Air

Let's talk air, shall we? I gave the water element and its attendant problems ample attention a few weeks ago, so it's air's turn. Air signs and the air element is easy to understand, especially for people who read. This is it: this is air right here. You're taking in information. Go sit at a coffee shop by yourself and listen to the conversations around you: you're taking in information. Go to the airport: you're going somewhere, you're seeing the sights, you're taking in information. Travel somewhere, hear the different accents, consume the food, learn the customs, and (I don't need to finish this sentence, do I?) Fire signs like to do this, too, for the perspective-broadening they get (just imagine their eyes getting bigger and bigger with each foreign thing they see, like a cartoon.) The air signs 1. circulate and 2. tell you everything.

If you want to make someone with a lot of air miserable, lock them in a room and take their phone away. Don't do it; it's cruel, because they NEED to circulate as much as they need to breathe, and they both consume and exude information, just like breathing. Watch them for a while: you'll see what I'm talking about. I've known and loved a lot of air moons and they truly pacify themselves by scrolling social media (previous manifestation: the newspaper). All that's missing is a literal pacifier. It's kind of cute when you think about it that way.

People without a lot of air don't necessarily understand what I mean by "circulate." To them, circulating might mean talking to the usual suspects: the people they see every day. Or, they might think that their air-heavy significant other can be satisfied by talking to them all the time (because the air-heavy person will be talking all the time, or reading). The hard part is they'll get mad at the idea that they're not "enough" for their air-heavy significant other. It's not about being enough or not enough. It's about new material to digest. I'm not air-heavy, but I am an air sun, and if you're telling me something I already know, or, god-forbid, we're having the same conversation for the 4th time, I am trying not to yell the conclusion of your story back at you before you intone it to me (I am not patient). Either tell me something I don't know or let somebody else talk (or fetch me a Gemini).

Candy to an air person is hearing something new or seeing a different take on an issue that they hadn't thought of before. Then they cannot wait to wander around sharing it, so if you don't personally want to listen to This Week in Tiktok Discoveries, let them leave the house and go regale others with their findings.

One situation you'll find that air gets stuck in is following all the rules and having the situation in question still go left. Someone extremely air-heavy might not understand why earth is so stubborn or water is so subjective, so even if they explain their air case perfectly, people might not fall in line with what the air person has decided is "right." So they'll set about explaining it again. And again. And again. Here's a sad one I bet a lot of you have witnessed: after a breakup, an air-heavy person will lament "I did everything they asked!" These poor little lambs may not have understood the nuance of what was actually being requested. It really hurts them. (Then they keep replaying it in their heads and talking about it, trying to find logic where there is none. If you've helped an air-heavy person through such a breakup, consider applying for sainthood.)

I work in a place with a lot of bureaucratic rules, and there are a LOT of earth signs who love their processes and predictability in my midst. What there are not a lot of is air-heavy people (I've checked), and I think they self-select themselves out rather quickly, because new perspectives and new ideas get shut down pretty quickly in favor or what has worked before. Contrast that with air-heavy workplaces that innovate themselves to death: unchecked air will keep innovating and optimizing. One very obvious example is the founders of tech companies and their crazy diets or exercise routines: they can justify it logically and so even bodily necessities get put on hold in favor of what their mind thinks is correct.

This is my personal opinion: I think air heavy people have the toughest time with translation problems, and therefore, functioning in a world where other people live. They are truly mystified by people not going along with their "right" answers, because they often do not understand nuance. If they lack water, they have a rough time empathizing. If they lack earth, they can't necessarily apply their ideas to reality. If they lack fire, they're going to struggle to sell their perspectives and/or get lost in cyclical bouts of self-doubt and futility. They can spend a really long time trapped in their own heads, and without a translator who can assist them with applying their ideas to the world, they can be marooned in there. I've seen it, and it SUCKS. (It becomes difficult to empathize with them because they're so far up their high horse that they seem like total assholes but usually they're just...wounded assholes.)

Now, the darkest side, and keep in mind here that I personally attract some intense people, so normal people don't see it very often but I've seen it multiple times: violate one of their deeply-held principles and they'll want nothing to do with you ever again, sometimes literally overnight (it happened to me in a literally-overnight situation once, but usually it's in the form of a decisive process you were not made aware of before the decision is rendered). They mind-over-matter this one, too, and you're dead to them. Can you discuss it? No, they will not explain it to you. You're just out. Try arguing with a principle they've thought a lot about. I can give you ideas of better wastes of energy if you're determined to do something this futile.

So you can see the bright side of air: "I have a new idea!" and the dark side of air "I've thought about it a lot" ("I've thought this to death and decided you are the problem"). Let 'em circulate: that's your best bet if you want to stave off being thought to death.

And by the way, air people, "I might have been wrong" is an easy way to get off that increasingly high horse if you'd like to rejoin the rest of us on earth.