Comments on: Synchronicity

By: tentaculistic

tentaculistic — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:28:38 +0000

“A few weeks ago, my car had some minor issues and my shoelace broke almost exactly at the same time, leaving me limping around and wondering why I was cursed.”

Ha ha, I totally do this! Two minor things coming together in just the wrong way can turn me into Jonah shaking my fist at God. ‘I’m cursed! Cursed I say!’

And then I remember people who actually have real problems and feel guilty for being totally ridiculous.

One thing I really really try to do is to recognize the positive synchronicity (didn’t know the name till now) or the times in which the negative synchronicity didn’t happen. Which may be nauseatingly Pollyanna of me, but I’d rather bring my brain to positivity than negativity, although with a bit of a naturally pessimistic outlook I have to struggle to do that.

I agree that a big emergency fund can turn something from Life Catastrophe!!! to a mild ‘aw that kinda sucks’ in a real hurry.

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:13:27 +0000

Seems to me like you’re basically saying “make your own luck” which I definitely agree with.

Some successful people are genuinely lucky, but most of them got to where they are because they made their own luck (emergency fund, great social network, etc.)

By: Carole

Carole — Sun, 29 May 2011 13:27:02 +0000

My late husband who was a farmer used to say”everything has gone wrong today”. He had many, very expensive pieces of machinery to keep going and when something would break during a busy time it would cause a lot of trouble. However, he kept what he called a “cushion” so that he could pay for the repairs and just had the aggravation to deal with. I can remember that he told the children when they became adults to always keep a cushion which was his version of an emergency fund.

By: moom

moom — Sun, 29 May 2011 00:43:25 +0000

Jung was thinking of astrology when he came up with the idea of synchronicity. There was no logical reason why movement of the planets should affect people’s lives but maybe there was somehow a relationship. Maybe your negative example is something like that happening but I didn’t get your positive one and I think this is a stretch to the discussion of emergency funds etc.

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Sun, 29 May 2011 00:06:16 +0000

“Have a big, fat emergency fund. The obvious impact of this is to minimize the effects of negative synchronicity. If you lose your job and your car breaks down, the impact on your life will be less if you have cash on hand to handle it.”

I thought the synchronicity was the fact that the two events occurred, not the resulting impact from them. No matter how big your efund is, that’s not going to stop your car breaking down. So how is it possible to encourage/prevent either positive or negative synchronicity, or am I misunderstanding?

By: David

David — Sat, 28 May 2011 23:41:04 +0000

As to a tendency to deny causality where is is clearly present:

Steven seems oblivious to the fact that a broken shoelace might cause a human being to limp, whereas it is obvious to anyone that of course it might. To “limp” is simply to walk in a fashion that is in some way impaired: a person with a sprained ankle will walk in such a fashion; but so will a person with a broken shoelace, lest that person’s normal gait lead to the relevant shoe becoming dislocated with respect to the relevant foot.

As to a tendency to affirm causality where it is clearly not present: this may or may not have served humans well until now, but it is the only thing that has served humans at all until now. What we would have done without it I don’t know – perhaps we would all be living on Vulcan; perhaps we would all be dead. What we will do without it I don’t know either, and I don’t believe anyone (even Richard Dawkins) who says he does know.

By: valleycat1

valleycat1 — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:02:06 +0000

IMO, the key word in the definition is “observed”. Humans tend to grant meaning, causality, or relatedness to random events that are probably totally unrelated. And, sometimes, ignore or deny actual causality or relatedness.

By: Steven

Steven — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:53:26 +0000

“A few weeks ago, my car had some minor issues and my shoelace broke almost exactly at the same time, leaving me limping around and wondering why I was cursed.”

WHA!? A broken shoestring and minor car issues make you wonder why you’re cursed? LOL! I can’t imagine how you’re going to deal with a serious problem…and, how does a broken shoelace leave you limping around?