We live in an increasingly superstitious world. The rise of religious fundamentalism, the popularity of the new age movement, the increase in psychic and ghost hunting shows on tv all point to this. It scares me.
It scares me far more than the drunk guy who came up to me as I was unlocking my bike and insisted that I was going to die. I have to say he was spooky. An older guy in a nice suit and overcoat with shiny shoes; he wasn't an incoherent homeless ranter. He was however, very insistent that getting on my bike was going to be fatal.
Pah, I say. I know folks, nice, normal, intelligent folks who would have taken him seriously. He was well dressed, he could have been a psychic who earned his living of the lottery, right? This is the danger of letting the para-normal into your life. You decide to believe one thing without insisting on good evidence and that can be the start of a downhill slide. If you're willing to believe X despite a lack of proof, why not Y or Z? Where does it end?
It ends with allowing some drunk who knows nothing about winter cycling project his unsubstantiated fears onto you. There's more than enough to worry about in the world without that sort of nonsense.
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1 comment:
That reminds me of Pete Postlethwaite's line in "Kingdom of Heaven", "all death is certain". When my kids talk about dying, my response is generally something like "eventually, yes".
Maybe he was just eighty years early?
On an esoteric note, there's a heap too much fear in the human collective unconscious atm and it does squidge out like that at times. :D
Looking forward to you and your wife rocking up down here, I'll take you up on that balaclava. :D
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