Superstition as Art

Posted on January 27, 2003 in Myths & Mysticism

Natalie confesses to thoughts like the quasi-superstitions I hold.

When I was an anthropology major many years ago, I learned that human beings read events in particular ways due to the construction of their minds and the ways they have been trained. We’re storytelling animals: we like to see patterns just as we like to see the tracks of the game we like to eat and the particular colors that tell us when the fruit is ripe. Magic may not exist in the world, but it exists in our minds.

To solve the problem of taking events too seriously, I look upon the little jumps that I feel in my throat when I see them as signs that my creative imagination is working. Natalie advises that I should “just to be safe I’d get it [the fallen picture] fixed immediately.” I have no problem with this. My mind loves to manufacture and look for connections. That can tire me out. Fixing it tonight or tomorrow will rob it of material.

If you’re alive and conscious of what is around you, you’re going to be conscious of coincidences and mark them “just in case” they prove to be connected. The artist in us loves to make connections, even when no factual or logical basis for making them exists. I honor the artist in me and note coincidences for the fun of it. I do not call myself stupid or superstitious when I see them: I celebrate the fact that my head has invented something lively.

Here’s an example of a fun coincidence I noted: on November 22, 1963, I was at the Post Office with my mother when the postmaster came out from the back and announced that President Kennedy had been shot. Three years ago, I was showing my mother how email worked when I got a message from a friend in New York. I opened it up and there was the news that John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane was missing.

We both like to talk about it now. It makes for conversation.

Sweep America for any two events at any time and you will find people who can mark such coincidences in their lives. It doesn’t show any real pattern except proof of randomness. I remember these particular events because of the two Kennedys involvement, that of my mother, and the fact that we were using mail vs. email. There have been times when I have known who was on the phone before I picked it up. And there have been times when I thought one person was calling and it turned out to be someone else. And many times when I had no idea.

Random chance predicts that these events will occur from time to time. When I do successfully predict, it’s good for a chuckle and a smile: I’m not about to ask people to stake their money and futures on the power of my predictions. Uncertainties are more enjoyable than certainties. I do what work I must to attempt to influence the outcome, but with a little preparation for the event that things do not turn out as I please.

The desire for certainty kills and demoralizes: even when we grab the power to narrow uncertainty, we do so at the cost of corruption — we make others suffer for our taste for luxury.

I try to avoid that, albeit imperfectly.

Do you have a fun coincidence story or superstition you’re prepared to laugh about? Either leave a comment or be a link whore and blog about it, then link me through Trackback.