MemeMachineGo!

Any regular readers of MMG! know that I like science. I am angered by its abuses. I'm skeptical and question methodologies and whether good science has been done even when I'm sympathetic to a given outcome.

But I'm not a dogmatic determinist materialist who's overattached to the idea that we already know everything and so anything we can't readily explain mustn't exist. In other words, not like the people who have co-opted the term 'skeptic.'

In fact, I'm a new age flake. Several of the The Right to Write exercises are heavily new agey. In the one I did Saturday, you engage in a question and answer session with your unconscious. Writing as quickly as you can, not letting the pen stop (i.e. not stopping to think), one writes questions, and sees what answers come up.

One rather specific and concrete message I received: change the chain on my bike. As an urban cyclist, I routinely stake my life on my bike responding as expected. If my chain were to break and suddenly immobilize me when I was changing lanes to get into a left turn lane, it could be all over. And as I mentioned, the chain did break recently.

I've changed the chain myself, but I also thought the whole drive train could use taking apart and cleaning, and I don't have all the appropriate tools for that. So I was thinking I should call my bike mechanic.

And Monday night, he biked up alongside me when I was biking from work. Now it's not remarkable for me to see him — he's a bike messenger and his rounds frequently take him on the same roads I take from work. But not even once before have we encountered each other going in the same direction.

Numerous woo-woo sources comment on instances of fortunate synchronicity arising as one leads a more congruent life, and more aligns the conscious and unconscious minds. They counsel making a friend of synchronicity.

This is the first thing that has seemed like that to me.

(Wonder how many people I lost there.)