SUNSET AT KINCARDINE'S LIGHTHOUSE
I am prompted to write about coincidence because of three events that have happened to me during the past twenty-four hours. The first is a coincidence of a 'word,' and the second is a coincidence of an event in time. The two coincidences together contrive to create an event in my mind that tells me something meaningful.
Sometimes, we have things happen to us that as I put it 'should not happen.' That they happen to me fairly regularly makes me aware of them and causes me to think that there is something unseen going on around me, and that I should possibly accept that there are secret guardians at work, known only by what happens, or that I am missing something about how 'my universe' has been constructed for me to experience, or how my universe is constructed.
I wish that could dismiss the coincidences as deriving from known probabilities, but I can't, even though I am trained as a mathematical statistician. In statistical terms, I am seeking the generating function for events that are unrepeatable. I can never reconstruct the events. They will not happen again in this life cycle. They have a probability of almost zero.
I wish that I had such events to prompt me to gamble but I don't. There is no way that I can possibly benefit from the events other than this blog or by reading a meaning into the events that triggers behaviour that I would not initiate without the events.
My recourse is to re-examine the subject matter of coincidence. I would begin with the book 'The Roots of Coincidence, An Excursion Into Parapsychology' written by Arthur Koestler. Koestler focuses on the possibility of telepathy in the causation of coincidence. This could have contributed to one of my cases, one which occurred yesterday, and which involved a human being, but not to the one which occurred today. Its possible that I am missing something about how the world is constructed.
Let me describe the first coincidence and see what you think. I was in Stratford about two weeks ago, and arrived at the Home Hardware five minutes before closing returning from Orillia. During the five minutes, I picked a colour from about two hundred different colour cards and had the paint mixed. The name of the paint colour was Lily. I painted a bedroom with the paint and used it all up, but needed more for a second coat. I returned to the local Home Hardware, but I had forgotten to bring my colour card and there was no one serving at the paint desk in any event, so I left without paint. I selected a colour card of the colour that I thought that I needed.
Sunday, I returned to the Home Hardware, but in my town which is about 60 miles from the other Home Hardware store, with the correct colour card since I had chosen the wrong colour card the previous day. I had with me the lid of the paint can and it had the codes needed to identify the paint colour. Up to now everything seems pretty normal doesn't it. If you think you are clever tell me what you think the coincident is, based on the above information. I am sure that you cannot.
I handed the lid to a girl behind the paint counter. She was one who mixed up paint. She was one of two girls there and she volunteered to serve me. She went to the computer and entered the numbers, then came back to me and said smiling all the while that this was her colour. She shouted over to the others nearby that someone had named a paint colour after her name, which is Lily. She looked at me, and said, "My name is Lily." I was puzzled and then she explained that the name of the paint colour was 'Lily.' Out of about 200 colours, I had selected 'her' colour and had been served by her. She mixed the paint.
Thinking back on the coincidence, it still seems extraordinary. How many people do you know named 'Lily?' How many Lily's work in paint shops? It was a Sunday, and I could have got the paint on another day when she was not working. I had chosen the paint colour as a split second decision. I could not remember the colour exactly on the Saturday, when I intended to get the paint and forgot the paint tin lid and had lost the paint card. I did not recall the name of the colour of the paint until she told me.
I won't tell you about the other coincidence right now until the story has played out much further. There may be much to record!
Was the above a coincidence? What do you make of it?