Believe or Not to Believe

Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your momma’s back. Avoid walking under ladders. Break a wishbone from the remains of a chicken. Wish upon a falling star. We are all taught not to believe in “such nonsense” but we often jump over every sidewalk crack, check the street for ladders, or examine our dinner for a wishbone. Sayings, superstitions, legends, and tall tales have been passed down from generation to generation. But why do we believe in something that is not supported by an inkling of fact? Are we, to use the common phrase, jumping on the bandwagon, just like every fool before us?

            Just imagine that today is Friday. Friday the Thirteenth. What will happen to you today? Will your car break down, your company file for bankruptcy, can’t find your cat? Of course, Friday the Thirteenth is just like any other day, why should it get all the blame? It could have been that you just had a flat tire, or your manager had meant to say “synergy” instead of “bankruptcy”, maybe your cat was actually in your air conditioning vent, playing with a ball of yarn. And of course, if anything good happens on this infamous day, you turn a blind eye. Anyway, how did this superstition even start? Who said that the number thirteen was unlucky, and how in the world did they come to that conclusion?

            Superstition is prominent in literature too. For example, in the Harry Potter series, most people in the wizarding world consider “Voldemort”, the name of the most feared dark wizard who ever lived, to be a terrible thing to say. As Harry Potter carelessly let slips “Voldemort” instead of the preferred “You-Know-Who”, he is a witness to immediate agitation and alarm. Of course, it’s not the name that’s scary, it’s the person. As Dumbledore so wisely tells us, “fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself”. And, as we can see, the fear of the name “Voldemort” has been transmitted from person to person, the conveyor always maintaining that they have acted in their audience’s best interest. However, they are really just inviting them on to believe in an unfounded fear.

            Superstition is a lot more trouble than it is worth. In one thrilling, spine-tingling mystery solved in Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles, superstition is at the root of fear and suspense. The notorious Baskerville legend takes place upon the moor, “a place of shadow and gloom” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). Sherlock Holmes must untangle the cooked-up reason of Sir Charles death, from what has really happened. He faces dead ends everywhere with his practical reasoning, and the readers wonder, for a moment, whether the phony legend could possibly be true. However, in the end, the fanciful tall tale is proved to be fake, and fact, evidence, and verifiable truth end up winning.

            Superstition seems to be everywhere, sometimes even around the most matter- of- fact people. But in the end superstition is just another saying, tall tale, or legend that will wrong foot us, or just plain waste our time. What purpose do these false beliefs and notions serve anyway? Why does society bother making these up? Then again, superstition can be fun, after all, we have to believe in something and sometimes, when we are in a hurry, the validity of what we believe in escapes us. But if you happen across a superstitious person, don’t bother to point out the wishbone that they missed in their chicken.