Coincidence? (I think not...)

Coindidence? (I think not...)

Several months ago in a moment of distraction, I drove away from the 76-Station with the gas hose still attached to my car. This is an embarrassing and potentially expensive boo-boo. I phoned my wife almost immediately, and as I was bemoaning my misfortune, she interrupted breathlessly and demanded the where-when details. Amazingly, she had just pulled the same bullwinkle twenty miles away at a gas station in the Valley. We estimated the two incidents occurred within five minutes of each other.

I have often heard “there are no coincidences”, usually from people with an I-know-something-you-don’t gravitas who dabble in a particular religious, spiritual or mystical belief system. Their differing philosophical inclinations notwithstanding, the denominator is that no coincidence should be ignored. They are designed and staged either to facilitate a dynamic intervention or to impart a message. All are significant and meaningful -- perhaps critical -- to our present and future lives.

I buy that. For me, it feels careless at best, arrogant at worst to trivialize everyday coincidences as kismet, which is to discount their significance altogether. In my own life, the most common is receiving a call from an estranged friend at the exact moment I am thinking about him. I have also had the experience of being in a foreign city and sitting down at a barstool next to my high school history teacher. In my mid-20’s, unemployed and short $500 dollars for rent, I found an old scratch-off lottery ticket in my wallet and won exactly that amount. Last year – for no particular reason -- I phoned an estranged friend who suffered untreated bipoloar disorder and had become reclusive. I learned later that he had removed a gun from his mouth in order to answer the phone. Quite a coincidence, that one.

I know there are other coincidences in my life that I do not immediately realize or appreciate. I may have a moment of clarity in the rearview mirror, but in the moment, I am usually too distracted by the fairy dust to pause and divine a message. In reality, I imagine there is so much coincidence in all our lives that we simply do not have the capacity to acknowledge, process or sort it out. The biggie, of course, is the very fact of human life. Without going into the science of it all (which I don’t pretend to fully understand), I know enough to appreciate that the odds against our very existence are astronomically high -- like being hit by lightening twice, winning the tri-state lottery, and being identified as the next Dalai Lama all in one week.

Closer to home, what are the chances – with the billions of people in the world – that I would meet and marry my wife? On paper it would be impossible to calculate, no? Yet we now have twenty plus years of shared history and three children. Am I to believe it was mere coincidence that we were in the same place at the same time and just happened to strike up a conversation? Please.

I would describe coincidence as an impossibly unlikely moment or convergence of events. By that definition, coincidence cannot be meaningless. See, if a moment is impossible, then the fact of it is miraculous, and if it is miraculous, then divine intervention has occurred, and we had better sit up and take notice. Simplistic logic, yes, but it’s my logic.

And I have more! Try to create your own coincidence... Can’t do it, can you? Therefore…

But back to the gas station and the miraculous synchronicity of my wife’s and my blunders. What’s the message? I have burned a lot of brain cells trying to figure this one out. What I have come up with is weak and unsatisfying:

a) Slow down (stop and smell the diesel).

b) Carpool (cuts risk and emissions in half).

c) The Universe has its own whacked sense of humor.

I am open to theories.

And one last thing. As I was finishing this piece, I received an unsolicited e-mail (okay, spam) with a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." Cue the spooky music. Or fanfare. Whatever.

My wife has a parenting blog: http://www.janetlansbury.com/