I have socks with an L and R on them. I don’t really understand the difference. L on the R, or R on the L feels about the same. Still, I want the left sock, the L, to unroll first in the morning. My superstition: if the L presents first, it will be a lucky day; if not, then . . . I have to absorb the disappointment and quickly find reasons to believe it just doesn’t matter. That I am being silly; it is only a sock.  No otherworldly force is watching over my ‘sock and shoe’ routine. I am simply putting on socks.  But then: I also tap the heart on the side of a 737 when I board a Southwest flight; I knock on wood – bed frame, couch leg, cupboard, desk – if a conversation veers towards potential tragic consequences. And I ask my Dad – dead almost 5 years now – to help me solve tough problems (I’ll be in my house, alone, walking down the wooden stairwell and looking left at our huge living room mirror, and I’ll talk out loud to him – which is really talking out loud to myself in the glass – wanting his view and advice, looking for comfort from a dead man; a man I miss every day) . The theory is that the tap, the wood, the one-way conversation, the “L”, will fend off bad tidings; that the energy from the action will prevent bad outcomes (and maybe even encourage good outcomes). Of course, none of it works. (Or maybe it does, maybe there is a force surrounding our consciousness and actions, monitoring the comings and goings of our brief, infinitesimal, inconsequential lives; and that we need only be aware of the force, acknowledge it and direct its energy with purpose and intention. The Buddha sat under a banyan tree intentionally – to bring its natural growth and strength to his meditation; and I’d say that worked out pretty well for him.)

– by MJB