This note is not unusual. I leave similar notes for Brad lying around the house with curious consistency. I leave instructions for my funeral, affirmations of my happiness, and bequests of my belongings:
"Brad, please make sure there is lots of booze at my funeral…and good music. Nothing religious…no matter what my mom says."
"Despite my bitching and moaning, I really did live to see all my dreams come true."
"Thanks for making me happy… I promise to haunt you…you know what to look for."
"Give my pearls and ruby ring to Sadie."
I don't leave these notes because I think I will die in a fiery plane crash. I leave these notes because I think that if I do not…then I surely will. It is like a preemptive un-jinxing of myself. I know this is a logical fallacy. It looks like this:
Premise 1: Bad thing happen to people.
Premise 2: When something bad happens it is usually unexpected.
Conclusion: Bad things only happen to people who don't expect it.
Despite this flaw in my otherwise impeccable thinking, I find an odd comfort in my ritualistic practice of preemptively un-jinxing myself.
Interestingly, the paradoxical result is that I am not practically prepared for anything now. This is because on some level, I actually believe that I have un-jinxed myself, so preparation is now unwarranted. No need to write a will… I probably won't die now that I've just thought about it happening. Who needs food storage or an emergency kit…just think about that earthquake and it won't happen today. Once you've thought the tsunami away, the emergency life raft becomes completely unnecessary!
To illustrate the fallacy of my thinking, here is a similar example:
Premise 1: Pirates drink rum
Premise 2: Drinking rum gets you drunk.
Conclusion: If I am drunk, I must be a pirate. Arrgh!
Now, as logical as the above statement seems on it's face, when such an argument is placed in a Venn diagram, the fallacy of the proposition becomes apparent:
You see, I could be drunk, and drinking wine, vodka, jack or gin. Or, I could be drinking rum and not be drunk...which is unlikely, but entirely possible. However, according to the diagram, I can't be a pirate unless I am drunk or drinking rum...or both...apparently.
So, with regards to my logic, it's not important that I've turned my life into a ritual of impotent worry and paranoia...The important lesson here is: only about 1/3 of me is drunk, and only about 1/5 of me is a drunk pirate.
