Products of our times
Years ago I had a passing interest in astrology from different cultures. In particular was vedic astrology--jyotish--for it seemed the most ancient, and complete of the ancient thoughtlines. My interest wasn't in predictive power or accuracy, more of the mythology behind everything and how these stories connected to our world. There is, and should be, a sort of hunger between tales we weave over time and the lives we live each day, as they're all centered around human trying to make sense of a non-human world.
One aspect of the branch of jyotish I looked at stuck with me--an explanation why it largely ignores the outer planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in its predictions. The ancients who pieced together these myths weren't aware of those planets, my thinking insisted, but there was a more at-hand explanation that holds my attention to this day:
Those planets move so slowly, so their affect spans generations. There would be no need to include those interpretations into individual charts, as the aspects would be present in all born under those broad, relatively weak influences.
This ties into something I've been thinking a lot of lately: the tragedy of being born into our time. I don't mean "us" now, in our particular time, nor any specific "us" in any other time. I mean that each of us has a short life compared to the ebbs of culture and shifting tempers of our planet, such that we only ever have the opportunity to grow and be formed by one time, and thus may only be the product of where and when we happen to be born.
We look back and see how others lived before us, something that wasn't always possible (hence the rich stories we told of our pasts). With thousands of years and thousands of cultures' worth of historical records, we have a clear enough lens to provide us with ample viewings of "other" times and places we might have been born, but in none of which we were. We can see grand, insurmountable obstacles we wouldn't have had to encounter, seemingly impossible limitations or struggles we now face vanish in our rose-colored views.
It seems tragic at first, but only at first, for everyone must be born into a time, and the time and culture that shapes us is as water clinging to our skin as we emerge from a lake. We might dry it off over time, or portions of it, at least, and we might keep parts of ourselves submerged, or wet them with warmer waters or cooler ones from other ponds. But there can never be a full erasure of that water or its effects. The more I think about it, the more I think there need not be.
This isn't historically-oriented FOMO, more of me wondering how many people ever felt their lives were restricted or unfulfilled because of a culture- or time- or place-wide obstacle they could never hope to overcome. The talented writer who went off to a forever war and never came back. The gifted painter born before charcoal was first scraped upon cave walls. The brilliant inventor who never leaves the farm.
Ultimately, it is a rare person who would be born in the "right" time at the "right" place, or a time and place and culture that suited them so perfectly that it teased out their most impressive features and forced them to confront their lesser ones. It's also something of a folly to consider these on a scale--right or not-right, best or worst, fulfilled or unfulfilled. It's not as if we have a number representing Potential and either hit or miss that number. There is no cap--no, that's not quite right. It's not that there is no cap, but that no endpoint does or would or could ever exist. It's the struggle towards Potential that matters, and it's not a rising/falling meter like a temperature gauge.
And also...potential for what? For contributing to the Greater Culture? For being remembered after the centuries pass? It seems a well-lived potential as a maker of stools in a small village could be every bit as satisfying as taking that talent to the world, or revolutionizing carpentry for all. I also don't want to fall into the folly of scale, as I know us moderns tend to do.
With all of this in mind, I end up going back to a quote from The Fellowship of the Ring. For context, this is near the beginning of the books when Frodo is only just aware of the burden he is willingly taking upon himself:
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
We can look back on that quote after having finished the books and see just how heavy of a wish it was, and how well-rooted Gandalf's advice is, knowing all that he knows. We understand the hardships Frodo is about to endure, the things he is about to lose. If he were born a few generations before he would have lived a peace few have ever seen. A generation later and that magic would have been a myth.
But the point is we can dream and imagine and construct ideas and destinies grander than our current situations, but just because we can do that doesn't mean we must reach those dreams or else we fail. All who live in their time have certain shared struggles and successes, and some will be impacted more by those. Dreaming of those barriers being gone is fine, but so is working within them. Perfection is, in actuality, only fiction.