I am pretty sure I can tell you why people can’t figure things out. It’s because they refuse to comprehend that other people are not like them. They just can’t grok the fact that people are individuals. They think or act or respond in a certain way and assume others feel similar when they do not.
For example, I wanted to figure out this crime. I’d have not been able to do that without understanding that some people don’t mind going to prison. Matter of fact, going to prison may be the goal!
If you think about this, you’ll realize I am right. Somewhere along the line, via TV or some other way, you must have run across a career criminal who feels at home in prison. But if you’re unable to absorb and use that information, you’re going to look at a situation like as if everyone is you; person who does not want to go to prison! Consequently, you’ll be hopelessly lost in the land of un-knowing.
*This post was written in 2009. Edit in 2022…
There is another major reason why people fail to comprehend things. It’s because they know-it-all. This scenario is epidemic at this point in time. You can wind up this way due to Jupiter (inflation). This would be classic. But it’s even more common, Saturn (fear) is at the root of it.
A person can hold fast to wrong theories or block the truth because anything else is too threatening.
Neptune can be implicated as well. It’s the old, “let’s not go there”, where “there” is anything that is real or challenging.
Why do people look at others and see their own face? Do you block your own mental capabilities?
Remember Brooks in Shawshank Redemption?
I think to really see or hear another person, and to be able to dissect between yourself and others, you need to be able and to be willing to FEEL, you need to be in touch – with yourself. And that is scary as hell to most.
And maybe the illusion of others feeling, perceiving, thinking, aiming for the same as we do, makes us feel less alone…
I think it’s pretty common – to look at others and see one’s own face. As for why….. I don’t know!
But it reminds me of a close friend of mine. She has really strong feelings about certain stuff and it totally directs her behavior. Like, when she is in a social situation, she always feels left out of conversations. And then she projects this onto other people. If she doesn’t talk to everyone equally, she starts assuming that others feel left out. She can’t begin to fathom that some folks like to be quiet, observe, have any number of things on their mind. She can’t imagine that others don’t get hurt by what hurts her!!
I can totally understand the prison thing actually. Probably seems easier life in some ways in that one’s decisions, or many of them, are taken away. Some prefer structure like that. Food, shelter, clother, social life, social organization — smaller scale living. And that’s just scratching ths surface. In jail you don’t have to worry about rent, bills, and so on. Could be a tremendous relief, kind of like heaven.
“kind of like heaven”
yes, the 12th house rules heaven and institutions…
I think it is a kind of built-in protection mechanism that keeps one at a distance from the experience of others, where the mind can turn off at, “I just don’t understand.” Where blaming is easy and one’s position is safe in not having to rethink themselves or any behavior in the world they were brought up to think of as “wrong.”
Well, my brother (Leo Sun-Aquarius Moon)is one of those who believes others are like him. I spent hours explaining to him (and other people) why people do what they do. Unfortunately he married someone like him . . .
Yes, I get the prison thing too, only for me it was living a monastic life (lots in the 12th house + Sagittarius South Node in the 1st) But thankfully, I kept getting that notion booted out of my head! 🙂
speaking of that. I had a revelation yesterday too. Must be something in the air these days. I was so gung-ho about reading “The Gift of Fear” to try to hone in on my intuition and try to understand the mind of a stalker,hanger on, predator…and then while reading it dawned on me that I was the one behaving like a predator! And that I was just not hearing other peoples words and that what they say might mean something different than what it does to me, and they are their own individuals. It was so liberating and scary at the same time. Now my points of reference are gone, and I have to build a whole new way of interacting with people. Thank you Pluto transit square my progressed mercury…
I was just rereading an Agatha Christie book (Appointment with Death), and one character is cited as being mentally lazy because he pretty much refuses to acknowledge that Mrs. Boynton is mentally torturing her relatives and lives in denial about it. Maybe that’s it, I don’t know. I do know that my relatives in general tend to do this, and lord knows I have had a billion arguments with my mother because she cannot conceive that I would feel differently (in fact, the opposite) from what she feels.
Moonpluto hit the nail on the head with her comments….with my work, I spend alot of time visiting prisoners, in jail, in court and I have seen so many repeat offenders that you begin to comprehend that they (repeat offenders) are a different creature as we all are and many like the structure, lifestyle, and having people do for them than to have to do for themselves.
Antisocial people are not all killers, rapist and such….many are people who don’t have the conscience to do for themselves and take responsibility….it is an unknown to them and these are the ones primarily that you find living comfortably in prison. feeling more at home there than outside.
Regarding what Elsa said about heaven/12th house: and I’m a 12th house Venus. I might be happy to be cooped up, but it has to be the right coop –
Denamaria: so interesting. I totally get that, what you wrote abt your work and the ones feeling more comfortable on the inside. Womblike, too, maybe.
I have seeds of that in myself and also looked for it in spiritual community.
Also always wanting to be taken care of. I can nurture also (Cancer stellium) but oh man the parental thing is strong–
I had a really hard time with understanding that other people were not like me until I started studying astrology. Honestly, it’s probably the most useful realization I’ve ever had. Helps me have more compassion and empathy than I used to, that’s for sure. Also helps me protect myself better than I used to. Just because I won’t intentionally hurt someone doesn’t mean that other people have any problem doing so.
I always felt different from other people but I think I might have lumped everyone else together :0
I often think (not seriously of course) that prison looks pretty good – time to study and meditate and just be without the outside world. I put it down to having been to boarding school and having 12th house planets. Weirdly, I also have often thought that I was a monk or nun in a past life. I like the idea of seclusion and devotion.
i remember reading a news story when i was a kid about a homeless man who’d go in to a restaurant every fall, buy a meal, then not pay for it so they could send him to jail for the winter.
i had a lot of broken moments of schema cracking this past year. learning the worlds my students live in and the sorts of decisions they’re used to making. many of them quite alien to me.
but, eh, i guess i did figure out some of it. but there’s always things i don’t know…
My north node is in my 12th house cancer at 15 degrees (cancer rising at 28 degrees)square Jupiter, sextile Pluto, trine Neptune.
For a variety of reasons I didn’t learn much about surviving, dropped out of university, started living with a musician in exchange for being young at 17, he was 27 (love was certainly established I still speak to him, he passed away through suicide in 93)…Maybe the reason I did marry my ex husband in a maximum penitentiary is b/c I have trouble being responsible in life myself. I still seem to be struggling with this and maybe am not figuring it out either
I remember being amazed when I realized that not everyone saw everyone else as a potential friend (I guess that’s my Moon/Venus in Gemini). I can accept that, I just can’t relate to it.
I have found that I err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt, though. I recently made the mistake of thinking that, when someone felt the same way as I’d been feeling emotionally – that toxicity that can come from feeling extremely hurt and angry – that they wouldn’t be dangerous, just because I hadn’t been. I highly doubt that they will be, but after defending them, I realized that I shouldn’t have been so quick to put myself in their place.
I also know of someone who wouldn’t mind going to prison. They’ve been in self-destruct mode for a while, and just don’t seem to care anymore.
I think some people need more love than others because they don’t know or have forgotten how love looks like. And especially because they do not know how to love themselves and to take care of themselves – emotionally speaking.
Some people are meant to learn from scratch the process of love in this life so they are offered persons with Venus in Pisces or Libra to experience and learn.
I have a Pisces Venus – when I get hit really hard I let go of the pain and try to help everyone and love them.
My friend has Pluto-Saturn cnj in 12th house – he transforms pain in rock, turns away and internalizes everything. He has become a rock of pain himself.
I learn about discipline and preseverence from him, and in exchange I hope he feels I am there and I love him.
Unconditional love is the strong point of those that have such a thing. I see it like a competitive advantage – I was born with it. I have to refine it and if I let it go, i lose my edge.
Have you seen the 2009 movie “A prophet” at one point a character (recently out of jail) says to his friend (still an inmate) “I wont give you the line that I was better off inside but … ” At another point the inmate is about to get released, instead he gets himself locked in solitary for 40 days of safety. An intense film not for the faint of heart or morality seekers.
Anyway I think that one answer to your question may simply be about survival, ‘mis-identifying’ as a way to deal. How effective that is is another matter entirely.
Ironically it was in my teens that I found my first astrology mentor via a penpalship with a career criminal, a killer in fact but I did not know that at first. He was such a proficient astrologer yet unable to apply his knowledge effectively in his own life. Long story…
” I had a really hard time with understanding that other people were not like me until I started studying astrology. Honestly, it’s probably the most useful realization I’ve ever had. Helps me have more compassion and empathy than I used to, that’s for sure. Also helps me protect myself better than I used to. ”Korellyn
I can relate to what you are saying.Astology opened my eyes in this regard.
I can relate to this thread. I have sun in 7th house and both my parents try to live through me. I also have a packed 12th house libra and 6th house aries and I can relate to what denamaria said. I don’t know what I should expect from relationships and taking responsiblity is really hard. Though contrary to this I crave structure very much because of this very problem (I relate this to 6th house aries) because it takes me time to properly judge and appraise situations. I hope to be in a place where I can better see my effect on other people and take responsibility for it. It’s mostly the one on one relationships that are the hardest because they have immediate effects. I think what’s hard to understand sometimes is the act of free will can actually be a challenge for others because acting out of habit is or has been their life.
Bingo !!! You nailed it again.
Yes and Yes.
The Prison thing is easy to understand.
However wondering why people are not like you ,or don’t *Think* like you is another.
I usually understood that people are not like me ,but the fact they Couldn’t *get* certain things or understand certain principles.
Was very hard for me.
It took me Elsa Elsa blogs to back off and let go of trying.
I grew up and also saw another perspective even though different than mine.
I guess Leo Ascendant,Pluto and Uranus midheaven all conjunct at within one degree,made me think like Einstein 🤣🤣😄 or at the very least believe I was.
Then the penny dropped.
I also realised people don’t like to be proved wrong.
I prefer for someone to show me ” the light” switch it on,show me the right way
Or even Especially PROVE to me in a simple way I m wrong.
I will definitely Thank them whole heartedly.
I am open to learning new and learning generally.
Uranus helps me to think outside the box,and Aries and Jupiter in ninth house help me look Truth in the Face boldly.
I have a major 12th house stellium and I remember telling my ex-husband in a vulnerable moment that ‘I feel the only place that I can possibly be peaceful is either a monastery or a prison’ and of course he doesn’t belong to the category of people who can figure things out!
once i realized other people’s priorities might make no sense to me a lot of things started falling into place… i generally suggest letting reality reveal itself. most things aren’t hidden, really, as long as you don’t ignore what’s in front of you,
our meaning-making is so deeply colored by our expectations. less expectations makes observation more useful.