Friday the 13th 2021 - What could possibly go wrong?

Happy Friday - again! Fridays come around way too fast. It feels like the previous one was just yesterday. Or could it be that this one came at full magic speed because it is Friday the 13th?! 

This specific day is deemed to be unlucky for reasons which cannot be fully proven. One can reference the corny horror movie, 'Friday the 13th' (2009),  by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. In this horror, a group of young adults visit a boarded up campsite named Crystal Lake where they soon encounter Jason Voorhees' ghost and his deadly intentions. But when has a movie ever influenced the psyche of humans this much? 

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To top it all off, no one is certain of the day the first Friday the 13th can be associated with 'bad luck'. What we do have looking at history, is the bad connections the number 13 has. There is a certain fear to the number 13 as certain Western cultures have historically associated the number 12 with completeness - 12 days of Christmas, 12 months of the year, and zodiac signs, 12 labours of Hercules, 12 gods of Olympus, and 12 tribes of Israel. The number 13, as a result, has a long history as a sign of bad luck. This is according to History.com. 

Most of these have a lot of influence from the Christian religion. 13 guests were at the Last Supper including Jesus and his 12 apostles (one of whom, Judas, betrayed him). The following day, on a Friday, Jesus got crucified. So, this seating arrangement at the Last Supper is believed to have given rise to a longstanding Christian superstition that having 13 guests at a table is a bad omen - specifically that it was courting death.

With the day Friday, it was said to be the day Eve gave Adam the fateful apple from the Tree of Knowledge, as well as the day Cain killed his brother, Abel.

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However, Darren believes none of the above. Actually, no one in the team has anything truly attached to this phenomenon. 

This inspired Darren to mention that being superstitious is what actually attracts the bad luck. 

He made this statement before the whole of KZN and everyone else who was watching and listening. 

Take a look: 

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Just a little note for anyone who is superstitious - the key reason it persists is a psychological concept called a "discriminative stimulus".

If you write exams with your lucky pen and succeed or pass enough times, you will be more relaxed than if you were not writing with it. This then influences your performance – you will already feel doomed because you cannot find your 'lucky pen'. That is what the superstitions do to your psyche. 

So, forget 'Friday the 13th' if you’re feeling a little anxious today. Try to remember there’s nothing different about it to any other day except that it's the weekend, baby! Have a great one and stay warm.

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So right when we thought that it cannot and will not go bad, Darren's #FridayThe13th morning started off on a bad note despite his plans to prove the superstition is void: 

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We were super excited to see Darren Maule outdo #FridayThe13th but sadly, here he was compensating with coffee for arriving a little late on the day of bad luck:

Nevertheless, things picked up. Just a little off morning not a bad day! 

Main Image Courtesy: Supplied