Violating the first and second rules of Fight Club

So this contains the plot of Fight Club, which, I mean... it came out in 1999 so you've had time.

Relevant plot points:

• destructive relationships

• a friend group you probably wouldn't have otherwise

  • there are losers in the friend group

• sleep issues (too much/not enough)

• an activity that you feel gives your life Meaning (capitalization intentional) that you didn't have before and might not have after

• reality problems (what you perceive as reality might not be shared by others)

• becoming a different version of yourself (temporarily or permanently)

Everything I just wrote is relevant to transits of Neptune or major outer planets (Saturn on out, distance-wise) in the 12th house. Fight Club features an unreliable narrator, and when you're on the receiving end of one of Neptune/12th house transits, guess what, friend? YOU are unreliable. Even to yourself. Want to know why? Neptune/12th house stuff robs your consciousness to pay your subconscious. Usually you don't grow a whole second personality who commits domestic terrorism, but, you know, you don't talk about fight club.

What do I mean by "robs your consciousness to pay your subconscious"? Well, have you ever had compulsive urges or gnawing needs to Do Something that defy logic/reason/explanation? That's your subconscious going nuts. It tends to do that based on early childhood programming, denied inner needs, or secret longings you're vaguely aware of but not accepting into your conscious awareness, so they rattle around in there causing vague discontent. When Neptune transits happen, they blow these subconscious items out of proportion so that you can't ignore them anymore. Best case scenario is that you admit some unpleasant truths to yourself. Only after doing this will you stop being an unreliable narrator.

It is also really common during these times to have dreams that you aren't sure weren't real. For some reason, everyone thinks this is weird, and tells me about their very realistic dreams in hushed voices, and I am here to tell you it happens all the time. You're not alone. It's normal. After college, I had a lot of dreams in which I was smoking cigarettes to the point where I began wondering I'd ever actually smoked one, and I felt confused about this for a while (years). I would say to myself "I need a cigarette." I've literally never smoked cigarettes (except in dreams, obviously). It was a confusing time. I had Uranus transiting my 12th house making active aspects back then, and a Neptune transit to my sun: a double whammy of subconscious noise.

Let's discuss Meaning now. If you are unhappy with your daily life (as the protagonist in Fight Club is) you are susceptible to doing weird stuff to feel a sense of aliveness and connectedness to something that is bigger than you. Ideally, you already have something like this in your life, but under Neptune's influence, you're either going to need something that provides that or else you will be deeply susceptible to someone who seems to be giving you some Answers. Or maybe just telling you what you want to hear. You don't need to look very hard to find examples of people finding some Answers (that they can't wait to tell you about) in our culture these days, you know? This is why I say over and over "don't join cults." I have a wide definition of "cult": everything that involves groupthink and not questioning the leaders' motives is suspect. As someone who grew up in a lot of organized religion, I think it's important to figure out your own belief system, not what someone else tells you you should believe, regardless of who that person is. Go to original source documents or whatever, read them, and draw your own conclusions. As long as you have someone else telling you what to think, you are at their mercy.

So now, a quiz: should you resist consumerism by starting an underground network of disenfranchised men who fight each other in basements? Wrong answers only.