Daily Cascade

Friday the 13th--of December, 2024

Prompt:
Do you have Friday the 13th superstitions?

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No, I have no problems with Friday the 13th or any other day or date. Friday the 13th is just another day. True, some terrible thing happened on that day, but then, other similar terrible things do take place on other days, also. For a superstition involves several well-understood psychological processes, including our sensitivity to coincidence. It has to do with fear of the unknown, and heaven forbid, if something bad happens on a certain day! That day and others carrying the same name or number will be cursed in our minds forever and ever.

It isn't that I don't have any superstitions, but my superstitions are very different. One that might be considered a superstition for me is doing stuff without thinking it through. On the other hand, one sometimes has to do that. Would I not help out another person caught in some kind of a fire or another immediate danger? Should I have to think through that whole action before hand? No, there'd be no time for that. I'd just have to do it.

Sometimes, regular routines turn into superstitions. For example, I have a daily routine after I wake up in the morning, and if I don't do it even just one day, I might subconsciously or consciously think that my day is off somehow. And in here, can be hidden another birth of a superstition. So when that happens, I warn myself.

My mother used to be a very superstitious person. Some of her superstitions were: Don't look in the mirror at night; you'll see a demon. Only cut your nails on Thursdays and Mondays. No laundry on Saturdays, it is very bad luck. She would also knock on wood and pull her ears. It was always things like that. And she wasn't a stupid woman, either, and in many other ways, she was very intelligent. Yet, this was her way of coping with the unknown. I bet, since she couldn't trust real life, she put her trust in magic or chance through her established false understanding of cause and effect.

So at one time in my life, I decided not to be like her. Granted, I'm stupid in my own ways, but at least, to the best of my conscious knowledge of myself, I haven't borrowed or used my mother's, my family's, or anyone else's superstitions.