hans memling, scenes from the passion of christ, circa 1470.

for context i grew up in a very catholic country, even though my parents didnt raise me very religious. anyhow aside from brief dips into the neopaganism fad around 2015 i think when the whole superstition situation started was i believe during the pandemic when mostly for laughs i printed out an icon of st joseph of cupertino, the patron saint of students, to put up by my desk where i was spending most of my time. it was printed on reused paper like it wasnt all that deep my friend and i just thought it would be funny, and i had by pure chance visited cupertino the year before with my mother because we were bored and in the area. so i was like well isnt this serendipitous. anyhow i ended up keeping that icon and i started taking it with me to important exams and such. and i think that was sort of the start because as my anxiety got worse and worse i started accumulating more and more "good luck charms", some of which i keep on my person at all times when i leave the house (all paper stuff in a little plastic envelope in my wallet), and some for extreme cases like exams and whatnot. and aside from that little icon it's all keepsakes from people i love and places that mean a lot to me, which doesnt really seem all that nefarious. but im realising now that what was at first a way to remind myself that i have many people i love and who love me, bringing with me physical evidence of something positive in a time of negativity and anxious spirals, is now a ritual that, if i dont do it, makes me more anxious than i would have been otherwise. i start thinking well if so and so person doesnt have a keepsake in my array of good luck charms it means i dont really love them and i'm a bad person. and if by error i forget one it means basically im fucked and whatever im about to go do isnt gonna go well. i think u can see how this might be an issue. anyhow last night i watched this video that popped up on my youtube home page, titled "i practice spirituality, but i dont believe in it". i recommend watching it if youre interested it was a really refreshing and interesting perspective to hear and it was coming from a totally non judgemental place. in it she explained among other things that spirituality (in many shapes and forms of course) can be a framework, a map, to understand and navigate our raw experience of life, but that when that map hardens into pure belief not only does it make you mistake what is a purely subjective embodied experience of life for the framework itself but it also opens you up to manipulation and to being trapped in rituals that end up not serving you. you might think oh no shit sherlock. but to me it was very useful to hear it from someone who did respect and partake in many spiritual practices, coming from a lived experience that wasnt just judgement and or skepticism. and it made me realise that i really need to work on decostructing some of these rituals that i got myself trapped in, recenter on myself and my experience in my body and mind, and try and see again that what matters and what helped me at the beginning in times of stress isnt the object itself, but the feeling of love and care for and by those around me. and i am glad i took the time to pause and have that sort of wake up call, and i hope i will be able to actually do that inner work i said needs doing, because i know that these rituals have a tendency to pile up and to lead to more and more thoughts like that idea that if i dont have a keepsake of someone it means im not loving them enough and therefore a bad person. thats just one example and theres more, and i know that if i dont take action the situation will worsen because this is how these things go. actually let me link that video i really recommend it if youre interested in spirituality. i really dont know much about the spiritual practices she talks about but i found the way she approached the topic to be very interesting and helpful. not that i think anyone is reading all this lol i mostly wanted to write it out for myself ok love u bye