Today is Friday the 13th — a date wrapped in superstition, myths and quiet unease. For centuries it has been labelled unlucky, ominous and dangerous. We even dress it in black. But that choice of word hides something deeper. This day isn’t really about a colour. It’s about a feeling. And perhaps we’ve been calling it the wrong thing all along.

What we call Black Friday may be more accurately described as Dark Friday.

Because the fear has never been about black. It has always been about what we cannot see.

Friday the 13th sits at the intersection of fear and superstition, and superstition always points to the same place: the unknown, the unseen, the unexplained. Darkness is where certainty disappears. It is where control weakens and answers stop. When we cannot see clearly, the mind rushes to fill the gap. And what it often fills it with is fear.

This is how darkness became symbolic. Not because darkness itself is dangerous, but because ignorance feels dangerous. Over time, darkness came to represent not knowing, not understanding and not being in control. It became shorthand for uncertainty — the place where the familiar rules no longer seem to apply.

Beneath all of this sits something even deeper: separation.

In the dark, we feel separated from certainty, separated from control and, most importantly, separated from truth. Not personal opinion or belief, but universal truth — the kind that exists whether we perceive it or not. When we cannot see truth, cannot verify it and cannot prove it, the human mind instinctively reaches for stories. Curses, omens and bad luck are simply narratives designed to make the unknown feel explainable.

Friday the 13th is not unlucky. It is a mirror. It reflects how uncomfortable we are when we cannot see clearly and when the illusion of certainty fades.

And perhaps that is the quiet invitation hidden inside this day. Not to fear the dark, but to bring light to it. To question the stories we inherit. To move toward truth instead of away from uncertainty. Because darkness itself is never the real threat — fear is.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt reminded the world in a time of collective uncertainty, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And maybe the deeper reminder is this:

That which isn’t known… can be known.

Darkness is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of discovery.