The Shift to Evidence-Based Reality

I’m someone who is interested in cultural symbolism, and I’m also a forensic psychology student. As I learn more about research rigor, falsifiability, and confirmation bias, I’m finding that some frameworks are simply more accurate than others.

Astrology was one framework I was interested in during the COVID-19 pandemic, like many other people who were stuck at home. I didn’t use it to predict things. I used it to try to understand myself, people close to me, and our psychologies.

What I found was that it was not nearly as accurate as I first thought. What it really did was explain things post-hoc. It predicted nothing. This also felt like a shift from an external locus of control to an internal one, and it’s been genuinely liberating to move away from frameworks that promise destiny, mysticism, and a sense of being unique simply because of the day and time you were born.

It turns out that sleep, routine, stress management, work, and structure are what determine day-to-day life. Measuring something like conscientiousness through the OCEAN model is far more quantifiable and practically useful for me than interpreting behavior through a Saturn placement.

Note: Visual is conceptual and symbolic.