dessist!’
Like you said, you don’t own the English language, you didn’t copyright your dog’s name and people may say the same stuff as your mother because it seems to me that it being a sin to bore people is not such an out-there concept that two minds couldn’t conceive of it independently.
(I remember seeing a short film a while back that made me laugh – a man going to work in a suit, seated in the train with men in identical suits – and suddenly he jumps up and he’s out of there, and in the next frame he’s sitting at a cafe in paris with beret and a cigar, discussing nihilism and then the camera zooms out and we see the cafe full of people who are all with berets and cigars, discussng nihilism)
Trying too hard to be rad – that gets predictable.
Perhaps it’s because I believe in the collective unconscious which links us all, but I don’t believe there is an original thought anywhwere out there in the Universe – because following Uranus and the call of being unique – that’s just another kind of trend – only tuned in to the frequency of a different kind of piper.
But then again I’m not Aquarian – even though I have an 11th house sun, and Uranus makes out with most of the personal planets in my chart. I never strove to be original, even though others labeled me as such. I did strive to be myself though, without apology, from the moment I became aware of Me. Perhaps it’s self-absorbed, but from the get go I didn’t really pay too much attention to what the others around me were doing.
Rising – Aquarius
Sun – Aquarius
Mercury – Aquarius
Need I say more. I have been mimicked ALL my life. I’ve learned to just…look the other way. I am WAY ahead of my time, but you mortals seem to always catch up with me. Oh-well, to each their own. Peace.
Hmmm, I’ve Mars in Aquarius (3rd house) trine saturn, sun (wide), venus & uranus. I wonder if this is why I’ve always had a knack for seeing society trends/fads coming up within the next few months 🙂
Ascendant in Aquarius.
Yes, yes, yes.
‘Look the other way’
LOL! I love it!!
“I don’t see why people can’t have their own ideas.” – yeah, you got THAT right. Just like Taurus doesn’t like to share custody of it’s food, I’m like that about ideas and any original work. They’re like brain children, and I get jealous and protective about them.
Kashmiri, me too. Confidence makes all the difference. It also helps to keep it under wraps until it’s ready to be revealed. Nobody can copy what is hidden…until it surfaces, but by then it is already yours. And of course they can’t recreate the effect of being first – there is only ONE pioneer 🙂
6th house Uranus in Scorpio trine 10th house Aries stellium.
Huh. I had this attitude as a kid (Aquarius moon). People copied me all the time! And I’d get really pissed!
I remember – every time I sat down to write or draw, I’d want to write or draw something that had never been written/drawn before (in my 5 year old or whatever understanding of the universe). And if I couldn’t write or draw something new, I’d have to do it in some entirely previously un-thought of way.
I remember sitting down to draw once in art class and doing this – and looking over to find the little girl next to me humming away, drawing my drawing!!
And my little sister was the worst – (in what could be described to me now as her Virgo-ey / Cancer-y ways). We had a whole years-long game of “claiming” TV shows, commercials, toys – you name it!
I would find something I liked, and I had to claim it – “That – that new little pony – that’s mine!” “Or that show (She-ra) – that’s mine!”
Whoever got there first had to claim it (as part of their identity essentially). I had to invent this – otherwise I had no ideas or likes or interests that could be attributed to being part of just me.
And there was a whole thing around this, where (I felt) people just liked her better and found her cuter and so … if I wasn’t at least unique in what I did or liked … then I was just a piss poor early prototype of her.
*lol* Althera, I was just yesterday talking about how, as kids, my sister and I would claim bands to be lead singer for and the other would have to sing back-up! Man, that Aquarian moon does out itself eventually, huh? 🙂
I just realized something’s irking me and this seemed the appropriate place to vent.
One of my friends called over the weekend and wanted to talk about her wedding (two years down the road). And she’s stolen all of her ideas! Some from me, some from another friend, but none that I can tell are her own.
It wouldn’t be so annoying if my party had already gone off, but it hasn’t and now I’m going to have to change what should have been a meaningful, symbolic part of the ceremony so that I won’t look like the copy-cat. Grr!
That’ll teach me to share ideas. . ..
I have Uranus in the 1st house. I love to shock people. Sometimes i’ll say something inappropriate for shock value. I like being original, but sometimes i’m a follower as well.
Oh, yeah. Which is why I keep my art to myself.