Blogpost 2: The Mystery Behind 13

December 13, 2013 – what did I do that day? Hmm.. Nothing much, I think. It was just a simple, ordinary day for me, except that we had a test. Wait, what date is it today again? December 13, 2013? And it’s a Friday?! Nah! So that day was a Friday the 13^th. A lot of people think that Friday the 13^th is unlucky. But why is it so? Is there any difference of 13 being in a Thursday? There’s nothing, right? Not just the day itself is considered unlucky but also other situations or things that concerns number 13 as well.

As a grown-up individual, it has been a part of my growing stage that my parents taught me about some beliefs.  I know, may not all but most of us know about this stuff, superstition and such. I have learned that 13 is carries a bad perception for others. Some may think that this number, 13, is something we should be afraid of. And if you do, then most likely, you are under this condition called Triskaidekaphobia.

Remember my first post? Yes, I have posted about the Fear of numbers or Arithmophobia, wherein we talked about this fear. As I have said in my earlier post, arithmophobia causes anxiety associated with numbers in general, or it may be a specific number like the mysterious number 13. This phobia of “13” is called Triskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is simply all about the unreasonable and abnormal anxiety of 13, anything that concerns this number. 

There is an article entitled “Friday the 13th Phobia Rooted in Ancient History” written by John Roach. According to that article, some people will be suspended by this phobia and they tend not to move or do something. This is because they have the mindset that Friday the 13^th won’t bring them any good but harm instead. This misinterpretation of the Friday the 13^th causes a lot of difficulties in one’s life. Particularly, because of this fear, people tend not to go to work or do their daily schedules, for those who are greatly suffering from this phobia.

In this article, it is affirmed there that according to Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, England, when talking about bad luck in any form, people who believe that they’re going to be unlucky for that instance are more likely to be believe in superstitions in conformity with bad luck.

Wiseman added, "Their beliefs and behavior are likely to be part of a much bigger worldview. They will believe that luck is a magical force and that it can ruin their lives.” He also said that people associated number 13 in every misfortune that had happened to them. “People with such feelings, he found, are more likely to be anxious on days like Friday the 13th and thus more prone to have accidents. In other words, being afraid of Friday the 13th could be their undoing.” Wiseman concluded. 

As I interpret the statements made by Wiseman, I can say that what you think is merely what is going to happen to you. Of course, if you think that something bad or harmful is going to happen to you in that day, even not during Friday the 13^th, you will be worried and you cannot focus resulting into an accident. For an instance, you are driving and suddenly you remember that it’s Friday the 13^th today, what will you think at first is that you will be meeting an accident because it is a baffle day. 
Consequently, you might not be focus on driving and the next you’ll know is that, you’re in a hospital already. Well, that’s the effect of too much anxiousness in a certain thing. 

The follow-up question with regards to this topic would be why is Friday the 13^th considered as a prognostic day? Even though we all know that it is simply a day? According to Donald Dossey, also a folklore historian and author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun, said “fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities ultimately combined to make one super unlucky day.” Based on Dossey’s statement, it simply means that Friday and 13 are both unlucky in their own aspects. And when these two are formed together, a bad sentiment has been formed as well. 

 Also, Dossey traces where fear of 13 comes from. “It comes from a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Balder died and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day," said Dossey. From then on, the number 13 has been considered as sinister and portentous. 
 

Also, in that article, Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, stated that the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12. According to Fernsler, “numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. (Thus,) 13’s association with bad luck has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy.” This means, 13 being the number after 12 means beyond completeness or over. Since 12 is supposed to be the complete or perfect number.  
 

I have read another article entitled, “Triskaidekaphobia: Fear of the Number 13” written by Lisa Fritscher. This article supports the first article I have read. Stated here, Triskaidekaphobia is possibly been prevalent even in the ancient times. Aside from the myth I mention above, the Code of Hammurabi is indeed known as the oldest orientation regarding the fear of 13. Laws in Hammurabi Code are numbered, but number 13 is absent. 

Fritscher added, “Regardless of its scientific classification, triskaidekaphobia is a very real fear for many people and a folklore legend to others. It appears to be an ancient and widespread phobia whose origins may never be fully understood.”

I understood her statement as the acceptance of the 13 is up to us. It depends on our belief whether we are to consider triskaidekaphobia as true or simply a belief. 

Well, for some, fear of the number 13 might be true and real. To some, it’s just a belief and should not be depended. Personally, I can say that this is not true. Yes, you may say that I have stereotype but that is how I perceived it. That is how I accept it. For me, encountering bad luck depends on people think. Of course, what we think is what we imitate. If we think that we are going to experience a bad stuff today, then definitely, that is what we’re to get. Every time that we encounter these ‘not-so-good’ experiences, we just look for someone or something to blame. And Friday the 13^th being known in superstitions as unlucky day is what usually being blamed, right? But the truth is, we are the ones making our day unlucky and ominous, not the day, actually. Again, if we want to believe that Friday the 13^th is unlucky day, it’s our choice. It depends on how our mind processes the idea.

Blogpost 1: Monster Numbers

7 out of 20, 3 over 10, 15 out of 50 – horrible test scores, isn’t it? Have you experienced the moment your teacher gave you a test in math, and it made you like you wanted to cry? And as you looked at the numbers, they were like monsters that may eat you alive anytime? Personally, it happened to me, not once but numerous times already. I love math but it doesn’t love me back. Dealing with numbers is my waterloo. Though I dreamt of myself as a mathematician when I was still a little boy, it never happened but I hope it will. How I wish I am one of those who have established friendship with mathematics. However, even if I’m not good with numbers, I am not afraid of them. But some people do. 

I have been with people who find math as a really difficult subject, and somehow, I consider myself as one of them. These people got scared, felt dizzy, and sometimes, they even cry whenever they were asked to solve for number or mathematical problems. As an individual and engineering student, I really want to overcome this situation of mine. And I know, all people who are suffering from it also do. Anyway, this predicament of ours is considered as Arithmophobia – The Fear of Numbers.

There is an article entitled “Arithmophobia - Fear of Numbers” from fear.ezinemark.com by Trevor Johnson. According to the article written by Johnson, Arithmophobia is the fear of numbers which make it greatly difficult for many people under this condition, to cope and understand mathematics, arithmetic, and logic easily. Since our brain is not made automatically mathematically inclined, it is typical for us to get puzzled with these. Arithmophobia do not focus on only one as a general, but it also hubs on a specific number.

The author, Mr. Johnson, stated, “The fear of numbers is a factor that makes had a lot harder for many people suffering from it to learn mathematics and arithmetic properly. It is a condition where the brain simply cannot get around a number of figures and becomes frustrated and anxious because while they may want to achieve more, they find that there is a hidden obstacle in the way and this is that irrational fear.”

The author also points out that the fear of numbers is a type of dyslexia. “The problem is that arithmetic is all about logic and the fundamental basic laws of the universe. Unfortunately, our brains are not really meant to work in a particularly logical way of thinking so this can leave us open potentially to a number of confusions and complications” the author added. The main point Johnson wants to convey is that mathematics is mainly about logic and analysis, and not all of us are focused or set up with a logical mind. Hence, it is normal for us to get dither with mathematics.  Also, arithmophobia causes anxiety associated with numbers in general, or it may be a specific number like the mysterious number 13.

The next question is should we want to overcome this fear? Again, stated in Johnson’s article, we should know how to control this phobia. It is not intricate to overcome arithmophobia if you are willing to. Conquering this fear is very important because whether we like it or we like it, we cannot avoid numbers and we cannot do something about it crossing our lives every day. Mathematics and numbers are always present in all aspects of our lives. It has been with us ever since we were born.

Of course not all people cannot diagnose whether they are suffering from this phobia or not. Most likely, they thought that sweating copiously while carrying out a simple count, experiencing nausea, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, panic, anxiety, and confusion are just nothing but body irregularities, and they are not aware that they already suffer from arithmophobia. But who encounters these symptoms more? Who are more prone to artihmophobia, boys or girls?

In another article, written by Janet Goertzen entitled "Overcoming Math Anxiety”.  She stated that there is a conviction that girls are more prone to number anxiety than boys. This means, boys are naturally intact with ability in math, and girls do not posses any. However, in conformity with the article by Goertzen, another article from Science Daily contradicts to the idea that boys are better at math and girls are more prone to artihmophobia. Affirmed also in the article, girls do not perform well in mathematics because they are pressured and informed that they are inherently not good with numbers.

Included in Goertzen’s article is the study conducted by Sian Beilock, Associate Professor in Psychology and the Committee on Education at the University of Chicago, the lead author of a paper, "Female Teachers' Math Anxiety Affects Girls' Math Achievement" and other co-authors, published in the January 11 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an expert on anxiety and stress as they relate to learning and performance, states that “Having a highly math-anxious female teacher may push girls to confirm the stereotype that they are not as good as boys at math, which in turn, affects girls' math achievement.” This means that people around us also contribute a lot in our development. Like what Beilock have stated, a teacher claims that girls are really not as good as boys in math. In this case, it seems like the teacher is pushing the female students to believe in the closure that they aren’t as good as boys are, which made them demoralized. Thus it results to low performances of the female students in math.

According to the study by Beilock, “Female elementary school teachers who are anxious about math pass on to female students the stereotype that boys, not girls, are good at math. Girls who endorse this belief then do worse at math, research shows. The research found that boys' math performance was not related to their teacher's math anxiety while girls' math achievement was affected.”

There are a lot of possible reasons why artihmophobia develops in a person. It might be caused by a traumatic experience and other negativities around which resulted to this fear. Thus, people might not be really afraid of numbers, but of the experience they had when dealing with numbers. This situation can happen to all people of different sexual orientation. No matter what gender or sexual orientation you have, if you really have arithmophobia, you really do. People with fear of numbers are not determined through its gender, remember.

Basically, Mathematics, specifically the numbers, is merely about logic. I can say that unfortunately, not all of us were given a mathematically-inclined way of thinking. However, it is normal for us to be confused and somehow encounter complications in manipulating numbers. We are encountering numbers in our daily lives; it is part of it anyway. We were born as a twin with numbers. Hence, we are the ones who are wretched if we will not do anything to overcome this fear, for we cannot avoid numbers. Getting into control of our fear and starting to do something to improve ourselves is the most important pace in recuperating. It is not difficult to do, anyway, for as long as we have the will to surmount this arithmophobia. For me, I still have a little hope in my mind and a big will in my heart that tells me not to stop finding a way to make friends with numbers. Hmm.. If only as easy as 1+1 is the issue then, most probably we will not find it hard to solve for numbers. We will not be intimidated by numbers. On the other hand, I will always remember that we should not be feared by numbers. Don’t let numbers control us, we must control them instead. And you, if you want to surpass this fear of yours, don’t let those monster numbers terrify you!