Things you don't believe in but do anyway

[Giliell]

Watching Eddie Current's latest video it started me thinking about superstitious stuff I don't actually believe in but do anyway.

So, here's my list:
-Look the other person in the eyes when you're clinking glasses because otherwise you have 7 years of bad sex (I'm not taking Pascal's Wager on that!)
-Knock on wood for good luck
-Wish upon a shooting star
-Make a wish and blow away an eyelash
-Never congratulate somebody before their actual birthday

Do you have an own list of carefully cultivated nonsense or any thoughts on it?

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

I take homeopathic medicine. I don't believe in it but I take large amounts of homeopathic medicine.

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

I have a hard time stopping myself from saluting magpies, but I think that's about it...

 

[Prolescum]

If I touch something with my left foot, let's say I scrape it on a kerb, my right foot must have a similar scrape or I lose my balance; OCD-prompted gravity wells appear momentarily. How lame is that...

This also applies to standing on cracks in the pavement.

 

[Cephei]

I never walk under ladders. Maybe it's not so much superstition as it is fear of something big and heavy falling on me, but still.

 

[Squawk]

Not sure OCD counts in this context, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've tried hard to rid myself of pretty much all of these types of things, I only now do stuff like "knock on wood" in jest.

 

[Giliell]

I never walk under ladders. Maybe it's not so much superstition as it is fear of something big and heavy falling on me, but still.

I've always wondered: Wouldn't you actually be safer under the ladder with its construction above you as shelter than walking around it?

 

[lrkun]

I pray when I'm with my family. It became a habit. I don't mind doing it. It's for their benefit, not mine.

 

[Prolescum]

Not sure OCD counts in this context, but maybe I'm wrong.

I would say it does in this case because it makes no sense to lose my balance because I scuff my foot or stand on a crack...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I blame traffic lights for intentionally trying to make me late for things.

 

[Yfelsung]

I do the knock on wood thing, but as I joke being that I tap my crotch and then say "knock on wood".

 

[FaithlessThinker]

That's a hard question.

For me, I tend to believe I have bad luck because I miss the bus most of the time. If only I'd been a few seconds earlier, I could have caught the bus. And it happens *exaggeration alert* ALL the time!

It feels like the universe is scheming to make me miss the bus, then laughing at me when I do! (Of course, I know it's not true.)

 

[Andiferous]

Watching Eddie Current's latest video it started me thinking about superstitious stuff I don't actually believe in but do anyway.

Do you have an own list of carefully cultivated nonsense or any thoughts on it?

I'm not the least bit afraid of being superstitious, but I do all kinds of these things anyway as a sort of "game." Like Prole said, trying not to step on cracks. (To pass the time, I used to run the Sesame Street pinball song in my head to count each concrete pad on the sidewalk to complicate matters and challenge myself more. It was more like a puzzle than a superstition). I bless people when they sneeze, and they're usually surprised and a bit flattered. For myself it's more of an effort to be aware.

I used to hold my breath through subway tunnels every day on the trip to work, but the real challenge was to try to look completely normal to the other passangers so they didn't know I was doing it. I've got my daughter doing the silly things I do for fun, like lifting her feet when going over railway crossings (I can't do when driving obviously), ducking her head when going through underpassings, holding her breath through tunnels, counting cows and horses, and so forth. And we do it just for fun, because patience ought to be fun, I suppose.

(Also, when driving or on transit, we take bets on time and direction all the time. "How much longer 'till we get there?" "Will we go right or left?" "Who will see and count the Volkswagon Bugs first?!)

Astrology is fun too. I'm not dedicated to it, but it's fun to play with it. I think there is a difference between "playing games" (because those sorts of things just keep you entertained), and being cursed by failure to observe "superstitions."

 

[kenandkids]

I will not look in mirrors in a dark room.

 

[australopithecus]

I take homeopathic medicine. I don't believe in it but I take large amounts of homeopathic medicine.

Me too. One could say I have it....on tap...

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Mirrors... I don't know what they'd do if I didn't watch them, but I don't trust the fuckers.

 

[Inferno]

Trying not to step on cracks. But I doubt that that's superstition or something, it's just me being bored.

 

[lrkun]

I have some sort of ritual when I drink tea. I place the ashtray in the middle and it's surrounded by my stuff, think crop circles hehe.

 

[Doc.]

Funny thread, here are mine

I have a feeling that there is a camera behind the mirrors (not everywhere, just in the mirrors I often look into, like one in my elevator and bathroom) recording me making silly faces. I'm afraid that somebody will eventually blackmail me and send it all over the internet :lol: I had a really small wooden totem carved by a friend of mine, I thought it would bring me luck, but I lost it. Also, this one has started like couple of months ago, I have a feeling that if I think of a person I will soon see him/her, of if I think of a some cartoon character I will soon see something related to that character, things like that, this one is really tricky for the enormous amount of short, soon-forgotten thoughts that come to our brains throughout the day.

 

[RichardMNixon]

I blame traffic lights for intentionally trying to make me late for things.

I do too, but I also live in a town with the worst possible traffic system imaginable. One of the lights on my morning commute also actually does have a man sitting at the bottom of the hill who manually turns on red lights.

Honestly I can't think of many. When my intramural teammates complain about jinxing a game I make sure to do it moreso.

Ahh, I do occasionally worry when I have a strange thought in mind that someone out there is psychic and knows what strange thing I'm thinking. Then of course I try to spook them my telepathically addressing the eavesdropper. No one is ever psychically startled...