Finding Yourself in the Stars
Astrology, decision fatigue, and the search for meaning in the Information Age
We live in a moment where little feels solid. Institutions are crumbling, algorithms shape our realities, and the pressure to always know—and know what to do next—is relentless. In this climate of collapse and overload, it makes sense that people are drawn to systems that promise continuity—even if they don’t promise certainty. One of those frameworks is astrology.
Astrology is having a resurgence—not because it has newfound scientific legitimacy, but because it meets a deep cultural need. With so much exhaustion and disorientation from trying to navigate a world where the usual sources of stability have eroded, its resurgence makes sense. In an age shaped by information overload and the ever-expanding influence of digital systems, systems like astrology—longstanding, symbolic, and widely accessible—offer a kind of continuity that feels increasingly rare.
Ever-Expanding Digital Systems
Our lives have become overrun by choicetech—the apps, algorithms, and digital interfaces that shape how we encounter information and make choices. Decision-making itself has been reengineered. These tools don’t merely offer options; they actively filter what we see, frame how we interpret it, and subtly guide how and when we decide. choicetech isn’t just about access to more, it’s about restructuring the architecture of how we choose. That reengineering of decision-making has contributed directly to what many now experience as choice inflation: an increase not only in the number of decisions we’re expected to make—because choicetech has dismantled many of the defaults, norms, and structures that once guided us—but also in the amount of information we’re expected to process in order to make those decisions. This builds into decision fatigue: the emotional and cognitive burnout that comes from being asked to evaluate, compare, and choose—over and over again. It’s the persistent sense of having too much information, too many possibilities, and not enough meaningful outcomes.
Shifting the Burden
In times of high uncertainty, we seek patterns. When we feel disoriented, our brains crave stories that make things make sense. And in a world of so much change, choice inflation, and decision fatigue, disorientation is always near. Astrology, with its stable-feeling framework and recognizable patterns that hold up across time, cultures, and chaos, contrasts with the rapid-fire pace and fractured logic of digital life.
Astrology is a social technology — a human-created system that facilitates social understanding and collective meaning-making. Unlike physical technologies that solve practical problems, social technologies shape how we relate to one another and interpret our world. Language, rituals, calendars, and belief systems are all examples.
Astrology, and other social technologies, allows people to temporarily shift the burden of knowing and deciding from their own creative resources to a predetermined, shared symbolic structure. In a time when so much needs to be reconsidered, rethought, and rebuilt—when careers, relationships, belief systems, and identities have all become unstable and unpredictable—frameworks like astrology offer a reprieve. They provide a sense of orientation without demanding constant analysis, reinvention, or optimization. That reprieve matters. Especially when so many are feeling overwhelmed by the cognitive and emotional labor required just to keep up.
Grand Patterns in a Noisy, Uncertain World
At its most basic, astrology is a system that draws connections between the positions of celestial bodies—like the sun, moon, and planets—and events or characteristics in human life. For thousands of years, people in many cultures have looked to the skies not just to tell time or forecast weather, but to find symbolic meaning. Western astrology is based on the twelve-sign zodiac, which divides the year into segments associated with personality traits and life patterns. Chinese and Vedic astrology follow different cycles and logics, but all share a core aim: to use patterns in the cosmos to reflect patterns on Earth. These systems differ in language and logic, but they share a common intent: to map human life within larger systems.
This speaks to something deep: a widely held, often unspoken intuition that we are just one small part of something vast and interconnected. In the United States, where rugged individualism reigns supreme, this orientation toward interconnectedness can feel almost countercultural—a quiet rebellion against the pressure to be entirely self-made, self-contained, and self-explained. Astrology’s appeal, in part, comes from how it reflects that feeling—that we are embedded in systems (cosmic, social, environmental) whose influence we may never fully understand. This isn’t about belief in astrology per se; it’s about the way symbolic systems can echo our search for orientation within complexity.
That same drive—to locate ourselves within systems and make sense of our place—also fuels our attraction to more modern tools: personality typologies, algorithms, dashboards, data. From horoscopes to spreadsheets, we seek frameworks that promise structure and insight. Whether spiritual or statistical, they reflect the same impulse: to reduce the unknown into something we can work with. That shared impulse to locate ourselves within a bigger picture is one of the most enduring aspects of human meaning-making.
Seeing Ourselves in Our Symbols
Another reason astrology resonates with so many people is the Barnum effect—the tendency to find personal relevance in vague, general statements. When someone reads a horoscope and thinks, "Wow, that’s so me," it’s not necessarily because the description is accurate. It’s because of our need to interpret and organize our experiences in a way that orients ourselves within a world that includes us. Many astrological statements reflect shared, often contradictory, human desires—wanting connection but fearing vulnerability, seeking freedom while needing stability. The Barnum effect reveals how deeply we’re wired to recognize and place ourselves in these common experiences. And in doing so, it highlights something surprisingly comforting: how much we have in common. Instead of dismissing this as naïve, we can understand it as evidence of our shared human landscape and a powerful basis for solidarity.
The Meaning We’re Still Searching For
The resurgence of interest in astrology doesn’t necessarily point to renewed belief in cosmic determinism. More likely, it points to a desire for symbolic, inclusive tools during a time when institutional, political, and social narratives feel fractured. In the absence of widely trusted systems for making meaning, people turn to frameworks that offer language, ritual, and coherence.
Astrology isn’t the only system doing this—but its accessibility, cultural saturation, and sense of structure may explain why it keeps showing up. It offers a symbolic grammar to process identity, emotion, and change—without requiring belief in optimization or innovation. And unlike choicetech, which accelerates and fragments our decision-making, astrology slows us down—inviting reflection instead of reaction, coherence instead of optimization. In a time of personal and cultural recalibration, symbolic systems with staying power may feel less like belief and more like relief—especially to those experiencing the quiet toll of daily decision fatigue.
So whether or not one believes in astrology isn’t the central question here. The fact that more people are turning toward systems like it—ancient, imperfect, symbolic—reveals something about what we’re missing. Maybe it’s not certainty we crave, but coherence. And maybe, in a world that often feels disjointed and data-driven, a little symbolic meaning is enough to keep us grounded.
