We the educated

A small incidence to begin with, last year in May my family discovered that my astrological planets are not well in place and deep trouble is in stars by December. As a stereotypical brahmin family from Benaras, my mom flung in action and arranged for Mahamrityunjay jap which was supposed to run for 100001 jaaps by 11 pandits, add to it that I was supposed to be present there and it all had to take place in the auspicious month of saawan (july). All good till now, although I had little faith in this, I follow Mr Shaw's saying that "I don't believe in superstitions, but what's the harm in touching a wood". The pooja went well and I went back to my regular life, and almost forgot everything about the prophesy, then suddenly one fine afternoon in October I was informed of a trouble, my family and I tried to pacify things but all in vain and by December I was in gloom following a break up with my long time girlfriend (my family was humiliated in the process and she was married to someone else). Till that moment I had no faith in the prophesy and then I realised that some X factor has to be there. However the problem was with my scientific training, I am trained to validate theories. So the moment I thought that the prophesy was true, I countered it with the fact that had it been so true then the pooja should have worked, it did not and worst things happened to me, or did they?

I spoke to my mom, she is a 60 year old woman from Benaras, who did not go to study till matriculation and I asked her,
"mom, you said bad things were suppose to happen, and pooja would avoid it, but it didn't"
she replied calmly, "chhotu, bad things were suppose to happen, and they did not, you are looking at things that happened, just think that worst things could have happened, so the pooja was successful, it's just that you don't acknowledge something that did not occur"...
I was partially content with the answer, but as I said the scientific upbringing and the fancy degree from IIT became a huge obstacle in my path to correct realisation.
This happened way back in January, cut to today, May, I was reading "Black Swan" by renowned epistemologist-cum-banker-cum-philosopher Nassim Taleb, and he says I quote -

"This is a simple extension of the problem of knowledge. It is simply one side of Eco's Library, the one we never see, has the property of being ignored. We worry about those that happened, not those that may have happened but did not. It is why we platonify, liking known schemas and well-organized knowledge - to the point of blindness to reality"

For those who have trouble materialising what Mr. Taleb said, I shall summarise, He said exactly the same thing what my mom did. And he calls it Lucid Fallacy and also iterates that MBAs, Big time Academicians and so called Intellectuals have hard time understanding it. Then how come my mom knows it? I have it on good authority that she has not read Mr. Taleb.
What is it that Mr. Taleb iterates the same thing which I found dogmatic when my mom said it. Perhaps I found myself more "educated" than my mom, and when a "more educated" person reiterated it, I found it philosophy.
Perhaps our definition of "education" has a clinch, I spoke to all the "educated" people I know about my trouble, but it was only my mom who came up with this idea of ludic fallacy.
In fact Education is not all IIT, IIM or Harvard, education is something else, something that brings a woman from one of the most backward part of the world and a professor from one of the most admired business schools on the same platform.
All I know is "we the educated" are not so much of "educated" than suckers for the ludic fallacy.

PS: I love my mom and respect her ideas, but this is an ode to my new found respect for her intellect and thinking.