Superstition, Fate, Oedipus Rex, and Peanut Butter

I'm not much of a superstitious person.  I don't believe in jinxing.  I don't believe knocking on wood will prevent something from happening.  I don't believe stepping on the chalk will keep you from getting a hit in a baseball game. I don't believe wearing a certain hat will help your favorite team win.  I don't believe in rabbit feet being lucky or wearing the same under shirt under your basketball jersey because you dropped 30 last game will help you do it again.  I believe more in creating your own luck.  I believe in being in the right place at the right time.  I believe luck is created by momentum.  Say two guys are commentating about Lebron James not missing a free throw in 50 tries.

  He will always miss, right?  And then your buddy will turn to you and say, "They jinxed him."  This is a myth.  He doesn't always miss.  We just remember them being wrong, but countless times I have seen them not jinx the player by saying that and no one ever brings those times up.  People magnify an instance when they are trying to prove jinxing exists.  I named my Summer volleyball team Back on Top this year. Now after winning two straight championships, we followed with two forth place finishes.  I named the team after the two championships Three Peters because we were going to win our third straight championship (and we had three males hence the three peters reference).

We of course flopped and didn't win.  Some would say I jinxed my team (including my cousin on the team who was angry at me for naming the team that).  In my opinion, jinxing can get into your head and cause you to play worse or do something worse.  If you are spinning a ball on your finger, you may say to someone, "I've never gone less than 10 seconds spinning this on my finger."  When you go to show them maybe you only last 5 seconds.  Maybe it's because it's in your head not because you jinxed yourself.  Anyway back to Back on Top.  I named my team that, with everyone saying, "No, don't do that you will never win now."  I did it to show my team I had confidence in them but to also prove we didn't lose 2 years before because I named a team Three Peters.  We won the whole thing this season, with no jinx.  I bring this all up because I lost a fantasy football game by .4 points yesterday.  If you remember a blog I wrote on September 13, 2011, I lost by .3 in the first game of the season (You can read it here). I know no one cares to listen about someone else's fantasy team but even the other players in my league feel bad for it.  For two years now we had a decimal system.  I have been the only victim of it not once, but twice now.  I had a pretty comfortable lead going into Monday Night Football and then Brandon Marshall decides to score a garbage time touchdown in the game.  A lot of people have been telling me I have bad luck.  It got me in the mindset that I did.  Until I started writing this blog.  I mean nothing I did was going to stop Marshall from scoring that touchdown.  Crossing my fingers wouldn't have done anything, which by the way I always say cross your fingers or knock on wood, but that doesn't mean I believe it will work; it is because society taught me to say those things and do those things.  I believe everything happens for a reason.  I kind of believe in fate.  Have any of you ever heard of Oedipus Rex, aka Oedipus the King?  It's an ancient Greek tragic play by a dude named, Sophocles.  

Sophocles

Basically, the moral is you can't escape your fate. Oedipus father hears from an Oracle that his own son was going to kill him so he gets rid of him.  Oedipus then hears his fate that he will end up being with his mother and will kill his father.  Of course he doesn't want to do this so he decides to leave his adopted parents.  He didn't know he would run into his true father, kill him in battle and wed his former wife at his kingdom which was his mother.  It was my fate that I was going to lose the game this week, nothing more or less.  

Winner of the Day: Brandon Marshall.  That bastard accounted for way too many fantasy points so I will give him kudos.  Well played sir.

  

Loser of the Day: Peanut Butter.  A lot of it has been recalled from major grocery stores. The Story

Quote of the Day: “Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”-Lemony Snicket

Song of the Day: Beautiful Boy by John Lennon

Michael Clarke Duncan Facts of the Day: Not only did he supposedly give five dollars to anyone who recognized him on the street and knew what his full name was; he also Did bodyguard work for Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jamie Foxx, LL Cool J, and The Notorious B.I.G.; he let a friend take over for him the night Notorious B.I.G. got shot, which prompted him to quit that line of work.