Showing posts with label superstition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superstition. Show all posts

Friday, February 13, 2009

Friday the 13th


Well, today's the dreaded Friday the 13th. And you know what that means.

It means absolutely nothing. Today is a normal day, just like every other day.

The 13 is due to our arbitrary calender with arbitrary numbers for every day and the non-arbitrary, roughly 24-hour period the Earth completes a single rotation around its axis. And believe it or not, our habit of assigning arbitrary numbers to non-arbitrary days doesn't change reality and make things either lucky or unlucky. If we had a different calender, today would be the 24th of Heptober or the 57th of Juneuary.

But today's Friday the 13th, a day saturated with superstition. Fortunately, National Geographic has a helpful article on the subject. (It's from 2004, but it's not like the superstitions ever change)

An expert's advice: think positive thoughts to keep those unjustified fears in check.

The woo-woo advice: "climb to the top of a mountain or skyscraper and burn all the socks you own that have holes in them" or "stand on your head and eat a piece of gristle"

I have a better idea: how about we try to act like we're sane people today and not do anything reckless, dangerous, or...gristle? Eat gristle?! What's wrong with these people?