3.31.24
Many miles away
There's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake
I had a song ready to go for tonight, but I've got something else I need to get out instead. I'm probably a bit too tired to even be tackling this, but here we go.
Groundbreaking psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung was a proponent of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences. These coincidences are acausal, and that acausality suggests, as described by J. Piirto in Encyclopedia of Creativity, "… that there is unity in diversity."
There are plenty of people who dismiss the concept of synchronicity wholesale, suggesting it's just useless mystical mumbo jumbo. There are others — myself included — who think there's something to synchronicity. What exactly that something is, well, that's the tricky part, right?
Some examples of synchronicity:
• You wake up with a song in your head. One you haven't thought of in years. Let's say it's Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. A song that used get radio air play to the point of annoyance. These days, though, it's all but forgotten. So you get in your car and drive to work. On the way there, guess what comes on the radio? That's right. And that's basic synchronicity. It's also the tip of the iceberg.
• Here's one of my personal favorites. I listen to a bunch of different podcasts. My all-time favorite is Stop Podcasting Yourself (SPY). It's two comedians from Vancouver, BC, just goofing around with each other and funny guests, talking about nonsense. I've listened to the whole series a few times through over the years. It's my "help me clear my head and sleep" and "comfort food" podcast. Another podcast I listen to is It's the Crankcast, another free-form conversation podcast featuring comic book artist Mike Norton and comic book letterer Chris Crank. So one day a couple of years ago, I downloaded an episode of SPY from a few years back. Nothing intentional. Just the next one in line as I did my relistening. While I was listening, the newest episode of Crankcast downloaded. I listened to it right after I was done with SPY. Both shows featured conversations about how the hosts button their shirts. Of all the possible topics of conversation, these two episodes of two different podcasts from years apart focused for a few minutes on one of the most mundane activities in the world. Synchronicity.
• One more from my own life. A little over a year ago, I'd never heard of the classic children's book Fish is Fish by Leo Leonni. We discussed it in one of my teaching licensure classes, and I was fascinated, by the book itself and the author. I spent a good chunk of my lunch break researching him and making up my mind that I wanted to get as many Leonni books as a could for my classroom. The next day I returned to my classroom and went about my daily routine with my third graders. When they left the room to go to art class, I stopped by the staff room to check my mailbox. There was a huge pile of used books on the floor that another teacher was getting rid of. In that pile was over half the books Leonni created. I scooped them up and brought them to my classroom. Synchronicity. And big personal things happened right on the heels of that one.
So why do synchronicities happen? I can't say for sure.
My theory (and others have said the same) is that synchronicity is a sort of homing beacon put out by the universe or God or the collective unconscious or whatever to let one know that a) they're on the right track or b) something big is about to happen.
Norman Mailer had big thoughts about synchronicity. I'm not about to open that can of worms right now, but I mention it just to regrowing things and point that if I'm all coo coo and woo woo, I'm doing it with Carl Jung and Norman Mailer. I'm in good company with my whackadoo-ness.
Also, I want to point out that I try to be reasonable about this stuff. Not every coincidence is a synchronicity. If I wake up with the new Beyoncé song in my head tomorrow and then hear it on the radio, that's not synchronicity. It's not even a coincidence. It's a hit song doing what a hit song does: take up space in my brain and dominate the air waves. If I go to a comic book convention hoping to find that issue of Captain America where he turns into a werewolf, and then I dig through box after box of comics and find it, that's not synchronicity either. It's having a target in mind and seeking it out.
But why am I writing about this now?
Because the last three or four days have been rife with synchronicities. One example: I wrote about Doubting Thomas night before last. Yesterday I read a graphic novel that featured a discussion about Doubting Thomas. There's more, but I won't list them out here. You've already been smiling and nodding politely for longer than you should have to.
It certainly feels like something is on the horizon. Or maybe I'm just being a paranoid weirdo.
And that's how I ended up focusing on Synchronicity II — from The Police's 1983 Synchronicity album — instead of writing another a song about a dog and a cat from my childhood.
Maybe next time. And if it happens, it won't be a synchronicity.
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