I wonder when or if we will ever be “maskless” again. I’m talking about being able to move around in the world and talk to people, freely. I understand this can be done in certain circumstances with certain people at certain times, but by and large, a day like this is nowhere to be found.
I think this is because of the lack of agreement between people, which I touched in my “Disillusioned” post below. If you chat on the surface with someone, taking care not to say anything important, you’re fine. This is boring, though! So when you discover this limit, you develop apathy when it comes to connecting or every interacting with others.
So that’s a mask, right? You don’t know who I am, because I won’t tell you. If you guess and get it wrong, I do what? Smile? Say, “Nice chatting with you,” and get the hell out? I’m not going to argue, I’m saturated with that!
I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about everyone. Small talk only goes so far. In this day in age it goes about a quarter of an inch, because people just don’t have the time. What’s worse is it’s almost impossible to come to agreement, because of the inability to have a real conversation. You just can’t talk it out.
You can’t talk it out because we’ve become like machines, listening for words that trigger. Seriously, you’re talking to a person, listening like you’re Amazon Alexa for Godsakes. How is this living?
I would be half-crazy by now, if not for the real conversations I have with clients. These conversations have also been affected. More and more frequently, there’s a furtiveness about it. The person has 30 minutes. I have 30 minutes to communicate something actionable to improve their situation. We drop our masks and try to get this done.
It’s effective but it feels like a secret exchange of real information. What we’ve lost as a species is staggering.
Related:
Do you see what I see? Something else? Something more?
Sounds like you’re describing wokeness, wokery, wokism – whatever the hell the right word is for this mental aberration which has infected western culture. It’s highly toxic and it’s everywhere.
Lost a friend the other day who subscribes to this madness. First I got the virtue signalling when she said “I chose to lead with compassion”, and next she cancelled me because she disagrees with my views.
It is getting harder to have real conversations with people because few want to actually discuss and debate anything and have their precious views challenged. People live in their own echo chambers, created and supported by social media. Bring on Pluto in Aquarius to kill this madness. Or is it just going to get more extreme?
I think Elsa, we must get to the place where we quit dancing for the woke/broke ego – for they’ve been trashed mentally/emotionally on purpose. If someone has a mental aberration – you don’t CHANGE to comply with their problem. You have understanding, compassion – but you DON’T DANCE TO THE IDIOT’S TUNE. We’re the ones, who must become 100% real. Thea Alexander wrote a book early 70’s , 2150 A.D. two worlds collide – the Microworld and the Macroworld – there is NO WAY TO MAKE THE MICRO PEOPLE SEE WHAT THEY CAN NOT. And to even interact with them takes a strong spiritual awareness – for they always kill their ‘saviors’…lol – it’s a great book, with a cult following – I joined the Macro Society when I was 24. it was a futuristic book – where a vietnam vet going to college in the 70’s wakes up in the future where it’s ALL Magic – LIKE HEAVEN ON EARTH – and his SoulMate is there, and others – he desparately wants to stay, but he has things he must learn. when he wakes up, time has moved much differently. 2150A.D was the first of its kind, for sure – and there was never a movie made of it, sigh.
Gosh, I do see this. It is emotionally unfulfilling and as you say, boring. Everyone is playing it safe and hiding who they really are.
Being real and expressing our vulnerability’s to one another builds trust and relationships. Without these elements, the motivation to socialise diminishes and people withdraw into ‘their own echo chambers’, as Shimmering Light stated.
I truly hope this cycle can be broken. I miss genuine, heart to heart, honest relations.
I think the masking was initially a sort of coping mechanism, or survival skill, and now it’s simply no longer serving. If we can find the certain circumstances/people/times where it is safe to be our real selves, then we ought to seek them out and practice removing the masks. That can empower us to allow authenticity to leak out into the rest of our lives. I’m grateful for the monthly women’s sharing circle that I’ve been a part of for the last two years. I’ve experienced tremendous personal growth, and I don’t think I would have made it this far had I not forced myself to be vulnerable with the group.
Yes, I agree with it starting out as a coping mechanism.
The women’s sharing circle sounds wonderful. This sounds like such a beneficial/ideal outlet. I’m happy that it’s been so positive for you.
Thank you! My Capricorn friend who organizes the circle has been a such a blessing in my life. I wish everyone had someone like her in their corner! There’ a lovely Leo lady who brings creative spirit to each circle as well. I encourage other women to initiate a group if it’s something they would like to be a part of, and don’t believe such a thing exists where they are. I don’t think the content is as important as the regularity of monthly meetings.
i love this. i’ve been wanting to find or start something like this, and seeing your comment just encouraged me to get it going. thank you.
Love it! Good luck to you <3
We’re visible all the time. It’s relentless.
I follow a trauma therapist on IG, who is one of the few that takes a stand and cries bull to the “trigger warning” hysteria.
She says “It’s OK to be triggered! The main goal must be how to – as a person – learn how to cope with it WHEN we get triggered. All human beings have toxic traits. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about compability”
I think she says it as straight as it can be said. Trigger warnings are for wussies who doesn’t like to be challenged and who can’t cope because they’ve never learned how to cope with “uncomfortable” things that sets the feelings off.
I am going out on a limb here, because I too have suffered from anxiety – in a bad way. I know all about triggers. But therapy (which includes astrology) can help you with coping with your triggers, understand them and draw on other parts of your strengths instead do you can get through it.
But we have developed into an afraid, politically correct society where real meat is found only rarely, and empathy is something only a few people are actually capable of.
It started out relatively innocent, but it grew to a sickness.
Perhaps a side effect of Neptune is Pisces?
Your last paragraph…you have nailed it. In the UK, where I live, these people are referred to as snowflakes (on account of their fragility). I have also been wondering if it’s to do with Neptune’s long journey through Pisces.
However, this trend appears to have started before that time, i.e. at least with Neptune in Aquarius (1998 – 2011), though political correctness became very noticeable and mainstream from the 90s onwards.
Gen Z has Uranus and Neptune in Aquarius and Pluto in Sagittarius. Neptune is the dream or the ideals of a generation. Neptune in Aquarius would be an overly idealistic cohort of people seeking to change the world in a day through radical and technological action.
It’s a complex subject and I don’t want to paint too negative a picture of this generation (and the millennials before them). I don’t know the full astrological picture of these generations (which needs to include Saturn and Jupiter also as the connection to society).
As is often the case any good that may come out of this mess may not be seen until after the event. At the moment it’s pretty unpleasant to witness, at least for this dinosaur :-), but who knows perhaps even I can learn something from these youngsters.
Collectively, I’d like to thank the double-whammy ingress into Pisces by Chiron and Neptune back in 2010-2011 for all this psychic wounding, cancel culture, weaponized victimhood, and people vying for the endless bottom of the oppression Olympics. 🏆
I believe Saturn in Pisces will correct that…somewhat. We normies are big mad and outspoken therapists (since Saturn’s ingress) are finally distancing themselves from victimhood therapy and telling people to go wear their big girl pants instead of crying all the time. Such a relief!
But I know exactly what you’re saying, Elsa. This goes so much deeper than the collective. It’s personal now. Since COVID, I’ve noticed people aren’t eager to connect with others and all the fear-based propaganda seems to have changed those affected at a fundamental level. So many look hypnotized, traumatized now. They can’t socialize with real people anymore. The personal turmoil they’d buried inside their whole lives is now right under the surface, like a hot and painful pimple with a big juicy white head and if you even accidentally bump it, the beast will be unleashed and everybody is covered in blood and pus.
Those people are easy to spot: like a 4 way flashing stop sign on a back road: you momentarily acknowledge it and move on bc I personally don’t wish to be covered in gross pimple juice so…
“I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re fine. It’s FINE.”
Some people are worth the dig and pus. But many aren’t. Not these days.
Astrologically speaking, do you see this dishonest communication, and all the tiptoeing around have a positive shift in the foreseeable future?
Here you go. 🙂
https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/will-people-loosen-up-in-the-foreseeable-future/
I see it right here in the comments. People using the word “woke” to put others down. WTF does this word even mean? All I know is I’ve heard it used by media and politicians that I can’t stand so, if you use this code word I can only assume you are complaining about the same things and generalizing about other people. It is this generalizing and bias that is fueling paranoia and division. Stop using code words. Try to understand people even when they annoy you. Think for yourself instead of jumping to conclusions based on what some over-paid media person or ambitious politicaan says.
I agree with you. I started bitching about this in 2007!
https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/quit-fixing-people-a-virgo-rant/
Sixteen years ago!
Thank you Holly.
I think it was Allen Watts who first termed the word ‘woke’ he was referring to ‘social ethics’ rather than individual…as in the whole thing might go to sht but we all will go together…perhaps not the mega rich but then they always look to themselves first.
It’s nebulous, but I will attempt to define woke. I don’t think it’s a “code word” at all. I don’t see it used so much to put others down, but to describe an overall agenda.
The deliberate control, debasement and destabilization of culture and society.
Cultural Marxism. Cultural revolution. There is a focus on dismantling the family unit. There is also focus on truth and morality (by claiming that there is no absolute truth or morality, only subjective.) Extreme progressive social activism.
Concepts and agendas such as:
CRT (Critical Race Theory), Queer Theory, Gender Theory
SEL (Social Emotional Learning)
DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion)
ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance)
Climate Change, Green New Deal
Feminism
Microaggression
Social Construct
Patriarchy/Privilege/Marginalized/Oppressed
Social Justice, Systemic Racism/Sexism, Institutional Racism/Sexism
Critical Consciousness
Degrowth
If you express skepticism or disagreement with any of the above, you are labeled intolerant, in denial, racist, white supremacist, bigot, etc. and cancelled, dismissed or attacked. It’s quite ironic since those preaching “tolerance” are in fact the least tolerant of differing ideologies.
People are discouraged from thinking for themselves. I agree with you that they should.
I could have written that myself since I am well aware of that point of view which is obviously based on generalization and bias. I’m done here.
Ah yes, bias. I should have also listed “implicit bias” above. I suppose we are all biased. I wonder why only certain biases are acceptable and allowed, though?
And so it goes. I guess we are proving Elsa’s point here. If we could talk about things freely, I suspect we all have more in common than it appears. Especially in the face of a common enemy.