Many
people are bamboozled by intellectualizations. Some people enjoy
exhibiting their polysyllabic vocabulary. Synchronicity is a word
rarely used in conversations at the corner five and dime. Not many
people know what it means, and fewer still understand the meaning.
The
definition of the word is this: The simultaneous occurrence of events
which appear significantly related but have no causal connection.
Coincidences in time.
Synchronicity
is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung,
which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if
they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully
related.
Synchronize
your watches is a not uncommon phrase particularly in military
circles. The idea is there.
Never
mind. Think kaleidoscope. Every child has had one some time or other.
Pick one up, give it a turn, and have a look. What do you see?
Beggars description, it does. Think synchronicity. Everything seems
to be happening at the same time together.
Time
is the problem. If time did not exist, then everything indeed would
be Now. I tried to draw the concept once. A cyclone came to mind.
Everything swirling around, inside, outside, up and down. Without
time, everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the gurgle of
your stomach would be coincidental, happening all at once now.
Kaleidoscopic,
dude.
photograph by M Simoni
I
spent most of my classroom time teaching remedial classes. Two of my
students, both considered well below the normal range of measured
intelligence, came to me asking if they might combine their science
project with their metal shop assignment. I agreed. The photo above
is the result of their efforts: a fine strand of DNA, complete with
color coding.
It
occurred to me that a double helix of DNA, with its colored segments
entwined, also makes a nifty example of synchronicity. Are all cells
synchronized? Yours, mine, and the crow in the tree? This would mean,
given the nature of genetic machinations, that each one of us is
happening right now, everywhere and forever, individually and
together. Phew!