The other day, I found myself involved in a strange state of puzzlement. It began on, I believe it was Sunday night. I was posting in a thread on another Tribe, replying to a member who seemed to think that accuracy in a mathematical argument is somehow optional. I tried to get my point across by using a pair of numbers chosen at random and telling the inept reasoner that "13 X 27 = 351." These were chosen simply because they were unexceptional numbers, easy to understand for anyone who knows basic arithmetic and made (I thought) a good example to use a more general theorem. I pointed out that in this example, if it were to appear as a question on a test, it would not be good enought to answer that 13 X 27 was somewhere around 300 or 400 or so. The answer to be correct must be a specific number that expresses the product of the multiplier and multiplicand.

The next morning when I logged on to my homepage, I noticed a news story about cyclones in Myanmar--great damage and loss of life. In fact, to my astonishment, the headline informed me that authorities in Myanmar were reporting at least 351 dead from the disaster. That seemed an awfully specific number to be reported so soon after the event; I surmise it reflected the number of the first bodies recovered before later estimates began setting the total figures at 10,000, then 20,000 and lately perhaps 100,000. It was even more surprising as the product of 13 X 27 in the example I had used just a few hours previously.

So how am I to understand this? Is it merely a coincidence? Is it a sign from some spiritual power? If so, which? Is it a cosmic joke perpetrated on me because I am frequently concerned with such trivia? Is it evidence for some ability of mine for unconscious prophecy? Is it an example of how even my random thoughts can affect the world around me? But that way lies psychosis, I suspect, so I will not consider it except as one of the more demented of the possible answers to the riddle of the universe.

These kinds of things turn up far too frequently to be explained away as merely coincidence in my experience. And one of my favorite tongue-in-cheek definitions of coincidence is, "You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on." Maybe it is true that the universe is based on mathematical expressions of all kinds and that some can tune in from time to time on a specific number in the flow of events, after all, many gamblers tell us that they can often sense when the numbers will fall their way and when they won't. I have experienced something of this myself, in fact.

Overall, I must consider it an occurence best regarded as the cosmic joke perpetrated by the general at the expense of the paricular self. Yet it is curious, ne?

With love under will,

Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville