The twelve Animal Signs

for Men

Monkey man
His psychological makeup

It is never easy to make a good snapshot of the Monkey man's psychological fabric. The difficulty does not reside in some kind of unpredictability as is the case with the Goat male - he is perfectly foreseeable - but in his innumerable, inextricable paradoxes and contradictions. This is a highly complex personality who, however, displays all appearances of simplicity. While essentially cerebral, moved by his head, he reacts almost exclusively with his heart - whence his incredible incoherence. Photographing the Goat, so to speak, astrologers are confronted with the problem of ever-changing lighting conditions; but when they do the Monkey, a careful dosage of the contrasting colors should be exercised so that neither the lights nor the shades are given undue emphasis.

Perhaps this subject's only characteristic which does not bear an internal contradiction is his extreme independence. Under no circumstance does he accept to forgo his insistence on being his own master. He abhors any limitation on his freedom of thought or action: He must be the wind, or he will die!

The Monkey man is one - most probably the only one - who zealously spends his whole existence blasting old customs and outdated ideas as well as battling against retrograde minds. His nonconformism is in all appearance total and uncompromising. Progressive-minded, he acts as if he were born with the mission to being change into the world. Conventional marriage tanks high on the list of his targets as he considers it an old-fashioned institution responsible for many perfectly avoidable evils. But all the while he wants the universe and everyone around him to change, he tends to cling to his own basic attitude - it is perhaps not because of his inability to modify his stands but because of his self-righteousness. Moreover, he seems to hold some respect for his elders. We are putting our finger here on one of his countless inconsistencies, which are quite understandable to us once we have been informed of his incongruousness.

This individual's nonconformism naturally conduces to his originality. He only wants to think and act in his own way, according to his own penchant, completely off beaten tracks of every description. Not vitally concerned with his own image - he could not care less about the opinions of others - he delights in shocking people by his singular manner of speech and outlandish behavior. To many, he appears just plain wacky; to others, his excessive individuality - say, his eccentricity - is a subject of either amusement or irritation. In any case, everyone finds him mystifying because of his exaggerated love of utopia, his unbelievable lack of realism and practicality. On the contrary, the idiosyncrasies of people he meets, however weird they may be, never surprise or trouble him because he takes them completely for granted. However, under the facade of his defying oddity and strangeness, there do exist some familiar shadows. For instance, being very young in spirit, he thinks it is unworthy to worry about money and likes to make fun heartily of penny-pinchers; yet he may from time to time surprise himself in the process of counting and calculating! One thing is certain: One never gets bored in his company.

Few people would equal him in intellectual curiosity. Fired with an unquenchable desire for knowledge, he deems everything good to know, including the most unpleasant truths. He is particularly enthusiastic about all things new or unorthodox, refusing to place them under any kind of moral or religious scrutiny - no doubt many heretics burned by the Inquisition were Monkeys. He loves to be the first one to hit upon some idea, to do something, to embark on some practice, even if this may mean that he will get scorched in the process.

The Monkey man is aided in his perpetual quest for novelty by his many relevant qualities. He has enough humility to be willing to learn from all those who have something interesting to tell or teach him. His natural ability to be detached and unemotional helps him keep his already sharp mind always open to anything, while his breadth of vision protects him from being a sterile hair-splitter. Last but not least, he has no bias whatsoever against women - one would have difficulty finding a trace of misogyny in this man, who readily bows to females if these have something to interest him with. Unfortunately, there are quite a few shadows scattered throughout the sunlight. For example, the native of the Monkey cannot help putting his nose into the affairs of other people, thereby tightly earning the reputation of being a professional meddler. He cannot either help trying overexplain everything he knows to his fellow men and women, even against their wishes, because he feels that everyone is more or less dumb while the only smart person on earth is he himself. It is impossible for a casual observer to understand why this man, who is a keen student of human behavior and can predict the outcome of actions and situations with outstanding accuracy, can at times display so surprising credulity and naiveté.

Routine in any form is death to this man as he considers life meaningless without variety and unexpected events. He adores surprises of every kind - a bad surprise is to his eyes even better than no surprise at all - and can adapt himself effortlessly to any situation which may arise. It is why he is constantly on the lookout for new adventures. He could perfectly slam the door against his boss or throw up a good job on the spur of the moment without any regard for possible consequences. Indifferent to riches as well as poverty, he has a passion for gambling; he also likes to put his material security in danger from time to time with a view to forcing himself to struggle of resist the temptation of "bourgeois" well-being. His deliberate, systematic search for new, unforeseen situations stems from his unshakable belief that every experience is good to go through; even the worst tragedies happening to him cannot grieve him much because he looks on them as mere challenges, moreover convinced that misfortune contains seeds of happiness. No wonder why he never feels regret or self-pity; no wonder also why he resolutely turns his back to the past - to him, only tomorrow holds the greatest excitement.

What makes this individual a fascinating person is perhaps not his mind but his heart, which is blessed with some rare qualities. Fundamentally good-natured and kind, he is a humanitarian whose energies are directed toward the alleviation of all unhappiness and evil in this wicked world. He believes firmly in the universal brotherhood of man and detests frontiers of any kind. This is a real citizen of the world, at home in any country and at ease with people from every corner of the earth. True to his magnanimous and sociable nature, he accepts people effortlessly, enjoys their company, and is ready to consider everyone his friend, be the latter a king or a tramp, a minister or a pimp. His tolerance is equaled only by his helpfulness. But all such fine qualities can be somewhat altered by his "counter-qualities." This same soft-hearted native may at one time or another appear strangely distant and indifferent or, worse still, commit injustices and even acts of cruelty. While putting an extremely high value on human contacts, he also extols the virtues of solitude and seclusion. For all his magnanimity, he is not immune from touchiness and vindictiveness.

The typical Monkey man considers himself an honest, aboveboard person and can indeed substantiate his claim most of the time. He usually does his own thing without bothering to see whether society approves or not. He hates hypocrisy and underhandedness with every fiber of his being. Yet it would be inaccurate to affirm that he is a model of straightforwardness. First, if he has the ability to confess error, apologize, or accept criticism gracefully, he is not insensitive to flattery and adulation. Second, he has the deceptive habit of agreeing openly with others while rejecting their ideas in secret. Third, he respects law and authority only as far as his personal security requires it, not out of conviction of consideration for the next fellow. Fourth, his conscience is so elastic and can be so easily satisfied that he has few scruples and tends to make the end to justify the means in all cases. Fifth, he delights in fooling everybody and often uses his extraordinary ability to pull the wool over people's eyes.

What is the most likely to endear this character to many people lies in his exceptional capacity to see the funnier side of life. They practically never run the risk of spending dull moments with him. His great sense of humor very seldom fails him, even in adversity or the worst possible circumstances. Always playful and full of fun, he takes nothing seriously, showing a marked tendency toward removing revered things from their pedestals and laughing at his own person, his own defects and misfortunes. He always has a crowd of jokes and amusing anecdotes up his sleeve, which he distributes generously around him wherever he goes. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe him to be a really light-hearted creature. More often than not his playfulness is used, perhaps unconsciously, to cover up his basic pessimism about human nature. It may be relevant to apply this sentence to his case: "I hasten to laugh about everything, for fear of feeling compelled to weep about it" (Beaumarchais).

The Monkey man's most precious characteristic is indisputably his well-developed common sense. Owing to it he almost never risks to stray far from the Golden Mean - it serves as a parapet to prevent him from indulging in excesses of either good or evil.