First Musing... Coincidentally coincidental.

So, I started this blog as sort of personality therapy - a way to write down the things that I am thinking about, without really worrying about who reads it or what I might want to talk about. Coincidental Musings is a title that I came up with for a potential book, and really was the only thing I could think of when I was asked to put in a title for this blog, though I had no serious intention of musing on coincidences or making my musings a coincidence.

It just so happens, however (which is another way of saying, "Coincidentally...") that my first "Musing" involves coincidences.

Supposing coincidences aren't actually coincidences, and they are actually clues to an unrealized greater connection between all things, would we ever discover that? At this point, we all know what a coincidence is: "A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection." What got me thinking about this is actually a pretty disturbing thought, and certainly one that doesn't even require further attention because it is ridiculous. January 20th is a day that seems to keep popping up in my life - it is a day of beginnings. For this story, the two main points are that Barack Obama will be sworn in as President, and I will be starting my next history course -  a transnational history course titled "Modern Terrorism."

These two concurrent beginnings have absolutely no causal connection, but when I thought to myself, "Oh, Modern Terrorism will start the night of Obama's inauguration," I caught myself in the thought. Modern Terrorism... will start when Obama becomes President... What if it did? What if this country became embroiled in terrorist activity over his presidency? What if January 20th is the beginning of something terrible? Well, that's crazy... it's just a coincidence... and besides, it's not as if everyone in the world has a class in Modern Terrorism that would make this a global warning, and I'm certainly not important or clairvoyant enough to have my coincidence matter in the grand scheme of things! It would be crazy to think otherwise.

But maybe this is the point... what if I'm NOT the only one having this type of coincidental connection. What if the entire world had some sort of Doomsday-on-the-20th experience, and we all just think that's too crazy to consider. No one is going to talk about it with others. I'm not going around talking about how January 20th is going to begin a new era of terrorism, simply because a random thought made an irrational connection to unrelated events. No one talks about coincidental things because they feel inconsequential. But what if collective coincidence exists, and these happenings are signs to be interpreted?

Coincidences used to be considered signs from the gods. People to this day will say that there are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidence. Some believe that all things truly are connected, and that a coincidence is a sign of that fact. Just as some believe there are no accidents, the idea that coincidences are signs of connectedness implies a certain grander scheme. Whether this is God's plan, or the rational order of the Universe, or a massive collected consciousness of energies moving toward the same goal is a matter of personal consideration, but there is something common connecting these ideas that suggest that perhaps coincidence deserves consideration.