Gotta Have Faith

I'm an atheist.
But I really do understand the need to have something powerful and almighty to believe in. Especially since I'm a sysadmin. How come? Well, the way I see it, two of the reasons people invented god are:
1. People need something to depend on in hard times.
2. People need explanations for the unnatural.
Both apply to sysadmins.

I'll elaborate.

1. Counting on Luck
Sometimes life gets tough. Sometimes you have an issue with some installation that you can't solve (and from how things evolve you know the help won't come from support), you're way beyond schedule and more problems keep rushing at you.
In times like this I tend to tell myself, like a good friend of mine phrased a while ago, "In the very very end things will be OK". Actually, now that I read it, it sounds a bit pessimistic but the intention is actually the opposite, the "very very end" doesn't have to sound so fatal, it just means problems will be solved in their own time. Sometimes, one just have to realize that no matter how grim a situation is, the issue WILL be solved, there's really no way you're not going to succeed in upgrading the god-forsaken database! So why worry (too much)?
This approach might make me sound a bit of an indifferent person, but if that what keeps me going after spending a couple of weeks trying to solve an issue and not making any progress at all, I'll take the criticism.

2. Voodoo
People might raise an eyebrow reading about system administration and witchery in the same context but I think most of the people who deal with computers and software know that this stuff isn't really deterministic.
A good example is when a piece of code gives you a segmentation fault and after you put debug printouts in every possible line the segmentation fault just ceases to exist. Of course, after removing the printouts everything is fine, no segmentation faults.
An even better example will be what I refer to as the "Sysadmin Effect". Systems shouldn't be treated as anything less than an intelligent being with it's own will. It might be a bit difficult to take me seriously right now, but systems really need attention like little spoiled kids. They behave as long as the sysadmin is present but start revolting as soon as they're left alone.
The system might function perfectly for weeks and months but the second you leave the office for a two day trip a processor will get burned and the phenomenon will be so irrelevant that you won't have any chance of understanding the problem on the phone (and I'm talking from experience here).
Another one. A few weeks ago I went out in the middle of the day, when I returned and inspected the monitoring software I've discovered the system had a blocking sessions issue from the minute I went out... and up until a minute ago.
Those are just two examples, I have a lot more.
You might try to convince me that there's an explanation for everything and that there's no such thing as an intelligent system - and you'll probably be right.
But me, I just call it Voodoo.