It's Friday the 13th ...

[Elgee]

I thank my Lucky Stars I'm not superstitious, but ... many people are.

Some of those people believe that Friday the 13th is a very unlucky day. Others believe it to be their lucky day, on the other hand.

As Min said to Rand, there must be positive to balance out the negative.

 

What do you think about the matter?

Where does your Ajah / the Warders stand on it, and how would you handle the day if you believed it to be unlucky?

 

[Delenn]

Oh Light! Let me put on my Shawl. I haven’t thought exclusively as a White in a longtime. 
 

I think that from the perspective of a White, they would separate the history and the philosophy. I think looking at it through the lens of superstitions being a natural response to particular environments and experiences. For example, when you open an umbrella indoors you tend to knock things about. It’s not much of a jump for a mind not trained in logic to conclude that opening umbrellas indoors is bad luck. After all, bad things do tend to happen when one dose. And it is a useful trick to tell children to simply get them to be more careful. So the belief begins to spread and as it is a useful belief, it tends to stay with us.  
But of course the really interesting question is why the human mind needs to believe so badly? Even I hold to a set of beliefs that revolve around the need for balance in the energies of the world. Magical thinking tends to live on in us as humans to the point that it seems to be in some ways, a necessity of life. Perhaps it (superstitions) is that spark of imagination that drives us onward, run amok? 

[Cross]

i give it no value personally, other than an interesting thing to note like 'oh its friday the 13th this week' but thats the sum total of it. 

 

 

the browns? oh we'd research the crap out of it. the various origins, why its the 13 vs some other number, any and all instances of strange or unlucky behavior/incidents that coincided with it, and whether or not its actually an inordinate average compared to other days. along with means to either thwart the unlucky energies/spirits of the day or means to harness them. because knowledge is power and there's nothing more powerful than overcoming and dominating what we dont understand. if there were some sort of power to the combination of the day and the number then there's a way to harness it. there's a way to divest it of its power. 

 

 

[LilyElizabeth]

I never used to believe Friday the 13th was unlucky. Until I met my ex-husband and had our first date on Friday the 13th, got married on Friday the 13th, and got emotionally abused for 14 years. I have since learned that it is believed that any relationship started on Friday 13th is doomed. I will only say that I now believe that Friday the 13th is unlucky for me. 

 

The Greens? We are undecided, but we carry our swords on this day. 😉

 

[Elgee]

I love your various reasonings from the viewpoint of your Ajahs and personal lives 😁

 

I've never really had any thoughts on this specific event either way, though I did start my first real job on a Friday the 13th, and worked there for 13 years. The bosses in that place made me extremely cynical about life in general and any kind of boss and/or religion in specific.

On the other hand, I learned an amazing amount there, and enjoyed my actual work and my colleagues very much.

[Elgee]

@Dead Warder*hugs* ... what an awful thing war is.

[Elgee]

2 hours ago, Dead Warder said:

My apologies for throwing up some of my dark past and dropping the mood. It was probably uncalled for.

 

Not at all, my dear! Things are what they are - don't apologise for the truth.

 

And thank you so much for that flower! It's one of my favourites, from my favourite place in the world 🙂

[LilyElizabeth]

I agree with Mother. Don't apologize for sharing your experiences. We all have something in our past. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

@Dead Warder Our experiences make us who we are, I think it would a dark place if we had to hide parts of that from others. And as for appropriate, it is a thread about Friday the 13th, so I do not see how it could not be. 

 

Friday the 13th is clearly arbitrary, there is no objective natural reasons to divide time into months, seven day weeks, or assign any special meaning to them. I find it amusing how few people notice the flaw in the statement that this year for the first time in 666 years, Halloween falls on Friday the 13th, before they stop thinking about how spooky that is.

 

While of course I would agree with Delenn Sedai that for some superstitions there are base reasons, I would argue this is a lesser root cause of them. We are not talking about folk tales or Aessop's fables. Superstition is by and large a product of our brain's need to identify patterns. They are really good at it, and it has stood us in good stead in our descent from the trees and into high rise apartments, but we are so good recognising patterns that we also see them where they are not. Take nearly any game that has match-making involved, visit their forums and see huge ground swell of opinion of players that the MM is biased. And while I accept that many will claim they really are biased, despite all logic, common sense, and statistical evidence pointing otherwise, there are of course other examples. like Spotify's random playlists, which due to massive complaints about not being random, run on a different algorithm (not random) so it appears more like what we expect random to be like. Because we see patterns in random and complain Spotify is manipulating our listening because of dire and unspeakable motives.

 

Added to the fact we want to feel like we can have an influence on the world, such as helping our sports teams win by wearing a lucky item, or stave off ill health by some strange behaviour and we are trapped into believing the most idiotic things. Because the cold facts that things happen due to random chance, without meaning, and we have no way of influencing anything except for our own actions, are scary and we don't want to deal with that. We are much happier thinking the other team always has better players, that black cats are good luck, and if we eat a taco every Tuesday we will live forever. 

[Cross]

i would say that our mind's desire to see patterns and its ability to do so does, as you say contribute, however i believe our belief and participation in the superstitious is more derived from our inner desire to make sense of or exert control over that which we have no control.