Might as well type something to y'all while I wait in the parking lot for my sister. In fact, on the drive over from Borders, I've been contemplating something. Let me know what you think.
What is the role of superstition anyway? My mom loves it. Having grown up with this influence, I have a bit of it myself, or at least a recognition and mental note of patterns. Sometimes, though, they just jump right out at you.
Like today, I pick up the new Guster CD at Borders, and impulsively grab one of their Snapple juices at the counter - I should know better than that, and paid 1.75 for it, natch. Anycase, if you haven't seen it, the CD essentially has a big hummingbird on it. So I'm in the car, popping in the CD and I twist off the cap and assuage the heat a bit with my Mango Madness. It's not till I hit the first red light that I read under the cap and what awaits me? "Real fact #127: A hummingbird's heat beats 1,400 times a minute." Certainly not a life, changer, right? But at least a chuckle's worth.
Something of similar mathematical unlikeliness happened yesterday. I was reading more DeLillo while listening to the White Album and I read the phrase "jump the gun" at exactly the same moment that Lennon's singing it. I surely hope that if there is a divine force, that it's not splurging all of my luck capital on cherries like these!
But then back to the original question I ask of you, what is superstition? Are moments like these worth reflecting more on? Are they analogous to Zen koans that wake us out of our usual sleepy routines? Is belief in omens a thing of a quaint past, all-but-incompatible with a collegiate educated scientist mind'? Or can even the simplest coincidence, when layered with some imagination, be more than the sum of its parts?
Yes. Lake-monsters. Yes.
Psychologically speaking (of course I have to), superstition is this: a behavior that occurs in response to the regular, noncontingent occurrence of an appetitive stimulus to a motivated organism; appears to cause a certain event, but in reality does not. (courtesy of PsychSite... alas, I couldn't find my behavioral text).
In non-psych terms, a superstition is something that one believes they must do before they can do/achieve another. Example: tapping the top of a pop can before opening it. In reality, this behavior does little to nothing in dispensing the buildup of carbonation - but many people believe that it does.
Alas, the majority of us proles are not strict behaviorists, and our belief in superstition is a bit more... mystical. Situations like those that you've recently found yourself are, I think, healthy dosages of possibility. Coincidence or not, we find ourselves asking anyway: How? Why? What does this mean?
Personally, I love having little moments like those accost me out of nowhere. Albeit brief, they do beg of me the questions that give philosophers butterflies.
Psychology would say that these incidences are likely the result of a confirmation bias: that you're only remembering circumstances that support the possibility of something greater than coincidence. Such as that you're more inclined to remember the Guster/Snapple coincidence than the Pearl Jam/Dairy Queen non-coincidence (i.e. there wasn't a coincidence between events when you went to DQ to order a blizzard and were listening to Pearl Jam).
But then again, I hate psychology.
I think coincidences are viewed through whichever lens life's experiences have put in front of the viewer's eyes. For the religious type, coincidences are a sure sign that God exists and is looking out for them. For myself, I'd say that coincidences are just that...coincidental happenings that hold no more true significance than what is seen at face value. I hate that I'm becoming more of a realist and less of an idealist as I age, but this is where my life's experiences have brought me to. I've had several instances where coincidences have been taken as omens of what is sure to come. Yet things never seem to work out as these happenings have dictated. This isn't to say that I no longer take notice of coincidences around me or that I don't indulge in them under the "Simple Pleasures" clause of my life's unwritten rule book. I just don't hold much faith in their predictive capabilities.
As for superstitions...I see them much the same way as religion. First of all, they're a set of beliefs and actions we hold and take for tradition's sake, with no real reasoning behind them. More importantly though, like religion, superstition offers us an explanation for why things happen, and takes the responsibility off our shoulders. Superstition supplies us with an external set of causes for what happens in life, completely out of our own hands. And should we choose to take on some of this responsibility, it offers us a formula of A + B = C, where A is the situation presented, B is the action taken, and C is the result of the combination of the two. I gotta say, though, that I do have my own superstitions. The only reason I made it through my last semester in Rochester was because I sat in my "Lucky Test Seat" (left side of the classroom, top row, end seat by the center aisle). Wins and losses in baseball and soccer were decided by which undershirt and pair of boxers I wore. And finally, under no circumstances should you ever step on the sideline when going on or off the field. :)
What can I say? The psychologist and the physical therapist have deduced well.
Personally, I haven't found much predictive value in coincidences either. Although as someone told me recently, coincidences can at the very least act as reminders that you're in the groove and on a good path. (I suppose that assumes belief in fate doesn't it?)
So, Shutts, did you sharpie #10 on the back of the chair? I like the name "Lucky Test Seat" ... I wonder if the Crash Test Dummies had Lucky Test Seats.
Hehe...I was actually thinking of putting a small #10 on the back of my chair when I finally get a real job in the not-so-distant future. Or maybe I should put it on the tag of all the shirts I wear to work. It'll help me bring my A-game to the clinic. I'm sure my patients will appreciate it.