Why Do We Love Prediction?

14 Dec, 2025

Humans love to predict. For as long as civilisation has existed, we have been trying to foresee the next event. From the standpoint of survival, this has always been crucial. We began by predicting hunting opportunities, sources of shelter, and favourable terrain. Then we moved on to forecasting weather and seasons. From there, we searched for patterns in the stars to interpret omens. That impulse gave birth to detailed astronomy, which eventually gave birth to astrology.

Our need to know the future is rooted in our uneasy relationship with uncertainty. We are not wired to accept uncertainty easily; we have to labour our way into that acceptance. When the mind cannot compute the next probable outcome, it is forced to confront uncertainty—something it resists. Naturally, it gravitates toward prediction. Any theory will do, as long as it soothes the fear within.

But the future is uncertain no matter how many theories we superimpose on it. The future can never be definite because the very act of observing it alters its nature; such is the paradox. This mirrors both quantum mechanics and psychology. And yet people still flock to know their future. Generally, those who are not doing well in the present crave reassurance—hoping things will change rather than remain the same. They conveniently forget that nothing can remain the same unless they remain the exact same person.

If everything is predicted to go well, hope arises. This subtle shift in mindset can, at times, be transformative. But there is a problem. All forms of prediction in the occult are probabilistic and contingent on your mental makeup. They feel real only because you assume your mindset, your actions, your internal patterns will remain unchanged a decade from now. Numerous scientific experiments have categorically shown that predictive theories about the future are unreliable. They are embarrassingly wrong—and by a wide margin.

So why do people still want to know what lies ahead? Because accepting that your actions, your attitude, and your approach to life are the primary determinants of your trajectory is difficult. Unless you accept responsibility for your choices, unless you recognise that the world operates on cause and effect rather than right and wrong, you will never be ready to confront uncertainty. This truth is daunting. Who wants to admit that they might be a mediocre personality incapable of questioning their own shortcomings?

Finding an external entity to blame feels soothing, like applying a balm on an ache. The mind loves this escape. Blaming planets or bad cycles is far easier than confronting suffering, questioning your motives, or transforming into someone whose existence contributes something meaningful to the world. This level of introspection is a heavy burden for the weak. Many cannot bear it—they would rather adopt simplistic belief systems: why do bad things happen to a nice person like me, and what will happen to me in the future?

I believe only the god’s favourites undergo intense suffering followed by dramatic transformation. A psychological collapse where everything you believed in, everything you held sacred, crumbles in front of you—only for you to feel a subtle push urging you to rise again. No Jupiter holds a candle to such mental resilience.

The problem with wanting to know the future is that it never stops. At what point do you decide it is enough? That you have been told all you needed, and now you must walk your path to realise whatever is preordained? A person obsessed with the future never stops at one prediction. They want it again, and again, and again—until the future they were chasing a decade ago finally stands before them. And even then, they continue chasing another alluring future.

For people who lack accountability, it is a slippery slope that ends with a stone in their hands. To wear stones because you cannot control your emotions, your speech, or your luck—luck that is largely probabilistic—is a sign of profound weakness. People want to know the future because taking responsibility for the present feels unbearable. So they resort to any belief that helps them avoid it.

There is no future to predict. The future does not exist—just as the past does not. Think that’s untrue? Ask someone with Alzheimer’s. See how much future they can plan, or how much past they can recall. As long as your mind functions, it will conjure up a future and a past for you. Without the mind, there is no future. And without suffering, there is no glory.