no time like the present

I'm somebody more than I'm nobody. You probably don't know me in real life if you have just happened upon this blog. For the last 13 years or so I have kept a journal. It's been a place to go when the need to write arises. Writing is largely a way to sort my own psychological, emotional, and spiritual issues out. It's a way to dissect the conglomeration of information that my head seems to pile up into an open room. I don't like messes and so writing is a way for me to clean that mental space. It's a way to sort through all of the piles of information to find what's worth saving and what's worth displaying. That would make this blog a mental display of sorts..a mental bookcase. I'm not confused about the fact that my musing is probably only going to reach the people in my life who care to know what I'm thinking and writing about.

I had a conversation with a mentor of mine a while back about my "notes" on Facebook. He wanted to know why I wasted my time posting long diatribes about Peak Oil, the moral rot that our consumer society worships, the collapse of Western Civilization, the amount of genetically modified corn that composes our human molecules, and the solutions to all of this nonsense. I told him that I write those things because I have to. "Yeah, but you're not going to change anybodies mind. Nobody is going to pay it any attention. You're wasting your time," is essentially what he said. Well that may be true. In fact I know that it is true...mostly. But there is still the chance for my tedious assessment of reality to help others like me sort through this seemingly random act of existence in an effort to make sense of it. The truth is that I 'm going to write regardless, so why not share my particular onion of personality with the rest of the world.

I always wanted to publish a book and make my living as an author of fiction. I've finished a couple of novels in my life. I have never tried to publish. To my mind this is publishing. In a way this is almost better than publishing a book because anybody can read it (pending access to the Internet) for free. A click here and a click there and now you are reading my thoughts. This is the pentacle of the information age. Blogging is the spearhead of our evolution as a species. Never before in the history of man have we been able to reach anybody in the world instantly. This is the end result of the telegraph. We have reached a technological peak that will probably not be improved on much because there is no need to improve upon it. As far as publishing goes it's not going to get any better than this. I was fine with just writing "notes" on Facebook but now I'm not. Most of my "friends" on FB are either family, or my wife's friends. That means that they are not people who are in my life because they are of like mind (although this does not necessarily mean that they are not of like mind). Most of them could care less about my commentary on the colossal boondoggle that is our way of life. This feels more like being a published author because anybody is free to read it. Again, I'm not delusional about my status as just another atom composing an almost insignificant part of one cell of the body of consciousness that we are all plugged into. So for my first blog:

Synchronicity

synchronicity (ˌsɪnkrəˈnɪsɪtɪ)
—n
	an apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated
[C20: coined by Carl Jung from synchronic + -ity]

An idea I've been trying to sort out for myself lately is the idea of synchronicity. Apparently Jung was consulting a Japanese patient and a non-indigenous Japanese beetle landed on his window and he had this epiphany of synchronicity (it was something along those lines, feel free to correct me Don). The idea, as I understand it, is that if we pay attention we can be privy to directions on where to place our attention. I think the idea is sort of wrapped up with the Butterfly Effect...our interconnectedness. Deja-vu is probably part of this mystery as well.

If synchronicity is true, than does it require some time of God type order? If a synchronistic event happens to catch your attention, and it results in you making a different decision, and therefore creates a different future that is somehow better than what would have happened without said event, than what is driving this whole process to begin with? At any given point in time there are millions of decisions we can make and therefore millions of different outcome to our lives based on every decision we make. Synchronicity would be the idea that there are better decisions that we can make resulting in what? Fulfilling a destiny or a purpose? This is my point of contention, because if synchronicity is real than it has to follow that there is some type of order. There has to be something providing the free will to make the decision resulting in a better, more fulfilled, and more purposeful life. Without that something I don't see how synchronicity has any meaning? If one decision is somehow better than another that that decision would be more correct. Synchronicity would then be the affirmation provided to you on what the correct course of action is for any one decision. Maybe synchronicity only happens for the very important decisions presented to you. The decisions that will drastically change your life and all involved. Still that would mean that some points in time are more important than others and who, or what determines that?

I don't believe in a creator God. It seems to me that in order for synchronicity to be real it would require, if nothing else, a God that influences the outcomes of our lives. I do however believe in consciousness beyond the worldly grave and for some reason I want to believe in synchronicity. Maybe it's because I've experienced synchronistic events in my life. Yet, it could be that synchronicity is just the perceiver's skilled attentiveness of reality assisting them in making the correct decision. If there are millions of outcomes than many are going to be better than others. Synchronicity could then be seen as a map to a preferred future. Clues to reach the preferred destination. This moves towards crafting a definition of synchronicity that does not require a God influencing our existence. It could just be a fine connection with your higher consciousness. Your higher consciousness is just making you aware of an important decision that needs to be made to achieve a preferred destination. If we are all interconnected (which really can't be argued against) than this moment could be two individuals, or a group of individuals, higher selves all tuned into this important convergence of interconnectedness. The only metaphysical idea required for this to be the case would be the truth of higher consciousness, which still does not require a God to be true.

So all of this begs the question of purpose. If God is not required for synchronicity to be explained than what about purpose? Purpose would add the meaning to the meaningful portion of synchronicity based on the definition provided at the top of this blog. Purpose is a loaded idea. I'll explore this idea in my next blog post.