Superstitions

Being a wordsmith as I am, there are few things I enjoy as much as understanding a word or figure of speech in a new way.  I had such a moment of understanding recently when I looked afresh at the word 'coincidence'.  I realized it means co-incidence, things happening at the same time.  There's nothing mystical or magical about it.  And yet so many of us think that a coincidence has some kind of meaning or import.  "I was thinking about you and you called me!  Coincidence?  I don't think so."

I see that way of reacting to a co-incidence as a kind of superstition.  A similar superstition is thinking that if someone says "Things are going really well", that person is automatically doomed to failure, as though there is some impish god or natural force whose job it is to make sure none of us acknowledges our good fortune without being punished for it.  I simply can't take that seriously.

I'm the sort of person who, the moment I step into a theater, wants to say "Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth", the saying aloud of that name being considered an evocation of the worst possible luck to a theater or production.  It knocks me out to learn how many people hold that superstition as sacred and true and very, very real.  And they're not kidding.  I guess you'd call me an iconoclast, or just a troublemaker.  Other people's superstitions just seem so very silly.

My own, of course, are sacred and true and real, so much so that I don't even know if I have any because, of course, to me, my beliefs don't seem like superstitions.  I'm trying to think of one.  I'm sure I must have at least one.

I have sat here quite literally for fifteen minutes and can't call to mind any belief or behavior of mine that is based on a superstition.  I guess I'm just too smart for such primitive thinking.

Well, it's after 2am, so I'm going to say "purple turkey pie" three times, bow to the north, and go to bed.  Works every time.