Can you be a die-hard rationalist but also totally superstitious? (Asking for a friend)
I’m serious, I wonder about this a lot. One of the reasons I was keen to get into the relationship between a mad scientist and a witch in #AlltheBirdsintheSky is because I am 100 percent pro-science, and pro-empiricism, and all that good stuff. And I’m also mad superstitious. I have weird things. Like, I pick up pennies on the sidewalk and don’t walk under ladders, but I also hug trees. A lot. And I pet stone lions and other kinds of statues. For luck. I also believe in fortune cookies way too much. Yesterday, I went to wayyy too much trouble to eat Hoppin John on New Year’s Day. I engage in “magical thinking” a lot, especially when I’m obsessing about trying to make sense of a story. I guess it comes down to thinking that magic and storytelling are closely linked, and you need a bit of one to get the other. But maybe I have to hand in my “empiricist” card? What do you think?
Top image: Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind.
