Black Elk Speaks- to my friend

I was reading "Black Elk Speaks" (great book!) a few years ago. It had been published many years before, but I was just getting around to it. I told a young guy at work about it. He was intrigued and said he wanted to get a copy for himself. Later that day he went to his parents house. His Dad had a few books on the kitchen table. One of them was "Black Elk Speaks." He took this as a sign he was to do something different with his life and immediately moved to Sedona, Arizona. I haven't seen him since.

Travelling

A lot of coincidences can happen while travelling. Because you're away from familiar surroundings they can be even more noticeable. I've had many of varying degrees.

One of the most striking happened a few years ago. Our daughter was moving from Seattle back to the Midwest. We flew there to drive her car back while she and her fiance drove the U-haul. My wife and I decided to take the scenic route and drive through the Cascades, leaving just before lunch. The other two had things to do and would leave in the next 24 hours taking I-90. My wife and I took our time and did some sight-seeing. We decided to stop in Billings for the night. We got there late in the afternoon and had trouble finding our hotel. At one point I went West on the Interstate for about 2 miles to the next exit. We gave up and stayed in a different hotel. When we got home a few days later we saw our daughter who at one point told us that her fiance said to her, "I thought I just saw your parents driving in the other direction." "Noooo," she replied. "why would they be doing that?" This happened in Billings at approximately the right time. How often do you look at cars on the other side of the Interstate?

A friend told me that when she was a girl she travelled with another family across country. They were working their way West and then South. In Kansas they stopped at a gas station. When she got out of the bathroom she bumped into her brother, who was travelling with another family going South and then West. She didn't know her brother was going anywhere and they insist the parents didn't plan to meet there. Of course, they were kids and may not have known it had been planned- not a coincidence. But if it was...

Don't Have a Bird

Some coincidences are mental, not actual events. We think about something and then something else happens that is similar to the thought. Sometimes this is perhaps the mind putting two things together after the fact, creating a connection that wasn't necessarily there. Or, it could be precognition of an upcoming event. Or, perhaps, the second event is caused by our thought- what we might call manifestation.

What are the odds?

On Friday as I was driving on the highway I remembered, for some reason, an incident that happened a few years ago that I haven't thought about for a long time. I've only hit two birds with my car that I can remember. They occurred a few months from each other and, coincidentally, on the same stretch of highway within a mile of each other. Both times the bird hit my windshield.

I thought about those incidents and then, ten minutes later, I hit a bird with my windshield.

Connections

The most important, and most compelling, aspect of coincidence is the relationship between the coincidental events, particularly by way of cause and effect. If one event caused the other there would be no coincidence. For example, if there were heavy rains and a bridge washed out, we wouldn't consider it a coincidence- the rain caused the washout. But if a car happened to stall in the middle of the bridge just as it was collapsing, that would be a different story. There are no apparent connections between the two. The word 'apparent' is what makes coincidences so compelling. Sometimes there seems to be no connection, yet in time and further investigation we find there is. Other times the events seem to be related- one causing the other or some other mechanism at work, and yet it is truly a chance encounter- a statistical anomaly. These are times we impose significance where there should be none. This is- to me- what makes noting and studying coincidences so fascinating. They are guideposts into our thinking processes and also into the hidden workings of the universe. Why do we sometimes want so much meaning when there really is none? What are the secrets that are being signaled at other times?

P. D. Ouspensky wrote about higher dimensions and the connections between objects that are observed in each. If you lived in one dimension- basically a line- and a three-dimensional colored ball passed in front of you, all you'd see is a point changing color. If you were in two dimensions- a flat plane- and the ball passed by you would see a line getting bigger until it hit center- it's diameter- and then getting smaller. In three dimensions it would simply be a ball. Now imagine your fingers passing in two-dimensional space. They would look like four separate lines, unconnected, yet somehow suggesting some commonality. You still could not see the concept of the whole hand. Perhaps in our world some three-dimensional objects are connected in ways we can't understand. Ouspensky refers to the possibility of all trees being connected in some way on some higher level.

Maybe some coincidences suggest connections that we just aren't able to perceive. But with enough of these inferences we might be able to learn something about life's mysteries.

Types of Coincidences

There seems to be different types of coincidences, and/or levels of intensity. Some coincidences seem random or insignificant- for example, you hear a song on the radio and you turn the station only to hear the same song playing. This we might call a low-level coincidence. Another coincidence could be flying to another, faraway country and running into your old next-door neighbor, who is getting into the same cab you are with the same destination. Each would have different levels of significance for us. Going back to our definitions, it would be related to how surprised we are at the events. The more surprising it is to us, the more intense the coincidence. You wouldn't be very surprised that two stations are playing the same song, especially if the song is currently popular. It would be different if it was an obscure, old song.

What are the odds?

One night I was listening to a radio show at home (which I rarely do) that was playing a very eclectic mix of music. At one point the DJ played a cut from an obscure album ('Boulders' by Roy Wood.) I thought to myself that I might be the only other person in the city to currently own that album and be familiar with the song. I wondered to myself if he had heard another album I owned ('Lines' by Charlie.) The very next song came from that album.

This brings up another aspect that we'll look at another time- are there different types of coincidences and different mechanisms at work? Do they involve things like clairvoyance and telepathy? Or are some or all coincidences merely based on perceptions? Can we influence events and make coincidences happen by sheer will power- conscious or not?

Definitions

Often the best way to start is to go to the dictionary.

The American Heritage Dictionary says:
co·in·ci·dence (kō-ĭn'sĭ-dəns, -dĕns')
n.

1. The state or fact of occupying the same relative position or area in space.
2. A sequence of events that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged.

Webster's:
Main Entry: co·in·ci·dence
Pronunciation: kO-'in(t)-s&-d&n(t)s, -s&-"den(t)s
Function: noun
1 : the act or condition of coinciding : CORRESPONDENCE
2 : the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection

The second definition in each is probably the most relevant for us. The operative words in both are "seem(s)" and "accident(al)." "Seems" implies that someone is making a judgment about the event. "Accidental" would imply no visible cause and effect. So we could say by definition that a coincidence is something open to interpretation. Geez- it's ambiguous already. And we've hardly started.

I found this reference on many pages when looking it up on Google:

A coincidence is a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection (Diaconis and Mosteller 1989). Diaconis, P. and Mosteller, F. ``Methods of Studying Coincidences.'' J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 84, 853-861, 1989.

Now we've added the word "surprising" which springboards it into a whole new level. Not only are we judging about how the events are connected, but we have a reaction to the coincidence itself.

Opening Post

I've been thinking about starting this blog for some time now. Coincidences have always enchanted me. At different times in my life I have explored them to some extent or another. I read once that if you write down coincidences you will notice even more coincidences. That's been the case, although it is probably true of anything you particularly notice or that grabs your attention. For example, if a headlight is burned out on your car you notice many more cars in the same condition- something you didn't really see before. Perhaps that's what some coincidences are- just noticing things differently. We'll explore that later.

During this period of consideration I have had a couple of strong coincidences occur- almost but not quite compelling enough to stir me to action. However, something happened last week that finally pushed me over the edge.

What are the odds?

I have to reveal more of myself than I had hoped for this one. I sell home improvement products- wholesale to retailers. For many years I was in a retail store but recently changed. These products need to be installed, usually by professionals.

I had to inspect a jobsite, which I do maybe once or twice a month. It was about 40 miles from my home. The installer was having problems. The homeowner was there when I arrived, but not the installer. I thought I kinda recognized the man but it wasn't until a few days later it came into focus. The guy had lived in my town (pop. 250k) years before. About thirteen years ago I had been in his house. He was shopping my store. It was an unusual job and I had to take an installer with me. I didn't usually go to customer's homes myself, and even then hardly ever with an installer. What are the odds that I would be in the same man's house? The kicker?- the same installer, even though he only worked with me back then for a few months.