August 8th, 2013
XIII
When I was little, I used to play that game walking on the side walk where you don’t step on the crack—or it will break your mother’s back. I noticed my son trying not to step on the cracks of the side walk as we were walking the other day & he looked up at me and grinned. I guess some childhood superstitions are learned. Magical thinking can be extremely entertaining and our imaginations create portals to worlds that had not existed previous to the thoughtful creation and projection of the mind. I love the power of the mind, but it is unclear where to draw the line between what we hold as reality and what we create. It is all connected.
Superstition has a vague etiology, but it is tied to many different concepts of one event leading to another without any natural process. I connect superstition to OCD in some ways due to the research and what I have been exposed to. It seems as though a mental processes can become compulsive or a person perceives power to some ‘thing’ and it takes control—too much power. Or perhaps, the glimmer of hope that we mentally attach to certain objects, ideas, places, things, patterns, etc. are a part of the very essence of human beings…either way—I do not consider myself to be superstitious. Then again, I tie events and processes together without any logical explanation all of the time. I would say that I am more “eccentric” or in laymen terms just crazy…not really superstitious. And OCD honestly annoys me. I would say that the most superstitious act I perform is tapping my shot glass on the table before I throw it back. I think in pretty rebellious terms, and I can think of several times where I intentionally swept over feet, walked under ladders, broke mirrors, did not knock on wood—or whatever custom tradition applicable—I believe in what we give power of the mind to—is…mostly.
-Sunny
As a Brit there is a television programme (yes I did spell it the proper way) that I was raised on and that has just celebrated fifty years on BBC.
The venerable show I am waffling about is Dr. Who.
For those of you (like myself) who are sci-fi geeks I would at least give it a shot if you haven’t perused it before.
From 1963 where the budget for T.V. shows in the UK especially the BBC (which is commercial free, but you have to pay an annual TV license or you could get fined) was what you could rustle up from the couch, it was and still is an iconic production.
The basic story is of a time travelling humanoid alien who is referred to as ‘The Doctor’ . He travels in time with a machine called the ‘TARDIS’ which stands for ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.’
He comes from a planet called Gallifrey which is the home world for all ‘Time Lords’.
Throughout the 50 years of this show there have been 11 actors who have played the Doctor.
Whenever the Doctor is near death, just before he hears the fat lady sing he regenerates into a different incarnation, hence the eleven Doctors previously.
He also has companions, primarily female and somewhat good looking who are generally earthlings from somewhere in the inner city of London. Weird.
His adversaries are in my opinion the bedrock of all the shows. His arch enemy is ‘The Master’ a fellow time lord who went rogue Republican, just kidding but it fits perfectly. Based upon Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty.
Others include Daleks (a mutated race of soft bodied beings encased in an armoured tank-like shell) and the Cybermen another bunch of messed up cyborg fucktards. ( I would love a race of aliens to be called that)
Each re-incarnation has its own quirks, unique looks and characteristics.
Admittedly the low budget production into the 90’s could be considered tacky and cheap, others may say charming and quaint.
For those who want to just check it out I would go with more of the modern (2005 onwards) episodes but this an anthology so you can jump in anywhere.
-TDB
I’ve seen my reflection split into shadow clones enough times to realize broken mirrors and black cats don’t carve my path. My signs of bad times have little or no warning… mostly. But the mainstream religion of cleche superstitions isn't a church I attend. I've never picked up a penny and that day everything went my way. Or walked under a latter and had anything unfortune follow after.
Like any belief system though, there are different stained glass windows for different people. I can recall my spilled salt after the fact and connect it like a dot to the scene of the crime. Maybe its just the tunnel vision we all have that blinds us to the fact we’re mixing Molotov cocks to shove up our tails since the majority of misfortune is the result of us fucking ourselves.
Like watching a scary movie, everyone but the people in it can see its a bad idea to check out what that sound was, to split up, and not call the cops after the first dead body. Hindsight is always the first one to mock us. And the memories haunt us. Details or situations leading up to the event become omens.
Ordered water!?!? Great, this tip is going to suck...
Others may lean towards more divine sources.
It ALWAYS fucken rains after I wash my car! Fuck!
Some of the epic foreshadowing I've noticed about myself is an empty stomach, too much on my mind, plus a trip to the bar equals not remembering who I pissed off last night. Knowing something I've should have said but for whatever reason kept it to myself, and its only a matter of time before it hits the light and shines on my lack of honesty.
Either way, taking heed from the strange noise in the woods may save us from watching ourselves in our mind right before we die yelling "Why did you go in there!?! Why did you split up!?!?" Or why didn't you tell her? Why didn't you call your friend to drive you home? Why didn't you break your phone before you started drinking?! Like you didn't know you weren't going to txt your ex.
Life is full of surprises for sure. But I'm more surprised by the bad luck we keep in our pockets. Like a bullet we're saving to shoot ourselves in the foot at exactly the right inconvienent moment. Lessons we learn and souvenirs we keep to remind us shooting stars won't bring the change that we need. The changes need to come from within and if we're lucky enough, it can adjust the winds of fate so we're pissing down stream instead of against the current. Good things are coming your way. If you want them. At least, that's what my fortune cookie told me.
-DCR
What’s up Doc?
Enamored with the fluidity of ideas, I have never occupied much of my time with beliefs.
Often impossible to prove and even more often a point of division between people, from a historical perspective beliefs have led to more deaths than could be accurately recorded. On the other hand , ideas have been a force of uniting people across vast geographic expanses, igniting conversations , and have brought about more rapid growth and technological progress in the last 100 years , than in the rest of recorded history.
While for some a lack of beliefs is defined by skepticism, for me It is much more centered on curiosity . Of the few areas I would classify as beliefs , timing would be the one that bears that most relevance to my life. Presenting itself in strange ways, most of the time it's hard to catch it in the moment, instead it's brief points of clarity provided by hindsight, and always wrapped in the comforting sense of mystery. Comfortable with the fact that I will never completely understand this world, the subtle hints of the universe that you are on the right path are hard to notice if your not looking for them. For me the metallic glimmer of a discarded penny on a lonely piece of pavement has frequently evoked feelings as if the universe were trying to indicate its approval of the direction I was headed in.
As some one who never really believed in luck, it does seem a bit silly to admit something of this nature , however to deny this feeling would be similar to disregarding the unmistakable feeling of déjà vu . Likely derivative of a childhood filled with games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, that sent the characters spinning through countless dimensions all while constantly searching for shinny metal objects, finding a penny in a random spot, has for quite sometime given me a feeling as if I was on the right path, and the my timing was working in my favor. Stumbling through this life with little clue as to which step should be taken next, I have a tendency to pick up these copper bread crumbs and add them to a collection of aging memories, hoping to make sense of this life one way or another.
Cognizant of how small we are on a universal scale, seeing the world in this fashion has helped me to make sense, or at least come to terms with the complexity of it all, and to learn to let go. Incapable of controlling every aspect of our lives, so much of our modern disorders seemingly stems from the inability to accept our lack of control, and the cosmic dissonance caused by our extremely mechanized and industrialized existence. Collecting ideas, much more frequently than pennies, as common said “one said it’ll all make sense”
-Joshua Genius
Pennies
Stuporstitions
