As an exercise (really, to add spice to life) I’ve been meeting totally random people recently, and engaging them in conversation.
I want to relate a recent incident from a recent trip, since it is rather interesting and relevant to Friday’s post.
I was in Washington for business travel and decided to make a long weekend out of things, and was told that Adams Morgan was the place to be for live music. So, a lover of music, where was I to go, but Adams Morgan.
Long story short, I end up in a coffee bar, and start up a conversation with the girl sitting next to me on the couch who was journaling – something I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on lately (500+ pages over the past two months, but pace is slowing down rapidly).
We start talking about meaning in life, and a blog post I wrote the night before, which is scheduled to come out some time in December, and she says to me, “the problem is that there is nothing unique or original for me anymore, it all just fits into some type of box of something I have experienced already.” So I shared with her my feelings on the matter – which put her mind at ease, shared some stories about our struggles in life for an hour or so, and we parted ways into the ether of the world.
Later that evening, I went to my room and decided to blog a little and to my surprise I found that the post for the day was that post that spoke directly to her core issue. Well, that made me stop and think. Is life really coincidental and random? Or, was I sent by some force to DC, to Adams Morgan, to that coffee shop, to that couch, just so I could share my feelings on things – and hear her ideas on other topics of interest?
But wait, there’s more.
I was sitting, writing at the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden, when that girl from Adams Morgan, walks by me. Well, it turns out, it wasn’t her (I stopped and asked), but I’m telling you it sure looked like her, and I was freaked out. I might not remember names, due to not paying attention to people when I first meet them rather my own impression that I giving over at the beginning of conversations (I know, no need, be yourself, working on it), but I do remember faces. So again, I ask, coincidence or divine?
I’ll share another related story. A few months ago after dealing with some personal issues, I needed some advice, so I reached out to a friend of a friend who was recommended to me and might be able to help me sort through some things. At the time, I thought I was going to her for advice, but as it turns out, I had some spot on advice that she needed, and she told me that she felt our meeting, to put it in her more spiritual terms, was divine. So is she correct?
Well, as much as I would like to believe in the divine, and will come back to this topic I am sure since it is such a central thing I have contemplated for many years, and have a few thoughts on, I just can’t attribute these events to divine intervention. Here’s why.
Basically, we have millions of interactions with other people in our life – hundred on a daily basis – and every once in a while, that interaction is spot on to a core issue for us. And when that happens, we really notice it. That order, which we notice, seems to be divine, since we typically attribute order to God as the person putting order to the world (if that is the side of the argument you are taking). What we don’t realize are all of the non-events that happen in our life. They happen, but we just don’t pay attention to them, so they disappear and our mind doesn’t take note since they are non-events. However, all the cool events, those that provide order, those amazing coincidences, really stand out people see them as divine, when in truth they are just coincidences that happen from time to time.
P.S. I was journaling earlier today, and wanted to followup on Friday’s post a little. I realized that as much as our lives are unique, what can make them even more unique is when we bring in another random feature into it – another person. So if we are looking for unique experiences, go meet random people and learn their stories – or tell them yours. As I mentioned, I’ve done it three times so far, and it has been very enriched my life immensely.