As a child, I was always questioned about my lack of magic abilities. Yes, my birthday, Sept.13, does often land on Friday. Yes, I do have a black cat. You’re correct: My father is a carpenter so I have walked under ladders. Indeed, I have opened an umbrella indoors.

Yet get this. I’m alive.

All of these things, had they brought the levels of bad luck they’re famed to, would have caused my demise by now were they true.

Because I effortlessly avoided trivial accounts of bad luck such as these, the young classmates of mine assumed I was more than simply human. They looked at superstition as undying truth. A light in the darkness which defined our culture. Yet this is not the case and we, humanity at its finest, seldom pause to question from where the superstitions stemmed.

Instead, we simply assume their truth and exploit their lack of factuality.

For instance, opening umbrellas indoors does not bring bad luck in time. It brings items crashing to the floor because of an umbrella hitting them. It’s simply a matter of being cautious about your surroundings.

Just like umbrellas, every superstition is rooted in truth. Factual events are turned into folklore, only to become superstition and fear.

So this past Friday the Thirteenth, what did you think about? The famed movies of the same name? The superstitions? The fact that everyone else was thinking about it?

I for one, was simply thinking that it was my birthday, I didn’t have work, and man… It is good to be alive.