Holding on.

What makes us cling so desperately to the things we believe in the face of fact, truth and rationality?
I think that we tend to describe ourselves as being "set in our ways" but then, when something challenges that mindset, why do we rail against it? 

I was reminded today, by a friend, of an old fear that I clung to, more out of habit than true belief. My Mother had always taught us that looking at the horoscope was wrong. It was not of God and therefore, it was not to be looked at.

So, for years, I did not read a horoscope.

After my life began to change, and I began to realize that the things I had held onto were fading and incoherent, I still avoided them. I just let my eyes float over them, without looking.

But why?

Habit? Fear? 

Looking back, now, it was probably that I felt that, as I changed, the horoscope was just the same as what I was leaving. It was useless, agonizingly vague and had no power over me. I should say, could not have power over me.

Funny how that applies on both sides.

Some believe that the month you're born in affects your disposition. That's as may be, though I've yet to see any solid science that proves this. 

But just like the other kinds of pseudoscience, like aliens and bigfoot. It would be cool if these were somehow proved to be real. But until they are, we have no cause to believe in them. Without the science to back up these observational pipedreams, they are just pipedreams.

And as Neil DeGrasse Tyson has said, science doesn't care what you believe.

So, I don't read the horoscope, still but it is mainly because I know it's nonsense, not because I fear it.
And the same is true of other documents to which mystical power is associated, or in which, can be found the source of all truth and power.

I used to be afraid not to believe, but not any longer.

Holding onto things can be beneficial, and it is a strongly human thing to do. But letting go of things that have control over you is also beneficial and it proves that we can learn by evidence, and rational curiosity, and not by pseudoscience and fear.