What makes us who we are? Is it Nature or Nurture? Where can we place the blame for our failings? Our parents? Where they lived, their rules for us as we grew up? The schools we attended? Or is it simpler, just Fate, our future written in the stars, dependent on the day and time we were born.
How many people buy a newspaper just to read their horoscopes (and do the crossword, of course)? Both the western and eastern systems of astrology have many followers and both can (and are) debunked as being too general, too vague in their predictions. But is either any more accurate when assessing someone's personality?
Most people have come across the rhyme that starts -
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is......... etc
A piece of doggerel, sung like a lullaby by a mother to her baby, or an inherited way of assessing character? A piece of nonsense chanted by midwives to new mums down the ages?
The verses were first written down (according to Wikipedia) in 1838 but such fortune-telling rhymes were recorded in Suffolk during the late 16th century. A long time for a piece of nonsense to persist.
Just think of all those job application forms blithely filled in with name, address and date of birth. Could this be a cheap, basic way to assess character and suitability for a situation?
I looked at the days some friends and family were born. What a surprise!
Probably just coincidence.
Then I thought about how much we really know about people. Why we are comfortable in some company and yet inexplicably repulsed by others.
This (almost) inevitably leads to deep thoughts of reincarnation, Purgatory and familiar souls .
The weather has turned gloomy and T.P's Reaper Man is calling to lighten the mood.
Time to put the kettle on - and will there be biscuits?
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