This one is a little special to me because I am an Aries. The stereotypical Aries is described as follows: a loud, boisterous agent of chaos who wears their heart on their sleeve and shouts in people’s faces. A rude person. A party animal. Aries is supposed to always be extroverted even if they don’t care whether or not people like them very much.

When I was growing up, I was so painfully shy that I would go entire days without speaking. I didn’t want to be seen. I wanted to crawl into a small space and hide.

Most Aries who I have talked to are not the life of the party. Most Aries I have talked to have the experience of being socially ostracized, of being excluded, or even of being neglected. This can be Aries—this feeling of being so very, very alone.

Aries is the sign in which the Sun exalts. Commonly, this means that some will call us entitled or at least ambitious enough to make a dent in the world. Aries always stands for something. That is true. We get trapped on a subway for 20 minutes and we write a manifesto about defunded public infrastructure in our heads.

But it’s often not ambition that drives an Aries—it’s the drive to learn.

All Aries are on a quest. We are on a quest to know more, to experience more, and to fall down more. There will be some Aries who never read a book and learn from the school of life, falling down hard sometimes and walking away marveling at the lesson. There will be other Aries who never speak a word to anyone and bury their faces in books all of the time. There will be Aries who are somewhere between the two. But whatever the Aries, we metabolize things—information, facts, and emotions—very quickly.

The stereotype of Aries tells us that we are prideful. We are. But there is another side to an Aries—Aries is also an extremely masochistic sign. You see, what defines an Aries is not its self regard but its absolute and insatiable hunger for life. Aries is a sign that wants to feel alive.

Sometimes, feeling alive means feeling like you made it. Sometimes, it’s feeling like you’re the most important person of all to the people you love. Other times, feeling alive means getting pummeled by life. Sometimes, feeling life takes someone slapping the shit out of you while fucking you good and hard. Sometimes feeling alive means that you are uplifted. Other times, you feel alive when you are well debased.

Aries may be fascinated by pride but, often, we are also fascinated by humiliation. We do all types of things to become less afraid of it.

A stereotypical Aries is always screaming about who they are. A living Aries takes the lessons that life delivers and always finds it within themselves to start over, to try again. Sometimes we broadcast our mistakes. Other times, we take it silently. An Aries is not always the loudest person in the room. Often, we are the most quiet.

This is the thing that defines an exaltation. It’s not about always succeeding. It’s not about popularity or about never doing wrong. It’s about knowing that you can always be forgiven. An Aries always expects to be forgiven. We always expect to recover when we fall down.

There’s another stereotype of Aries—the one that says that all Aries are overemotional, that we wear our hearts on our sleeves. This stereotype says that Aries can never keep a secret and that it’s not hard to guess what it is that we are thinking.

Aries do not expect to be blamed for things. This is why there are some Aries who do not hide mistakes or faults, Aries who make it known when they dislike something or someone. However, Aries is in control of this expression. The stereotype of Aries tells us that we are not when, in fact, we are.

Aries is in control of what we share, how much, and with whom. We’re not petulant children who tantrum our way through the world. We understand that how to direct attention, we know when to surprise, and we are in control of when we want to speak louder and when we want to whisper.

Aries, contrary to stereotypes, is an incredibly efficient sign. We often live stringently, minimally, and can be hyper focused. We find the most efficient way to get from point A to point B and we make the sacrifices that are necessary in order to do so.

A stereotypical Aries says anything to get attention. A living Aries lives most of their life very quietly and chooses the moment to reveal something that is very surprising.

And it’s within the nature of Aries to act as though something is very surprising or groundbreaking even when it is not. We know how to make the mundane appear extraordinary.

And, so, if you’re not a stereotypical Aries, maybe you’re not the big baby who everyone needs to calm down every now and then. Maybe you’re already calm because you’re not afraid of fucking up. Maybe you make fast decisions because you expect to recover and because you learn fast. Maybe, you’re extraordinarily quiet when you need to be and extraordinarily loud when you want to be.

If you’re not a stereotypical Aries, then you’re a living Aries. You’re an Aries who is in the game of life because you love to play.