Coincidences

I’m going to attempt a blog post about coincidences at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist psycho.  I don’t know why I’m aware of lots of little coincidences happening all the time.  I’m totally open to the possibility that its just because I’m looking for them.  But I do know that anyone who spends much time with me comments on how weird it is.  I also know that a lot of people in the nature connection world also have coincidences or “synchronicities” as some people call it.

So I guess I should define what I feel like is a “coincidence”.  To me, it is just any two similar things coinciding in time at what appears to be extremely unlikely odds.

I decided to keep track of all the little coincidences I had for a week to make a blog post about them but I ran into the problem that I’ve run into every time I start writing down coincidences: I start loosing my mind!  It seems like when I start to write down coincidences then they start happening at an ever increasing rate and I can’t keep track of them all and it stresses me out.  And it just doesn’t feel good putting so much brain power in these little apparently meaningless happenings.

So I got to Wednesday before I couldn’t handle it and the rest are a few randoms that I do remember from the rest of the week.

By the way, I really don’t watch that much TV but it seems like coincidences always happen when I’m watching it.

Saturday:

1. I read an article about porcupine sex habits then watched a South Park episode where they repeatedly joked about people having sex with porcupines.

2. I said “burrr its cold in here” and my friend said “Oh? you’re cold?”  then Sarah Silverman (on tv) said “I’m sorry what did you say, you’re cold?” (one right after another, like the three of us were having a conversation)

3. I read about the Yukatan yesterday then today my coworker talked about the Yukatan today.  (I dont talk/hear about the Yukatan often, I don’t know about you.)

Sunday: None.

Monday: None.

Tuesday:

1. Yesterday a coworker talked about the sacredness of white or albino animals in all cultures.  Today someone else randomly talked about albino animals.

2. Was just reading about a term called Flintstonization (about people thinking primitive humans are like the Flintstones) and today coworker told me how he is learning the Flintstone theme song on banjo.

Wednesday

3. Was reading about Bonobos (our closest ape relative) then saw a facebook ad about Bonobos.

4. Coworker randomly talking about Bill Gates visiting our school (as a joke), 5 minutes later the Bill Gates foundation was discussed on NPR.

5. Had to get a new debit card and was telling my friend about this hiccup with my PIN number while we were watching Terminator 2 and then in the movie they talked about pin numbers.

Here’s where I start to break down and don’t remember what happened on what day:

6. I went to see the movie Life of Pi on Saturday, someone else brought it up in class today and who the character Richard Parker was and whether it was based on a true story.   I searched for any info on that and concluded it was an entirely made up story.  (The movie is based on a book that’s based on another fictional book).  Then tonight I googled the word coincidence (because I was thinking about this blog post) and was reading about top 15 coincidences: http://listverse.com/2007/11/12/top-15-amazing-coincidences/.  Number 12 is the “Poe coincidence” About Edgar Allen Poe writing a story about people stranded at sea, one of them named Richard Parker who was killed an eaten.  Then 4 years later a group of people were stranded at sea, the cabin boy was killed and eaten, his name was Richard Parker.  (This inspired the Life of Pi).   So this answered my question of whether that was based on a true story.  My first search determined that it was a FALSE story but its actually based off a real story – this Poe shipwreck thing.

Its hard to convey how random that is.  The coincidence website has nothing to do with the fact that Life of Pi is in theaters right now.  Not to mention the fact that this whole coincidence was coming from a website about coincidences!

7.  Was feeling bad about myself for eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream that someone left in my freezer then on a show I was watching the character opened up the freezer, got out a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and started eating it.

8.  Had a new girl in my survival class named Ryan.  Then watched an episode of Dexter where a new character is introduced named Ryan (female).

9.  Had a student breathing really loudly and asked if he had asthma.  Someone else (completely unrelated) talked about asthma later that day.

10. Was looking for a girl I needed to email named Shelby then an hour later saw a picture of a random girl named Shelby.

11.  Had a class yesterday where we did a section on the importance of “rituals” and how native cultures used rituals.  Then watched a Dexter episode last night where Dexter says how he doesn’t believe in God but he does believe in the importance of rituals – and how its one of the only things he believes in.  Then today a guy randomly brought up the show Dexter to make a point about psychopaths believing in certain rules and codes of conduct.

Anyway that’s all I can remember from this week but there were more.  I’d love to hear people’s opinions if they think this is silly and meaningless and that I’m just looking for coincidences so I see them all the time.  So far none of my friends think its silly or meaningless, they all think it is totally crazy how often these little things happen.

And for the record, I don’t think there is any “meaning” behind any of these.  I’m open to there being something going on but I’ve been observing an abundance of coincidences all the time like these for 8 years or so.  This was a very typical week.  My opinion is that maybe sometimes they mean something but 99% of them are just weird meaningless things coinciding in time, probably caused by something that could be explained in quantum physics.