One Over X News

There Are No Coincidences

The subject of coincidences and my claim in One Over X that coincidences do not exists has caused some minor controversy or at least a few animated discussions. My further assertion is that there are no accidents either has even infuriated a couple of people and served only to confirm that 'Elgon is way out there', at least on some issues.

Despite that I am a writer and therefore inherently 'different' in some if not most ways, I do not think that the event stream of my life differs all that much from any other person. Certainly I am prone to the influences and effects of whatever befalls me just like anyone else. That is my point. In most ways my life happens just like anyone else. I have generalized that what I perceive to be true about the world is probably applicable to anyone else if he or she would but open eyes and mind wide enough to capture soemthing beyond the narrow, personalize focus of what is and what is not important int he world.

When I say that there are no coincidences I really and truly believe it. That is not to say that the world is not without irony. Thank God or whatever providence there is in the universe for that simple truth, otherwise writers would have to discuss boring things as there would be nothing much to laugh about; comedians would have much less material to work with, for example.

One of the people that told me 'you're crazy' said that my assertion defies the scientific evidence of creation. Yeah, I pursued that statement with some vigor. What is the scientific evidence of creation? Do you believe in the all-powerful supreme deity or that mass randomness accidentally arrived at a solution that resembled the present universe? Or is there some other truth that lies somewhere between those extremes?

I was in a philosophical discussion a while back and someone asked me just what is my concept of God? Now usually I would go off on some tangent stating that it doesn't really matter what my concept is and why do humans even try to conceptualize something that by their own definition defies the limitation of human words to capture? Well, then again humans are known for pursuing hopeless causes and other illogical crusades and without such human attributes there would be much less material for writers to draw upon for inspiration. But I was having one of those days, so I felt like playing.

"God to me," I said, "is a guy in Brooklyn named Sal that runs the best kosher deli around. A gift from God, then is mayo and cheese at no extra charge. Of course this also relies heavily on my theory that the Universe is shaped like an Onion Bagel and we may be either cream cheese of lox, I am not sure which. I would hope that I am cream cheese as I don't much care fish."

Yeah, I was trying to be funny and certainly failed with that poor soul but the point I was attempting was that however anyone conceives of God it is immaterial to what He or She is or is not. Our religions ridiculously restrict the concept of God enough without each of us having some personal input. What I think about God is irrelevant to anyone else but me. I firmly believe that He or She has a sense of humor. My mythical deli owner has a sense of humor. How could He not? He runs a business in Brooklyn for Sal's sake!

Coincidence smacks in the face of order and organization. I agree that the universe has a good deal of chaos about it but then again, that could be my limited understanding of the real inner workings of the physics involved. If you think we know how things really work, read a few physics books. We know or at least think that we know a lot of things. We are pretty cleaver like that, figuring out why apples fall from trees but the moon does not fall from the sky. We even figured out how to destroy pretty much everything that we know as the world, if we want to. Don’t push the red button unless you’ve taken the blue pill!

The fact is that mostly we still don't have a clue how things really work. We have some theories and sometimes they lead to yet other theories. Some things seem to explain this or that and they work until somone you asks this or that other pressing question. That is the state of modern physics. That is also the truth about modern science in general.

So I am not a proponent of science ever being able to know everything. It is neither the savior of modern man nor even the vehicle for bettering the human condition. Science is knowledge, plain and simple and therefore it is raw clay for humans to mold as they would see fit. To believe that science can ever know all things is not only too ambitious but also ridiculously arrogant. That is also why as a concept I do not believe in coincidence.

I have seen countless examples of coincidence in my life but I could also almost always figure out causality if given the time to figure it out. Accidents don’t happen either. Because you chose to leave the house just in time to make that left turn in front of a guy that had earlier chosen to hit his snooze button one-too-many-times and now he is in a hurry to get to work and tried to run a red light. Wham! Accident? No that was a mistake and not an accident at all. He didn't intend to have a collision but he did and there is a very clear causality. So there was no accident, now was there? We call it an accident because insurance calls the event an accident. They would not pay if we really intended to damage something. Somehow intent transforms a mistake an accident?

We play with semantics all the time, don't we? That's the case with accidents and it is certainly the case with coincidence. The hackneyed expression goes: accidents happen. NO THEY DON'T! 'Shit' doesn't just happen, either, by the way. 'Shit' is planned sometimes but very often it is the unforeseen consequence of human myopia. On the other hand, 'bull shit' is the unforeseen consequence of mistaking someone for an expert, say an economist like Alan Greenspan, and then asking a question that he or she is too embarrassed to admit no knowledge of and should therefore not even bother answering. I have heard the Chairman of the Federal Reserve speak before Congress, ad nauseum. I know every word that comes out of his mouth and I also know the meanings of every word that he uses. Yet I have no clue what he is saying, and neither does the Congress or Alan Greenspan, I'd venture to guess. Actually I am convinced of that. Yet our national fiduciary policy is based on whatever this one man says and sometimes doesn't say. Is there someone in Washington, hidden in a closet on Capital Hill with an Greenspan/English; English/Greenspan dictionary decyphering the secret code this guy uses to convey his real message. People accuse me of inventing words and yes, I do. But damn it, I at least know when I do it. And generally I respect the meaning that others have attached to the words that are supposed to belong to our common language.

Obviously 'bull shit' happens about as often as 'shit' and it is also no accident.

Which brings me to a clear and precise understanding - well it is as clear and precise as anyone could expect me to be early Monday morning - that there are no coincidences. Here is a patent example.

Elgon almost never has a Saturday off, unless he is on vacation or requests it for a very good reason, say for example taking my daughter Amanda to St. Augustine to tour Flagler College - one recent exception. Elgon works retail; that is why. It is part of the territory and silly Elgon actually likes working on Saturday.

Elgon has some Sundays off, a couple each month, usually.

The combination of a Saturday and a Sunday off is almost impossible for me to remember except for vacations and special requests along with a note from my dear deceased mother and/or the Pope's blessing. Since I am not catholic I stand a better chance at getting the note from my mother than from the Pope. For something like that to happen by 'accident' is pretty much impossible.

Once in a great while Elgon has a Monday off. Elgon does not like having Monday off as a rule because the remainder of the week is playing catch-up. Elgon would not ordinarily even permit a Monday off to appear on the schedule except that this is Easter week and due to other scheduling considerations, one being that the operations manager is on vacation leaving the management schedule a little light throughout the week, I let it stand.

Seldom ever does Elgon have three days off in a row and certainly not a weekend followed by a Monday. Well, anyway it happened. The events in the universe, my boss being out of the store all last week at meetings for example, conspired to create the conditions in which I had Saturday, Sunday and Monday off.

Wait, stay with me; I am getting to how this ties into a coincidence pattern of the sort that clearly is not a coincidence.

A couple of weeks ago, check the back postings of this blog, my best friend called me. She was depressed and just wanted to talk. She was bummed about a lot of things and needed to vent and needed to laugh about things. She didn't expect anything except for me to listen, which I gladly did fior her becasue she is my friend. What little that I could help her with was getting her computer running again so that she might be able to do research on her upcoming project for her college business course. Because her car was also inoperable she could not readily get to the library to do her research. She was having a good deal of anxiety about everything else in her life and the stress about her upcoming project was just adding to it.

About a week ago we got one of her computer working and determined that cat hair balls vomitted onto cable modems is not a good thing and it severely limit access to The Internet. She managed to get her cable modem replaced and was up and running around last Friday. She posted a message to her yahoo group and I received an email. When I happened to check my personal email from a webmail server, I immediately opened and read it. The subject of her email was that she was back online and that it was a good thing because she had so much work to get done and her assignment, a marketing plan was due on Tuesday. Even though she had access to The Internet she felt that she was severely behind and it was perhaps hopeless that she would ever get her project done on time.

Three guesses what I have a degree in. Three guesses what I used to do for the clients that I sold advertising services to. I called her, offering to give her some advice for her project, if she needed it. That was when we made arrangements to get in contact on Saturday. (See a previous blog post regarding my rare Saturday off.)

We worked together coordinating the online research . It was actuially the first time that I had ever done something like that and it is really like creating a synergy of the efforts. We also brainstormed ideas. I have no idea how long we were at it using Instant Messenger and voice conversation over Instant Messenger but it was several hours. Time went by pretty fast. She said it was a help to her and it lessened her anxiety a little. She had a lot of work to do just to get organized and that was what was stressing her out.

Yesterday we again spent several hours working semi-independently and sending files back and forth. My schedule and being off had allowed me to help her on her project in a way that I could have never done had I been scheduled to work. As this was important to her it was also important to me because she has been a good friend, my best friend for many years. As I have said before, the books that I have written would be very different without her inspiration and suggestions. I always feelt hat I owe her something then again freinds owe nothing to one another. Friends do for one another expecting nothing thereof.

It was not really planned scheduled or anything. Most people would say that it was a coincidence. I am very confident that it was not. If you believe in chaos theory and the mass randomness of the universe that all things given enough time could have fallen into place with enough structure to create the universe, then you believe that a series of otherwise random events led directly to my being there and available for Ela'na to get her assignment done this weekend; to you I will say this, bull shit! You could not know the extent of seeming coincidence that I have exposed around my having met Ela'na when I did. A lot of it is deeply personal and very private and her her sake I will not elaborate on those things. But I can tell you a couple of things that are indicative of the overwhelming body of evidence that there are NO COINCIDENCES.

Ever since I first met Ela'na it has been clear to me that other things were at work beneath the perceivable surface. It is almost as if everything conspired to produce one coincidence after another until the very absurdity of believing in the coincidence was finally made clear to me. It was as if the forces of nature had whacked me up the side of the head to get my attention.

Do you want some proof?

Coincidence 1: When I was an undergrad at Purdue University I wrote a character profile for a creative writing class describing a female Wolfcat (although I did not term it as such) on January 13, 1977. Ela'na, the inspiration for the Wolf Pack elements of the series and the one that the Wolf Pack calls The Wolfcat was born on January 13, 1977. I did not know this factoid until the fall of 2002 when I was in the process of moving and sifting through and sorting all the collected 'stuff' that had been packed up and ratted away in the attic. I found an old notebook with the exercise still in it from my days at Purdue. I had known Ela'na for over 2 years at that time and although I knew that I had written about a fantasy character in the late 1970's I did not remember the details.

Coincidence 2: I met her online in a chat along with several other Wolves and even joined the Wolf Pack on my birthday, May 7, 2000. Earlier that year on January 13, 2000, something that I did not realize until 2004 when I was helping my son fill out applications for college, I had registered my vehicle, gotten by driver's license and voter registration, all on the same day, her birthday. Honest to God, that is the truth.

I won't bore you with the other dozen supposed coincidences but I think you see what I have noticed. I laugh whenever something else comes to the surface, like this past weekend.

My point is that there is a reason why people meet one another. Somethings are just meant to be. As humans we are not intended to be all alone in this living thing. We need others in our lives. It is not just for making babies and building families but for long term relationships borne out of friendship because everyone is an individual and each of us really do matter. From the best that I can determine we are here to make life easier for everyone else that our lives touch. You need to give at least as much as you take; that is the balance of the world on a human level.

So, anyway this past weekend, I helped my best friend because I needed to do it. There is no other reason necessary. No other explanation matters but that she IS my best friend.

She thanked me for my help. It was unnecessary for me; necessary for her perhaps. It made her feel in balance. From my point of view I would have done it without her explicit thanks because what little I contributed lightened her load enough that she slept better and had much less stress. That was my objective anyway: lightening her load. I used my skills, talents, knowledge and whatever else I had just to nudge the Bally Table enough to keep the pinball that is life in play.

Over the past five years of knowing her, Ela'na has helped me through some strange times and has inspired me to write things that have amazed me especially when I have read them years later. She has never asked for anything in return. She is my personal muse, as I have said previously and in a fundamental way I believe that. In fact most of the time she was unaware of her impact on me or even others whose lives she has touched. Unless someone tells her she is unaware of her influence. The equation of our personal relationship, as strange as it is, was never about correcting any balance or anything like that. In a real friendship it never is. You do iwhatever you need to, not because of a self imposed obligation to help friends. It is conditional only on the relationship itself.

Friendships never emerge from coincidence; each one is meant to be.

E

posted by Unknown @ 9:01 AM