During the time that I was especially worried about having to have part of my ear cut off, due to the diagnosed cancer there, I happened to pick up a novel to read and was surprised to find that the plot revolved around a serial killer who cuts off the ears of his victims.
Yikes.
Some time later, having escaped with my ear intact (more or less), another cancer appeared on my right cheek--a blotchy red spot, not tumorous, but sometimes itchy, sometimes painful, and always annoying, spoiling as it did my otherwise fabulously handsome appearance. It happened at this time that I had finished the book about the psychotic killer and had downloaded a recent novel by Stephen King. Again, I was surprised to find in this novel descriptions of skin cancer eating through the body, gradually gnawing right down to the vital organs, ultimately leaving behind a grotesque, quivering lump with a heartbeat.
Again, yikes.
Now, to my recollection I had never before read anything in particular about skin cancer or severed ears (except for the old Van Gogh story, which, of course, has nothing to do with cancer)--so why now, at this time in my 64 years, in two separate novels read one after the other and coinciding with my real life experience at the moment? It seems a strangely more than coincidental event, one of those incidents of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence--a concept introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung. An acausal connecting principle is one way (and Jung's way) of putting it. Another way would be describe it would be Just plain weird.
Somehow, things that are pertinent are "accidentally" attracted to the character of one's ongoing reality. A classic example is calling a friend on the phone and finding that he has just picked up the phone to call you and the connection has already been established when both of you finishing dialing.
There comes with synchronicity the suspicion of meaning. It is a message in a bottle sort of incident. We, in one place, have been connected with something accidental yet pertinent in another, and we have impossibly met in a third place defined by an uncaused yet keenly relevant relationship.
It is, as I have said, just plain weird.
Yikes.
Some time later, having escaped with my ear intact (more or less), another cancer appeared on my right cheek--a blotchy red spot, not tumorous, but sometimes itchy, sometimes painful, and always annoying, spoiling as it did my otherwise fabulously handsome appearance. It happened at this time that I had finished the book about the psychotic killer and had downloaded a recent novel by Stephen King. Again, I was surprised to find in this novel descriptions of skin cancer eating through the body, gradually gnawing right down to the vital organs, ultimately leaving behind a grotesque, quivering lump with a heartbeat.
Again, yikes.
Now, to my recollection I had never before read anything in particular about skin cancer or severed ears (except for the old Van Gogh story, which, of course, has nothing to do with cancer)--so why now, at this time in my 64 years, in two separate novels read one after the other and coinciding with my real life experience at the moment? It seems a strangely more than coincidental event, one of those incidents of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence--a concept introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung. An acausal connecting principle is one way (and Jung's way) of putting it. Another way would be describe it would be Just plain weird.
Somehow, things that are pertinent are "accidentally" attracted to the character of one's ongoing reality. A classic example is calling a friend on the phone and finding that he has just picked up the phone to call you and the connection has already been established when both of you finishing dialing.
There comes with synchronicity the suspicion of meaning. It is a message in a bottle sort of incident. We, in one place, have been connected with something accidental yet pertinent in another, and we have impossibly met in a third place defined by an uncaused yet keenly relevant relationship.
It is, as I have said, just plain weird.
1 comment:
Sometimes life moves in mysterious ways...
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