I used to give this serious thought. It was in that same era that I worried about religious issues like sinning and subsequently being banished to hell, or even just pissing Jesus off, or accidentally putting a Bible upside-down in the shelf, or succumbing to the irresistible desire to tell a Jesus joke to my friends--because they are all, by nature, such cheap shots, like Presidential jokes, not having to be that funny, really, to get a good laugh. ("I can see my house from here.")
And I admit feeling just a tinge of superstitious dread at writing the above paragraph. I get around it by correctly (I think) deciding that if the universe really was put together the way my Bible Belt friends say it was, a supreme being like God or his Son, or the mysterious Holy Ghost, would be cool. They could take a joke, maybe give as good as they got.
It's just that humans are indeed such a superstitious lot. Fear and dread play an important role in our mythology, from the several levels of Hell to the shadow in the closet. It's just the way we're wired.
Now, I'm not going to lay out the history of the Friday the Thirteenth myth, as you may have feared. I just wanted to share what I read the other day on the NPR web site. Apparently there is such a thing as "the fear of Friday the Thirteenth." Unlike the fear of walking under ladders, which is just good judgement, or the fear of clowns, which is of course a no-brainer, the Friday 13 thing is a little more subtle. But that's still not what I'm getting at here.
It's the word. The term for fear of Friday the Thirteenth is paraskevidekatriaphobia. Now, that is scary. And so you don't have to, I counted, and it falls short by five letters having the same length as antidisestablishmentarianism.*
It is now the 15th, far enough beyond last Friday that we can all feel really, really safe now, just like we did ten or fifteen minutes before the actual end of every horror movie, and we can look forward to next month, when Friday the Thirteenth falls on a Monday.**
*Holy crap, there was no red wavy line under this. What's going on here?
**Pogo
It's one of the dumber phobias, imo. At least the fear of snakes or heights or water has some basis in DANGER. It's irrational even if you believe in the whole Jesus thing, because isn't it great that the whole scenario unfolded as the bible says it did, so everyone can be saved now? Why would you fear the number of people at his table and think it's bad luck? Then again, nothing about "faith" is supposed to be rational whatsoever, so there you go. Actually, faith is irrational in the same way as worrying about if you've left the iron on and checking 72 times or whatever thing. Right? I mean this fear that if you don't do all the things the "correct" way you will end up in hell, which is another imaginary place. I feel compelled to check things extra times, keep stuff in order, etc. It's irrational too. But I don't have any problem with people's fantasies about the supernatural as long as they don't impose them on me...
ReplyDeleteAnd you know bad things will happen on a Friday the 13th, just as they do any other day. It's like people saying hey folks who have been vaccinated have DIED! Well yes. People die every day, loads of people, whether they've been vaxed for Covid or not. It isn't going to protect you against heart disease, strokes, and car accidents for pete's sake!
Superstitions are brain lice.
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