What do most of us understand a ‘coincidence’ to be? From experience, I understand a coincidence to be a happening (or several happenings) that make us take a closer look at something because it may seem familiar to us, similar to something else and may be something that has happened before. A coincidence causes recollection of past experiences, and incites reflection on other things within the person who experiences it. Coincidences are supposedly occurrences that take place randomly; they have no particular meaning and happen purely by chance.
From a statistical perspective, it’s easy to understand how a coincidence can easily occur, and be inevitable and ‘meaningless.‘ The likelihood of a collection of multiple happenings that are related taking place is quite high, and is bound to happen in almost all situations. Probability and causality are the two aspects of coincidences that are used to explain them. Probability is the measure of likeliness that an event will occur, and causality is the connection between a happening (the cause) and a second happening (the effect), where the second event is understood as a physical consequence of the first.
Certain events may happen repeatedly without being questioned as they may be expected and are bound to be repeated. These things are usually not looked at twice and don’t seem like they have anything ‘more’ to them. For example, the same cat sitting on a wall every day at five o clock, or a laid-back, uninvolved student being half an hour late for class every day aren’t coincidences because even though they continually occur, they occur regularly, on schedule, and are expected. A coincidence happens and serves as a slight jolt to us; something unusual happens twice or more and becomes a pattern of some sort, which causes us to look into it further and possibly expect it to have deeper meaning and significance.
Coincidences are supposed to be just what the word means. Randomness. Co-occurrence. Meaningless coexistence. If a coincidence was anything more than chance, then maybe we may never know for certain. After all, science wouldn’t be able to explain whether or not the perpetuation of a particular event holds any significance or has any meaning in each of our lives. But, what if it does? What if coincidences are signs that deliberately happen to signify something, lead us in a particular direction, or ‘show’ us something that we need to ‘see?’ What if there is really no such thing as a ‘coincidence,’ and that every time one happens, it’s something that specifically happens to send us a message? …..
perfectenigma 