Scientific vs Miraculous

Now I'm going to prone on the stuff which ranks, probably, first on the scale of all those crazy things my head is preoccupied with. Ooooh, how much I love it – um, no, not that - how much I'm obsessed with it!

As a lead-in I have one recent example. There, in the photo. Two cars of the same make, of the same year of production, of the same colour, having the same digits on their plates (!) happen to have their owners living in the same building (!). The owners are absolute strangers, mind you, so there's no chance they could've agreed on getting identical cars or purchasing flats in one and the same place. The thing is I am one of these two, so I would know))

I am on about coincidences now, of course. The ones I come across may be not “all the time, every minute of every day” but frequently enough to put me on guard in a sense and give food for thought. I do not wander about places loaning for something coincidental to bump into, I don't hunt for them or something, no; I just somehow land on them, against my will, unintentionally.

There are two major points about them tickling my mind - why they happen and what they can possibly mean.

As for why... You know, I've always held there's an explanation for everything, - anything, absolutely. All at the first sight weird and absolutely inexplicable occurrences always, always have their roots. Nothing is ever done “by pure chance”, it all has been purposely designed this way. The thing is that we are not always able to get to the bottom of things, for various reasons. Firstly, it's so much easier to take things as they come – why bother explaining them? Secondly, some happenings are just beyond human understanding no matter how strenuous the efforts to get the hang of them are. Lastly, the forces (either nature, or science, or God, or others) standing behind them might object to us interfering with their doings, accordingly all our amateur (from their point of view) attempts are doomed to failure.

The same is with coincidences. They are not just accidents. Being immensely attracted to them, I've looked up a lot on this matter and I know there's no universally accepted theory as for what brings them about. The sensible part of me leans towards mathematicians' point of view - that it's all just the theory of probability at work, that any two (three, ten etc.) similar occurrences can well happen at the same time and at the same place, that it all can even be calculated...

Either way, whether such happenings are scientifically explained or they all are purely mystical – why do they tend to befall some people but ignore others? I've been torturing everyone around me and only a tiny few admit that they do experience something of the kind. I've been racking my brain over it and the only explanation I can myself give is that they do experience them, but simply don't pay any heed - being too busy for that or having their minds set on more important issues.

As for the meaning of coincidences... I've been coming across them for many years now (with a different intensity – at times they are scarсe, at other times they come in bunches; but I'd better skip this now, for if I start digging the reasons of this too, my head will find itself on the verge of getting exploded) and my experience shows that the vast majority means absolutely nothing. We might try to interpret them, of course, but – to my sincere and deep regret - solely to amuse or indulge ourselves, as our ideas on this account are nothing but fantasies.

Let's take this very occasion I started my story with - the two cars - to illustrate this. This “025” which is the most striking resemblance between the two... It's the number of the Far-Eastern region of Russia I come from, the one I left some years ago for Saint-Petersburg (every Russian region has its own number, you know; my getting this very one is nothing close to a coincidence, by the by, - I a sort of bought it out of sentimental considerations).

So, just off the top of my head, here are some “meanings” this 025 coincidence might hide - the East is going to dominate/enslave/fight/whatever the West any day now; I'm going to see my native places soon; I'm going to get some earth shattering news in 25 days; I'm going to have 25 more children (bad idea ) / husbands (good idea) / tattoos (even better than husbands); the Judgment Day will come down on us in 25 years from now and so on and so forth. I can continue endlessly, till my laptop keys get all worn out, but it changes nothing. These all will remain mere speculations, nothing more than the by-pass products of my imagination. However, one, two or even all of the above ideas might well come true – the theory of probability again. I can neither influence nor prevent it; I can only ponder, but going to deep into it is a sure way to get into a mental hospital. That is why, for my own peace of mind this “025” must remain what it is – Just.A.Number. With no connotation. Whatsoever.

So, to sum up, coincidences do happen; their occurring is defined by the theory of probability; they are all around but not all the people care about them and hence don't notice; they might mean something as well as be absolutely meaningless.

Oh my, it all sounds so dry, so boring!

I cannot, I simply have no right to leave it all on such a sad note.

The hen-witted romantic side of mine asks to give it the floor now. Be that as it may, it says stubbornly, but I choose to look at such things as at little miracles, breaking into this world, lighting it up from the inside and crashing its mundane monotony... Wait, I can prove, look! Erm... I will leave if for another story, ok?))

P.S. All the three cars in the photo (including the black jeep in the background) happen to have St.George's ribbons tied up either outside or inside. Double coincidence? Triple? Multi? Oh my. Enough.