Category Archives: So-crates!

Philosophy, Religion, Metaphysics, etc.

Synchronicity

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Zombies be runnin’

The World English Dictionary defines Synchronicity as “an apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated” and Wikipedia defines it as “the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner.”

I like the Wikipedia definition better.

I experience synchronicity on a weekly basis. I am agnostic–I don’t think any one you hairless apes out there knows jack about the universe or the nature of reality. I’ll be the first to admit I certainly don’t. I think probably there is no god but I think the certainty of A-theists is just as ill-conceived as the “faith” of their religious counterparts. Definitely all the major religions are dead wrong–which is hilarious by the way. But synchronicity provides that itch in the back of my head that makes me sure there’s more to reality than meets the eye.

Last Sunday I experienced a weird episode of synchronicity. I had flown down to Fort Lauderdale with my girlfriend Sophia the previous Thursday but we had separate flights back to Atlanta on Sunday. She left Ft. Lauderdale before me and made it home before I had even boarded. I had my laptop with me so I spent the three hours until my flight sitting in the terminal watching episodes of “The Walking Dead” on Netflix via wi-fi (wee-fee as they call it in Mexico).

When I got back to Atlanta it was about 2:50pm. I disembarked and walked through the terminals down to the Marta train. As I walked I thought about the walking dead episodes I had watched and engaged in a little speculation about what I would do should the zombie apocalypse hit my town–this is an important subject. One must have a plan.

While walking I passed a little shop that had a rack of hats–ATL baseball caps–prominently displayed in the doorway and I thought to myself, “self, what hat would you wear during the zombie apocalypse?”

Obviously the answer is “an Indiana Jones hat.” Of course an Indiana Jones hat. In the next few seconds I ran through a couple more zombie apocalypse scenarios–how would I get to my family–how would I get out of the city–would we go to Sophia’s parents or mine? They live on a mountain but my dad’s place is fenced–I stepped onto the escalator going down into the superbly-named “plane train” subway line beneath the airport.

Two seconds later on the escalator a random stranger about ten feet ahead of me

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started whistling the Indiana Jones theme song out of nowhere. He whistled all the way through the first verse of the theme song and stopped. And then–if it wasn’t a weird enough coincidence already–he turned around and looked me right in the eyes and grinned a big, toothy grin. I hadn’t said anything to this guy and I hadn’t said anything out loud about the hat thing.

I grinned back and gave him a nod. What else do you do?

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This is Dr. Tom Voychehovski’s worldview game. Copy & paste the questions into the comment box and provide your own answers. Provide your name and a short tweet about yourself. The only rule of the game is to keep answers to the length of a tweet!

Ecohumanist Lab

This game will evolve into “The smartest human of the week”. But we are starting now at, so to speak “garage” level.

This blog has no capacity for browsing, scoring, chat-rooming and site -navigating  frills.

Please:

1. Pick up your V number which is not taken- check the comments below.

2. describe yourself in 1 line ( name or else)

3. Answer 13 questions describing your worldview – in maximum 140 characters- or twitter size.  Mark them with your number .

Here are the questions. Copy them and Paste in the “Leave a reply” ( They ask you to give name and email . This is embarrassing  but they try to sort out the spam). Write your answers after each question. Click “post comment”.  Put them on the fridge and use every day. This your explicit Worldview.

I .What is the Universe made of?
II.What is the nature of mind?

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Experiencing the Standard

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I'M IN A SUIT

Yesterday during my daily news bender in which I channel Cookie Monster and gobble up as much media as possible, I came across this gem of an excerpt:

Even if you have no intention of parting with too much of your paycheck, try on an expensive suit, especially if you have never done so. This will provide you with a frame of reference as to what a suit should do for you, what it can look like on you and what you ought to feel like in it. It’s why a struggling law student test-drives a Porsche. It’s the reason we have museums. You can’t devise standards unless you know the range of possibilities.

-Hal Rubenstein, NYT, March 28, 1993

It was nestled snugly near the bottom of a random NYT article from 1993 about how to buy a suit. Why I was reading an early nineties article on style we may never know. (I started on  io9 reading about comic books and Star Trek, emigrated to Huffpo for news on Newt’s latest escapade and found myself in the NYT’s basement–the Internets is a magical place)

Anyway, the article was a prissy diatribe about fabric weaves and firing your tailor, something you’d read in Esquire magazine or some other fop rag, but that excerpt stuck with me. It’s good advice and I think it rings a clear, silver bell of truth that for most of us probably gets obscured by the ins and outs of every day life. I think the point of it is to take chances by trying new things. No one ever changed the world, discovered something new or imparted a rich legacy by staying inside the lines, eating lunch at their desk, staying home on vacation, going from work and back home every day to watch network sitcoms or settling for only the price and cut of suit they could afford.

Life is about options! We’re only here for 70-80 years if we’re lucky and despite what the practitioners of (insert hoodoo of choice) may tell you, we’re not guaranteed anything beyond that. You’ve probably heard the phrase “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” This life is in your grasp. Today is in your grasp. Scarlet O’Hara famously said, “Tomorrow is another day,” but Scarlet was a silly woman. Today is the day. Try on that Valentino suit, experience how it feels. You’ll buy something much cheaper but now you’ll have that mental standard. You’ll know how a suit is supposed to look and feel. If it’s a car, why not test drive that BMW or Lexus? Vacation? Lunch? Just try something new. We make standards for our lives based on our experiences so for such a finite existence why not have the highest standards and richest experience possible?