When you say something that could potentially be horrible you’re supposed to follow it by announcing “knock on wood” and then actually knock your knuckle on something wooden – 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.
Saying things doesn’t make them happen or not happen in the style of a jinx, but to the extent that obsessing over something can then make it more or less likely to happen (a real thing that is not at all the same as the jinx version), the more you plan on an event happening, the less likely it will happen.
It’s a version of the proverb that “Man plans and God laughs”, which is to point out how humans have no actual say over what happens in life and nature. A plan for a successful journey relies on elements out of the journeymans control, such as the elements themselves.
Planning that something will or won’t happen and obsessing over it has no actual effect on reality, but even in a world where the superstitious are correct: the opposite of the jinx and knock-on-wooders would be true. If you say something bad is going to happen – it’s less likely to happen. Both in the magical sense that I’ve already established is not real, and in the real sense that I’ve established has very limited effect on reality. Focusing on bad things happening within your control can distract and obsess you enough to make you do them (how many times have you said “don’t fkk it up don’t fkk it up” only to fkk it up? and how many times have you not cared and your natural self breezed through not fkking it up like a champ?) but focusing on bad things happening outside of your control makes them less likely.
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