Monday, April 21, 2008

Contemplating Enigma

Lately, I have been preparing a long post about art, enigma, and mysticism.

Yesterday, I was taking a stroll through the streets of Beirut while contemplating enigma. Specifically, I was wondering why I had not been experiencing synchronicities on the subject despite having been concentrating upon it for a number of days. As if in response, I experienced the following synchronicities:

First, my uncle-in-law, who has been writing a movie script filled with enigmatic scenes, called my cell phone and his voice was very, very low so that the words were sometimes entirely obscure and indecipherable.

Then, after I had just gotten off the phone and put it in my pocket, it started ringing again. I looked at the name of the caller and it said: "Mystery". It turned out to be the name of the currently activated ring-tone (I had not known this because it was my brother's phone) and I must have accidentally triggered the ring-tone selection feature when I put the phone in my pocket.

As I stood on the corner to write about these synchronicities in my PDA, I suddenly heard a "What are you doing here?" It was a friend of mine who, it turned out, lived a couple of blocks away. This sudden meeting was a meaningful coincidence in that it highlighted how my trips to Beirut were always full to the brim with socializing, which in turn explains why I have not been able to detect many synchronicities. Gregariousness can sometimes dissipate one's focus and therefore the warping of the existential matrix is reduced. (See Synchronicity Clusters and Warping the Existential Matrix for a related discussion). On the other hand, a gregarious lifestyle presents more opportunities for meaningful coincidences due to the increased richness of external experience. One's faculties of observation should remain on high alert despite the distractions from socializing.

In summary, within the span of no more than a couple minutes of wondering why synchronicities were not surfacing about enigma, I experienced three meaningful coincidences.

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