This is probably my favorite topic to analyze, as it continues to fascinate me. Saying something is just a “coincidence” is not a good enough explanation for me. Defined as a noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection, a coincidence is said to be something simple. Something you can shrug off. However, I believe there is a deeper explanation.
Take my favorite movie, I Heart Huckabees, for example. Most people do not understand this movie the first time around. However it is fascinating when you -do- understand the message. The plot is about a man who wants to “solve his coincidence”. Eventually, it evolves to answer the question of “why am I here?”. This is attempted to be solved with a theory of universal interconnectivity. Or, why coincidences happen- because everything is connected in the first place
Another example is the book and movie Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which is answering the ultimate question of why we exist by a series of “meaningless coincidences”. Same concept as I Heart Huckabees, except it relies on a much “higher up being” in power.
Or you could take it a step further with a real life example I just read in the news, about a man who received a heart transplant. This heart came from a donor who had died by killing himself by a gunshot wound to the head. The man who received his heart ended up marrying the dead donor’s widow. (coincidence?) However, this man who had received the heart and married the donor’s widow has just recently died. How? By killing himself by a gunshot wound to the head. Coincidence?
Even further, with my real life recent example. I somehow run into my professor at the grocery store more times than I run into anyone on mere “coincidence” in this town. It’s funny and we laugh about it but it makes me wonder why?
What are the causes for such odd and fascinating things? Some people may say there is a cause for everything, which there certainly is for most things. (Example: My friend and I both have the same exact flowers by our mailboxes in our yard- reason: a group of girl scouts volunteered to plant flowers for one dollar by mailboxes in 2005) But I am talking about a small example of my professor and I running into each other at the grocery store. It definitely has not been at similar times. I do change up my grocery stores. And it has not been connected to -anything- I can think of. She also does not live close to the store, she does not go everyday (just on the days I do apparently) and we do not go on every tuesday or something. It has been random days of the week. Thus, I find no explanation. That I would call a coincidence.
Is there some higher power with a plan? Some people reason with this ideology.
However, I take the I Heart Huckabees approach that everything is connected. How? I use my own logic. Our existence is of molecules connecting everything in the world. Of course you know that atoms and molecules make every tangible material in the universe. They are what make matter possible. I use this in the way that when something becomes connected, it stimulates these atoms and molecules, creating a reaction within us. For example: have you ever “felt” someone looking at you? Or thought of someone and they called you? Or felt comforted just by someone “being around you”. I feel like once the molecules and atoms recieve such stimulus they want it more and more and thus, it creates coincidences. Or what we think are coincidences.
That is one explaination. Then you get the unexplainable things such as a man who receives a heart transplant and dies the same way as his donor. How does that happen?
Everything is connected somehow, but this I would not know how to explain. It makes you wonder though, what is out there, why are we here, what are the chances, and if something higher exists.
What do you all think?
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