I have been recently working on my new book Revolt Against the Digital World, which is a sequel to my collection of essays Forgotten Roots. In this volume, I am going to focus on the impact of advanced technology on our lives. I intend to show different ways, in which the modern world reduces everything to a lifeless number devoid of soul and uniqueness. I think that such musings are very timely in the age of contract tracing apps and Zoom. In addition to that, I am going to analyse our digital world from the perspective of Vedic astrology, intertwining planetary themes with the main discourse. What follows are a few excerpts from Revolt Against the Digital World. As always, I invite you to listen to the track below:
We are used to being surrounded by a large number of comforts. These amenities, however, only make us lazier, more depressed, and lost in the dystopian labyrinths of modernity. Men and women living in the past also enjoyed certain comforts, though incomparably simpler and more sustainable than ours. Our increasing reliance on technological aid is risky, for these facilities are now utilised in every aspect of our daily existence (in contrast to past centuries and millennia, when their practical application was limited to very few domains of human life). Thus, a major and widespread technological failure may cause our entire civilisation to collapse like a house of cards.
Saturn is a planet representing nature in her primal and undomesticated state. It symbolises our instinct to survive. Saturn shows a person’s capacity for perseverance, tenacity, hard work, and discipline. An individual with strong natal Saturn is always able to push forward, despite difficult circumstances or innate personal weaknesses. He or she is a natural-born survivalist who can handle well arduous tasks or catastrophes, suffer humiliation and failure, and still “do what needs to be done”. In a higher sense, he is a Karma Yogi, someone who performs their duties selflessly and whole-heartedly with an attitude of detachment and sincere humility. There is something heroic and noble in a Saturnine man whose sheer determination resembles Sisyphus from the Greek myth. Someone with a weak natal Saturn, however, is unable to handle the harsh reality of life effectively. Suffering from the lack of consistency and poor endurance, such person may be overly attached to comfort. Personal weaknesses, fears, and traumas stop him or her from trying to progress and succeed in life. As a result, an individual with afflicted natal Saturn is only able to live a very average life.
In the bygone ages, the qualities symbolised by Saturn were essential to survival. In our civilised age of convenience, luxury, and democracy, however, people who lack these traits can easily survive and sometimes even thrive to a moderate degree. Had they lived a few hundred years ago, they would have died due to poverty or diseases. The more dependent we are on modern amenities, the more helpless we feel in the face of cruel and untamed nature. Saturn teaches us not to take any of these conveniences for granted. As we move through our crystalline, germ-free skyscrapers, Saturn directs our gaze downwards — to dirty, ugly, unpleasant, and feral elements of human life that we try so hard to conceal with the idea of infinite technological progress.
Thank you for reading.
Karol
Celestial Trail 