New era, newer superstitions
Has anybody called you superstitious yet? If they haven’t, they should. Because superstition is all around us. Without it, we can’t really carry on. We need something to rely on — mentally speaking per se — and we’d do everything within our realm to ensure that we survive at all costs. A thing doesn’t have to pass the test of time or the rigor of a lab for us to believe in it. We can believe in anything as long as it gets us through the day. Just that we don’t like the word ‘superstition’ anymore. It’s an uncool word, unfit to loiter in the 21st century. But is that really the case? I don’t think so. In my loudest opinion, superstition perhaps could be the reason why our species prospered.
Going by the dictionary, the S-word is not to be fiddled with; it has serious repercussions. Although it pinches the cheeks of our belief system, it really wants to slap hard. That’s the whole gist. In other words, blind belief. But the greater quest is, what isn’t blind belief then? The world’s biggest ecosystem of fraud is based on blind belief: religion. And the same is true for the non-religious facets of our lives. Our forefathers believed in ridiculous things and we justifiably laugh at the same. What remains remiss is the superstition of our generation, or should we say, era? The articles of superstition have merely changed while the core remained as it was. Your grandpa wouldn’t walk under the ladder because for some messed up reason, he thought it would bring him ill luck. Alternatively, you believe that words such as opportunity, growth, economy, patriotism, stocks, career and future actually mean something. The only practical difference between him and you is your superstition is so sophisticated that you can’t even afford to live without it. He, in his defense, can avoid the ladder. Can you avoid all the aforementioned words?
We continue to do a lot of things without even realizing how dumb and blind they are. Nobody asks. Nobody tells. Just because a person is scared of a black cat crossing her path, we label her superstitious while overlooking the innumerable cases where we just give in to a blind belief organized by somebody else. If you ask yourself, why did you do that? You are left with no answer. I wore a tie because others expect me. It has no purpose other than pointing to my real brain. You have a cocktail night and everybody lifts their glasses for the ritualistic cheers. Why do you do it? If an act doesn’t have scientific merit, it belongs to superstition, right?
After a lot of permutation and combination, you’d arrive at a conclusion. Humanity is the only superstition worth believing in. Everything else is a facade. The only problem is we couldn’t have possibly made it to 2018 if we believed in this superstition.
