What do Santa Claus and his elves, Bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, evil spirits and gypsy fortune tellers have in common?

Not much, except that they are all part of our magical, mystical popular culture. It is my theory that everybody believes in the paranormal, at least after midnight.

Fatalism has swept the nation and possibly, for all I know, the entire globe. Where did it come from? It’s as if all over the world people woke up one morning and said, “Oh well, it was meant to be.”

“How do you figure?” I want to ask, but I know, really, that it’s not a matter of figuring. It’s a matter of belief, which is something else entirely.

Also, these same people keep pointing out that everything happens for a reason. Am I the only person in the USA who doesn’t see this? What is the reason, I want to ask. Is it always the same? THE REASON, partially obscured by cloud, in the sky?

I don’t think anybody else knows either. It seems the whole point is that we’re not supposed to know. It is beyond our ken. Not our responsibility. We are just meant to shake our heads in befuddlement and amble on our way.

If we believe that everything happens for a reason and that everything that happens is meant to be, why even bother to get up off the couch? The way I see it, we could all just lie back and watch our stories unfold, like a soap opera or a reality television show. Like “The Beverly Hillbillies,” or possibly “Breaking Bad,” depending.

If our lives are totally preordained and scripted, it seems a shame that we have to go through the motions, like a bunch of stooges. Come on, just tell us how it all comes out!

This is where the gypsy fortune teller comes in. I just love the whole concept of the gypsy. Veiled in mystery, she drops hints about upcoming events, top-secret information to which she is privy through an innate ability to foresee the future, which is either a gift or a curse. She must have some kind of dispensation from the Universe to be allowed to sell this information. Or maybe she is bootlegging. There has always been something shady about the gypsy.

When people want their fortunes told, they care only about love, money and the whereabouts of wandering spouses, murder victims and lost objects. We all wish that the gypsy would just come out with it and say, “Oh right, it’s behind the sofa cushions in your Aunt Harriet’s living room. That’ll be nineteen-ninety-nine.” But oh no, she has to make it all murky and ambiguous, as if she’s getting bad reception on her psychic screen. Maybe that’s part of her deal with the Universe. Sure, she can ladle out clues, but she’s not allowed to serve up the whole truth.

Go ahead, ask her something simple. Like, where is my turquoise earring, the one that has most recently gone missing, leaving its mate to languish alone on the dresser top?

Opposites attract. Like repels like. Nowhere is this more apparent than among earrings and socks. So sad about your favorite pair of earrings.

You thought they went together so well. Then, suddenly, one just drops off the face of the earth. Maybe it fell into some other plane of existence, a parallel universe. Maybe it’s swinging from the earlobe of a pirate in the South Seas, maybe it’s under a grate somewhere. It’s definitely near water. I see a storm drain next to a mulberry tree. Hey, everything happens for a reason. That’ll be nineteen-ninety-nine.

Sometimes, I admit, I believe in ghosts, extrasensory perception and my own Tarot-reading powers. Other times I feel like Horatio in “Hamlet.” Horatio didn’t believe in the ghost of Hamlet’s father, who kept coming up onto the battlements to incite his son to insurgency. Even though in Shakespeare’s day no one knew about Vulcans — aliens came later — Horatio was undeniably the Spock character in the play, refusing to credit a phenomenon that had no rational explanation.

That famous line — remember? There are some things, Horatio, of which you have no freaking clue.

I think it would have been better for all concerned if everybody had just listened to Horatio. Hamlet, naturally, took the ghost’s advice — he would — and, as a consequence, everyone ended up dead, which was sad. I especially liked Ophelia.

Oh well, everything happens for a reason. Have a good week.

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(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the News since 1996.)