Popular wisdom dictates that mentioning a horrible event is likely to will that event into being. If you say you’re going to die in a plane crash, for instance, your plane is more likely to go down because you jinxed it. This is the same foolishness behind “knocking on wood” – as if, because you said something might happen, you have put in a request to Fate for that thing to happen and the only way to cancel the order is by tapping your knuckles on wood.
All of this is silly caveman superstition of course. The truth is the opposite: saying things makes them not happen.
Actually, that was tongue-in-cheek, since the above statement is satirically using the same line of logic of the superstition I just mocked. In fact, 98% of Richardland content is satirical stuff said for some ulterior interpretation but I have to break character here in order to point out that you need not and should not believe verbal iteration has any effect whatsoever over the natural world through any cosmic effect.
-Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, I’m going to proceed to argue the opposite:
Proclaiming that horrible acts of random freak-accident style horror are likely to happen, makes them significantly less likely to happen.
Think about it… every negative thing that happens that is random is never predicted. No one says “my family is going to die in a natural disaster this month. I dont know where or how but I feel like they’re going to!” and then that thing happens.
Tragedy wants to sneak up on you. If you look around and say “I know you’re there”, sometimes it will give up from hiding around the corner and try a different time.
this is what happens when you’re not prepared for horrible random things to happen
Remember that Horrific-Adversidy is an ambush predator. If you look it in the eye and call it out then it has a less liklihood of getting you.
Like a Great White Shark – it’s actually a coward. It has powerful murderous teeth and jaws with which to destroy you, but it’s actually a scaredy cat. It only gets you by stalking you and then swiftly snapping you up with a surprise attack. If you are big enough, it will then go away for a little bit while you bleed out so as to avoid injury from your flailing attempts to not-fkking-die. If you don’t let it sneak on you, it is significantly less likely to identify you as worthy prey and if it gets you and you fight for survival, it is significantly more likely to decide you’re not worth it and not come back for a second bite. So in life, just like in the ocean: Be aware of potential dangers, confront them, and fight fight fight.
Make the potentially horrific your pet.
this is what can happen when you accurately assess potential dangers and confront them anyway
The reason I’ve been thinking of this is that my mother goes into hip surgery in a few hours. It’s a very safe procedure and I’ve searched everywhere for deaths, complications, and horrible things happening and it just doesn’t happen with hip replacements. She’s gonna get a titanium bulb in her ball-and-socket joint over a 2 hour long procedure and then be home within 2 days and running around within 3 weeks. That’s what the data says. Yet I’ve been secretly mentally preparing for horrible disaster as I always do with these situations. Not because I think it’s actually likely at all but because that kind of safety of being secure in the thought that what always happens will happen this time is exactly what Tragedy WANTS you to think… having just enough healthy knowledge that the best laid plans can end in disaster prevents disaster from happening. Not necessarily in practice but in effect for sure.
As I wrote before – I have a horrible sense of doom over this super safe and routine procedure, but if I let Fate know that I know what it’s considering, then it will give up and go home.