Did you miss me? HAH! Don't worry, I know you didn't realize I was gone (unless you did, in which case I love you). And I wish I could tell you I had gone to some beach resort or a remote town in a European village, but alas, that is not the truth. Instead of running you through my day to day lets just leave it at: life can hit hard and, when you let your guard down, life can really lean back and hit EVEN harder. Now that I'm back on my feet, spitting out my own teeth with my gloves up ready for the bell, let's talk about something that I have been hearing a lot: bad things come in threes. Hopefully, that gives some indication of how the last two weeks, and my entire year, has been. Do bad things actually come in threes? Put on your researcher/conspirer tin foil hat because we're getting into it. Do we believe this off of circumstantial fact or do we often find ourself ooh-ing and ahh-ing over Shakespearian level triplets? Let's not hold the suspense because I know you're all dying to hear my HOTTAKE© on common sayings spouted by older generations to account for misfortune, I think it's a patterns thing. I know, it's not exactly a shocking thought, but I've been thinking about it, so now you are too. Triaphilia refers to the phenomenon of finding three as a satisfying and, at times, suspicious number. And if your first inclination is to deny this, consider how many phrases in our natural world are threes; "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité", "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and "Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll" are a few that I can name off the top of my head. So, in a similar way to how religion helps us understand the afterlife and how our brains make up colour in order to organize our world, our brains are programmed to search for pieces to make sense of the world around us and therefore threes seem to pop up at a particle of hope, mysticism and fear. And when you consider that another version of the "bad things come in threes" phrase is "death comes in threes." You face the glaring concepts behind the probability of many deaths occurring at once and the impossible void that is occurrence and fate. Okay, a new theory for the tinfoil hatters, maybe our fascination with threes comes from the Grim Reaper's weird obsession with it, you know I have noticed he only does three buttons up on his cloak(?). Just kidding, we won't get too existential, silly or mathematical today. I've always thought it was strange for humans to search for patterns, but as a lover of conspiracy theories I can see that it is as deeply engrained in us as our natural ability to survive. Our entire purpose in life is to understand. We spend our whole lives trying to understand why we're here, what we're doing, what is going on around us -- even if there may not be a certain answer for us to grasp on to. So it only makes sense that we look at a group of bad happenings and think "what is the universe trying to tell me?" instead of "what a random set of circumstances that I have no control over and never will." I often look to fate to trying and explain away my personal life, but the truth is that it is all random. You can pull yourself out of a bad situation and still get in a car accident, you could become a vigilant driver and still have your phone stolen. All we can do is stay positive, support each other and attempt to put our best foot forward. To conclude, in the wise words of a man who is a professional philosopher, and not my boyfriend: "Maybe bad things don't come in threes, maybe bad things just come." And that is a man after my own heart. I hope your days are full of good things, in more than threes!
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