People make situations-- make life-- more difficult and complicated than necessary by not living by the Zero Archation Principle. And by pretending there's magic in objects.
I'm reminded of this when watching movies or TV shows and the character does something unnecessary and stupid to advance the plot and give the show a reason for being. Yes, I know most shows wouldn't be interesting-- and would end in 3 minutes-- if the characters didn't complicate matters by doing dumb, unnecessary things.
I see people doing the same thing in real life on a daily basis. In real life there's no need to create drama for "ratings"; no need to hurt yourself for the entertainment of others. No need to complicate things so the situation continues to create problems for yourself and others far longer than it should. Do the right thing and move on.
But I guess that's too easy. They choose the difficult path of archation and superstition.
Why do they do this to themselves? I know indoctrination has something to do with it. And probably it's somewhat encoded in our genes. But it seems so silly and self-defeating. Stop doing unnecessary, self-defeating stupid things.