The random, the preordained and the house cat.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be 'synchronistic', the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

Coincidence is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection. The word is derived from the Latin co- ("in", "with", "together") and incidere ("to fall on").

A (young) man enters his neighbors house for a suprise birthday party. He assigns to himself a specific chair in the back corner facing the hallway so as to observe those who enter and leave so as not to be caught of guard. His initial observations of the room... two blonde girls... both wear black tops. Coincidence? Everyone is wearing shoes, save two girls. The two girls both shoeless are wearing blue socks. Everyone who is enjoying beverage holds either a red can or a blue can. The predominant colors present in the room, are red and blue. Coincidence?

The band GWAR, Marlboro cigarettes, and my exgirlfriend. All from Richmond Virginia.

A (young) man goes into the library at his local community college before his English class. He has two things on his mind, for some reason the number three, so much so that he began drawing it on his notebooks, and the state of Alaska, he begins to google colleges in Alaska wondering if he should leave this place far behind. He then goes to his class, the teacher begins to discuss the significance of the number three when present in mythology. She also begins to give examples of certain types of myths known as the hero myth wherin the hero must leave his people as an example she randomly says "suppose you move to Alaska" coincidence?

A (young) man on the eve of moving to Montana for school, who never has been to Montana is having trouble sleeping, he goes to a local 24hour Safeway to get some Totinos pizza bites as he walks through the store he sees a movie on sale for five dollars This movie is called "Legends of the Fall" he knows nothing of the movie except that Brad Pitt is on the cover. He buys this movie and takes it home. He watches this movie to discover that it is set in Montana. This gives him great comfort and he is able to sleep well. Coincidence?

While some of the above events are obvious and meaningless coincidences others of them suggest some sort of meaningful connection as described by Jung's theory of syncronicity. Depending on the anxiety levels present in my daily life the need to assign meaning and connection to random events comes and goes. This does not however mean that these connections are not present, it just means the urge in my brain to connect them is not. Our lives are stories, and like the stories written on the pages of books, they have reoccurring themes, characters, and ideas. Like Prof. Sexson says if a revolver is present in the first chapter, then at some point in the book it's going to be fired. Not a matter of if, but when. If this is true in literature then why not in our daily lives? We are characters in our own specific novels, our lives are wrought with tragedy, comedy, triumph and copious amounts of conflict. The conflict drives us to work, eat, sleep, and love. When the conflict ceases to exist, so do we.

Another conflicting theme in the human life is pain. Prof Sexson instructed us to recount our earliest memories of pain. As I type these very letters I am ransacking the disorginized files in the drawer of my earliest memories only to find one shining example. Hiedi the three legged mouse. She was it. My sister and I had a three legged mouse named Hiedi. Now this may not seem a big deal, but to a very young and very attached fellow her death was debilitating. Now let me tell you about Hiedi, though she was missing a limb she lived a very full life and was strong and capable. If she could have spoke I believe she would not have used the word "disabled" to describe herself. She loved to run on the wheel and drink from her little water bottle. Anyway Hiedi was not the only animal we had present in the house. Let me introduce to you the very moody and brooding cat... Hobbes! Hobbes was a prig, like Mr. Pip, Hobbes thought he was too good for our humble beginings, very upity indeed. One day while in the living room jumping on a very worn brown couch I heard a most resounding crash come from my sisters room, I knew almost at once what that miserable sound had been. I ran into my sisters room and looked to her desk where I knew Hiedi's cage to be, it was not there. I looked to the floor and there I saw the cage, looking very molested with none other than the villain Mr. Hobbes trying with vigor to get into the cage and destroy our mistress Hiedi. I swatted that evil cat away and righted the toppled cage. By this time my sister had entered the room as did my parents. They ushered me from the room and began to tend to Hiedi. Now I had faith that she would make a full recovery as she was a very stout mouse who ate well and knew the importance of regular exercise. As I sat in the living room awaiting the prognosis, my father came out to speak with me. I knew by the grim expression he wore on his normally jovial face that our young Hiedi was not going to make it. The pain I had felt was terrible. Death is a difficult thing to understand especially at a young age. As we get older, the notion of death does not become any more understandable but we get used to it, like a distant rain cloud on a summers day. Death looms permantly on the horizion. It watches us and skulkes in the shadows and like the cobra it rises and strikes only to claim another victim. Heidi was lost forever. We held a burial service for her in the yard, next to my mothers flowers. I believe she would have liked it that way. After Hiedi's death my young heart heavy with grief sought vengeance. My birthday was a few weeks later, I asked for a supersoaker 30 squirt gun and an RC monster truck. Using both tools I spent much of my free time tracking the dastardly Hobbes until it escalated into a full fledged boy vs cat fued that would have put even the Hatfield and Mccoy's to shame. It would not be until many years later on his death bed that Hobbes and I would reconcile and put to rest a fued that had stretched more than a decade. As the conflict between Hobbes and I ceased so did our story together, for the last chapter had been writ.