Serendipity, is it luck by chance or more to it?
It was a remarkable coincidence, as all coincidences are wont to be. Glowingly reviewed and praised, the book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, authored by Yuval Noah Harari had been sitting idle for weeks, giving quiet company to so many more atop my bookshelf. I had bypassed it on many occasions, overwhelmed by its subject and volume until by sheer effort of will I forced myself to start reading it. Just a few days later, Swedish scientist Dr Svante Paabo was announced the winner of 2022’s Nobel Prize for Medicine for his sensational discovery and proof, whilst endorsing with DNA evidence Yuval Harari’s assertions regarding the origin and history of ‘Homo Sapiens’ in the aforementioned book.
So, I learnt, to put it simply, that just like species of other animals, humans too had brethren known as Neanderthals and Denisovans, who they mated with or mercilessly butchered over centuries to eventually reign supreme over their kingdom, Earth, and become the only Homo Sapiens!
While I was marvelling at this happenstance, so many other instances of coincidence came to mind.
I wake up, clinging to the remnants of a childhood dream and just that morning I come across old photographs of the house I lived in as a baby.
I think of my children and suddenly both ring me up, one by one.
My best friend’s roll number in school had the same last two digits as mine.
My daughter and I buy the same book and read it unwittingly at the same time, while in different cities.
Sometimes a song you hear on the way to work is playing just about everywhere that day.
I have bumped into the same acquaintance twice on different holiday destinations abroad and we both were surprised at the chance meeting, two times in a row.
It is as if the entire universe is devising a method to add mystery and snippets of serendipity and stimulus to our otherwise mundane lives.
Historical instances of coincidences also abound. Author Mark Twain was born in 1835, the year Hailey’s Comet debuted. He announced that he would die the year it would make its reappearance 75 years later and coincidentally that’s what happened. Mark Twain died in 1910.
Stephen Hawking, the legendary cosmologist, shared his birthday with Galileo Galilei, the astronomer, who discovered the telescope and made possible the study of The Final Frontier.
One woman, Violet Jessop, survived three colossal shipwrecks, among them that of the Titanic in 1912.
Maybe these coincidences or ‘luck by chance’ incidents are chronicled and documented to turn diehard sceptics into believers of fate or destiny, I’m not sure. But as of now my only worry is that with such detailed and in-depth talk of coincidences, I hope I’m not tempting the gods and the universe to conspire and turn me into a scapegoat, with the editor receiving another article on the same topic and deciding to relegate mine to the dustbin.
IT IS AS IF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS DEVISING A METHOD TO ADD MYSTERY AND SNIPPETS OF SERENDIPITY AND STIMULUS TO OUR OTHERWISE MUNDANE LIVES. HISTORICAL INSTANCES OF COINCIDENCES ALSO ABOUND