serendipity

. . . . or is it 'synchronicity'?

Ah - I haven't thought of that song in ages. Nor have I posted any music in a while!

OK - let's go see what I can find on YouTube.

Here 'tis! Police's Synchronicity (looking pretty dated these days. . . .)



But no. . . . actually the word I was looking for IS 'serendipity': the occurrence and development of events by chance, in a happy and beneficial way,

whereas 'synchronicity' is: the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related, but have no discernible causal connection.

Well now. . . . but there are elements of synchronicity as well: significantly related, but no clear causal connection. . . .

What am I talking about? How just the right things - people, thoughts, information, opportunities - seem to come out of nowhere at just the right time.

Or maybe it's just my corvid-tendency to pick up bright shiny things and take them home, where they all then live together in a way that makes a (to me) surprisingly coherent pattern. And maybe it's just the superficial shininess that has dazzled my eyes and deceived me into thinking there's a greater unity underlying the whole?

Today, one Grim posted an article about military post-traumatic stress, here, at a site called Black-Five.

It opened my eyes to a whole new field of connection that is not only "happy and beneficial", but also significantly related, albeit with no clear causal connection.

A story about a supposed "non-practicing" pedophile in California some months ago led me to an article about the impotence of law, which introduced me to a whole new world of incredibly thoughtful, intelligent, encouraging and plain old fun people associated (often by marriage) with the military. I won't bore you with the complicated connections, but I'll tell you that they're quite astonishing. I've been so enriched by their thoughts!

Just today, I learned that Adorable Device is reading a book about Alice Williams - sister to William James - for her dissertation in English lit.

William James had a sister?! William James' thought appears in my dissertation, on law, ethics, and theology - for the proposition of religious experience as the connector between an individual and values/convictions. I'm ordering the book on the sister.

And it's indirectly through Lemon Stand that I found my way (by way of a path I no longer recall. . . .) to Grim's posting on post-traumatic stress. I think this might be really important with respect to the connection between the soldier and an ethics that makes sense - namely one that is more than just a series of rules written by know-nots in the no-danger-zone.

Grim has also posted on a surfer dude's amazing physics theory of just about everything which, like the last theories to catch my attention: John Nash's equilibrium in game theory and "fuzzy logic" - by whoever is responsible for that - strikes me as "related" to how we view the world, our role in it, and what we can, should, or will do.

Here's a picture of E8 - which forms the basis for surfer dude's theory - "the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan."

Wierd, huh?

It reminds me of the yoke of a fair isle knitted sweater. . . .

Who'da thunk it! The Meaning of Life preserved in a traditional knit pattern. . . . I'm not at all surprised.

Meanwhile, Non-essential Equipment reports that some parents are boycotting Shrek 3 because it is supposedly pro-life - if you can imagine. Mustn't have that around the children!

Not to worry, though. Nee reports that she's seen the movie often enough* to repeat the "dialogue" verbatim, together with the various sounds of scatological bodily functions, and she has seen no hint of an overt "pro-life" agenda hidden therein. So there you have it: There is no cause for alarm!

*I believe the actual number of viewing times was, at the time of publication, 3654. Give or take a few. . . .