Lines on my palm
When going through occasional rough patches in my life, I look upward towards the sky for solace, but if the day is cloudy, I turn to find comfort in the lines criss crossing my palm.
According to palmistry, different lines indicate different traits in our life — health, intellect, dominant nature, fate, sensuality, marital happiness, etc. etc. and etc.
These lines on our palm are supposed to commence from one side and terminate on the other with the beginning of the line foretelling our years in childhood and ending of the line our outer years. It is hard to conceive how the notion of beginning and ending of a line came about. After all, beginnings and endings, left and right, up and down, are human constructs.
If a section of a line is clear and unblemished, the corresponding trait during that chronological period in life is supposed to be heightened.
A set of clear lines, like a not so busy highway one certain day, bodes well for our journey in life.
Although as training I am a scientist, having grown up in India and surrounded by astrology, palmistry, seeing people wearing all kind of gemstones on their fingers for better luck or to ward off the bad influence of some planets, occasionally do I get swayed by their power to foretell the future and want to a peek to see what is coming.
Sometimes during periods of stress, I will gaze at my palm, and relying on my rudimentary knowledge of palmistry, try to find a silver lining.
Is my action just an example of wishful thinking; an attempt to draw comfort and seek a straw to hang on to?
I look at the lines on my palm and search for solace that life is going to be alright.
A sense of finding comfort is heightened by the fact that my father had a good knowledge of astrology. He had prepared my astrological chart and based on the alignments of planets, gave me his interpretation for what my future may entail. His interpretation included a summary of timeline of major events in my life (marriage, education, general health etc.), and by whatever reason, coincidence or because major events in life occur for most of us around the same time, some of his readings about my future, and timing of events were close to what he foretold.
Maybe by interpreting my chart he was also trying to comfort himself that even though I did not seem too bright when young, in the end I am going to be alright.
Bits of memories of those conversations with my father sometimes also provide me with solace during periods of stress. Perhaps in his wisdom he also knew that someday I would need the comfort of his words and wisdom that in general, my life would be okay.
Is my tendency of drawing comfort by looking at the lines on my palm any different than if I was religious and had the faith that brought me comfort and provided me with anchors to hold me in place?
Granted that astrology, palmistry, reading tea leaves are vastly different from tenets of organized religion — not much social interaction, no following ten commandments, no full day fasts during certain phase of the moon, no daily rituals, no specific attire — and yet the purpose is the same — be it the line on my hand or faith in a deity, what I seek is some sense of comfort that I am going to be okay.
I don’t quite know how palmistry, astrology etc. came about or evolved over time. It is hard to imagine that over the millennia of human civilization, a group of people built up a huge sample of lines on palm, plotted the corresponding trajectory of lives of people they belonged to, ran an AI/ML algorithm or just simple regression analysis to draw general conclusions about patterns of lines and the corresponding events in life.
Was it purely an exercise in fitting a regression curve, or doing a cluster analysis between various wiggles and blemishes in the lines on our palm and events of the life of people on whose hands those lines belonged to? It is hard to conceive of that possibility.
Even now with access to scientific and computing advances, study of human traits is difficult to perform and interpreting the data can be fraught with errors.
Maybe the origins of palmistry, astrology and other occult sciences reside in our innate desire to reduce uncertainty in the future, to find meaning and purpose for our blip of an existence in space and time. It is the same desires that led to the birth of to various religions around the world.
One common thread connecting the origin of occult sciences and religion could be human suffering in the present moment and our attempt to find solace by some means.
Maybe Buddhism or palmistry are inventions to alleviate our suffering and an attempt to reduce the measure of uncertainty where we might be heading.
We may never know how the notion of palmistry evolved over time but in the end, if palmistry gives me a blade of grass to hold on to and keep me from getting blown away during a storm in the darkness of night, that is all that matters.
Ciao.
