On the heels of yesterday's post...

This morning I met with up with a potential assistant to help with some of my video work at TOPP. While on the street, I felt a remarkable pulse to eat at this place called the Bagel Maven Cafe on 30th Street & 7th Avenue.

Got an egg & cheese and sat down. I noticed above me was a print framed on the wall, a very unique style I was familiar with.

Yup, another remarkable coincidence. If you read my previous post this is another cool collage by Michael Albert the guy I met on the street a few days ago!

The young gentleman I was interviewing sensed I was obviously distracted by the coincidence. I told him to read my blog and he'd understand. 'Nuff said.

Today is World π Day!

So I was walking around the streets of NYC this weekend, contemplating this entry.

You see, today is World π Day! π is that number from high school math that starts with 3.14159 and is usually followed by an ellipsis. In this case, an ellipsis means "it keeps going" and is represented by these next three periods...

I recently learned of this π Day thing. On March 14th at 1:59 AM you are as close to π you can get. How to celebrate? Maybe one should watch the movie π while eating some pie. Don't laugh, I'll bet geeks all over the world are having parties like this!

π is another mysterious number of the universe which mightly intrigues me. π is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The number is invaluable in geometry, physics and engineering and yet it is an irrational number. It goes on forever - the exact end cannot be calculated. Supercomputers have failed to identify a pattern after factoring well over a trillion digits. 3.14159 works just fine for math mavens and architects, but it's really short for this:


Which brings me back to walking around NYC this weekend. My path crossed with a great guy named Michael Albert who was generously giving away prints of his artwork to hordes of passersby on the street. The prices as he put it, "One print is free, a second print is $20." Nice prints, fun pop collages.

The one print I selected above was his representation of π.

During our brief π conversation, he told met his wife on March 14th which made the date more special. A flash then went off in my head and I thought, "No it can't be!" When I got home I checked: last year on March 14th at 1:59 AM EST I was getting off a plane in Portland on the trip I would meet my current squeeze Elizabeth on. And no lie - that was the EXACT landing time.

The Town of Clarence

The Town of Clarence is in upstate New York. It's actually three small towns: Clarence, East Clarence and Clarence Center. I know you don't care, but there you go.

My former wife Sharon and I went on a driving vacation of Western New York a few years ago, and on my agenda was getting to visit Clarence, which I had seen on a map as a child nearly 30 years ago and always wanted to visit. Yes, I am not lying, this was going to be exciting (for me!) as I envisoned myself taking photos next to everything Clarence. There's Clarence at the Clarence Bowling Alley. (Snap!) Clarence at the Clarence Shopping Center. (Snap!) Clarence at the Clarence Massage Parlor. (Snap!) You know, stupid kinda stuff.

Well, there really wasn't too much in Clarence. But there were some cosmic occurences.

I discovered a few miles away an Eckerson Street, my last name! The first and last Eckerson Street I have ever encountered. Explain that one!

It continued at the Clarence Deli. I picked up the local paper. It's called the Clarence Bee for crissakes! "B" or "Bee" has been my nickname since I was a tyke!! It's short for B.J. (or Bucky Jr.) Another odd coincidence and (Snap!) Sharon took that photo you see with me smiling with glee and Clarence Bee in hand.


Just then a van pulled into the parking lot. On the side it said B.J.'s Plumbing!! We looked at each other with one of those okay-what-the-hell-is-going-on? glances and quickly left Clarence. But we didn't leave me behind, just the town.

Items...

From time to time, I will espouse recent items of remarkable content...

Early last year I was dating a woman. She made me a music CD. One of the songs was "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" by Bill Withers. I had never heard this song before. Or of him.

Next day I walk into a store to shop - song is on the radio. Later, I walk into Tower Records and there is a endcap featuring a big photo of him and his music on sale. That night met some friends at a club where they took very old concert/music posters, laminated them and used them under glass as cool dinner tables. Sat down and YUP! staring at me all night is Mr. Wither's mug.

* * *

Elizabeth was flying in to JFK a few months ago. I was late so we agreed to meet halfway out on the subway. She was not feeling well because her monthly woman cycle was about to arrive. I called her at an elevated train stop and asked comically if, "the red-dot had arrived yet?" We laughed. I hung up. Turned around and this flyer was staring me right in the face.

Spooky.

Jungian synchronicity

After reading my post on the Fibonacci Series , my friend Matt responded that these coincidences I was experiencing were "purely Jungian synchronicity on perhaps a larger level." Not having read Jung since college, and not familiar with this synchronicity (notice: so very close to symmetry!) I did a few hours of web research.

Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who believed there was a link between the mind, the world of perception, and seemingly unconnected events. He believed that coincidence in life's events are meaningful, filled with signs and connected to the world as a whole. That it's all interrelated, that the universe has a sort of collective unconscious driven by our combined psychic energy.

The example often cited in the literature is a story in which a patient of Jung's was recounting a dream about being given a golden scarab (beetle). Just then appeared a flying beetle at the window which he let in and caught in the air. This coincidence was not lost on Jung.

Here is what I feel is a fair assessment of Jung and related theories, written in prose far greater than I am capable. But predictably, Jung's theory has been debunked to death, in many cases I think a bit too harshly.

Invoked often is apophenia as an explanation to conicidence. Apophenia is basically causality made up "in our minds." In other words, inventing connections between two events when there is none. In any event, I buy most of what Jung says, though let me play the devil's advocate a moment.

There are well over 6 million people on "God's Green Earth". Certainly, a measurable fraction of them encounter lots of daily oddities as I do; some must have extraordinary feats of coincidence. That given, probability predicts an equal number of people who rarely or never experience much coincidence; some who feel assigning a theory to causality to be sheer lunacy. Detractors state there is no scientific evidence for Jung's theories.

Yet a majority of Americans are devoutly religious. There is zero "evidence" that God exists. "Fact" is largely devoid in religion. But believers note their "calling" or a "feeling of a Higher power" inside of them. Loyalty to an unproven ideal. Faith.

I assert that Jung's theories are similar. Nope, I can't yet point to any facts to back me up. But there is a sense inside of me, that the world moves in patterns and that we are individually and collectively contributing. That's faith too.

I also posit this: that those who do not experience ironies just aren't aware of it, or are just ignorant. I think once you are enlightened to the possibilities, once enrolled, you will see them as well.

Just don't drink the Kool Aid.