Coincidence or Psychic or...?

A couple of nights ago I was sitting on the couch, eating my Orville Redenbacher lime popcorn and watching the TV show ‘Fringe’ recorded on DVR.  A commercial break came on and instead of fast forwarding right through it like usual, I looked over at my 2 year old daughter Autumn’s baby monitor and marveled at how she has slept through the night every single night since last July, never making a sound…and at EXACTLY that moment Autumn cried out and the monitor lights flashed red and I was like “Holy sh*t!”  Did that just happen or am I dreaming?!  Complete silence for a couple of seconds, but then in answer to my question she cried out again so I ran upstairs and picked her up and she immediately fell back asleep in my arms. 

Was that an extreme ‘coincidence’?  I suppose it is entirely possible for something to happen for the first time in 7 months at the exact moment that I was thinking about it.  We have all had that experience where you are at a baseball game or some place talking about an old friend and then suddenly you see them in the row in front of you.  Or was it some kind of ‘psychic’ thing?  I’m sure it happens to everyone now and again where you see or predict something happening and then it happens.  Like when you are rolling the dice for a board game and you suddenly see the number 7 in your head and then you roll a 7.  Or was it somehow ‘intuitive’?  Where you know something is going to happen before it happens due to some barely noticeable clues in your surroundings that you subconsciously pick up on.  Like maybe Autumn was abnormally fussy when going to bed that night and giving little clues that she was going to have a bad night. 

About 5 years ago me and my then-girlfriend/now-wife Nadia were at a Minnesota Timberwolves basketball game.  The game was kind of boring and we were only half watching it while talking about stuff.  For some reason we started talking about Saturday Night Live and the funny skits that we had seen on that show over the years.  One of us mentioned the classic skit with Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley where the two of them were auditioning for the last spot to be one of the Chippendale dancers.  As we were laughing about that one suddenly Nadia happens to look up at the huge 4-sided scoreboard hanging over the basketball court (the same scoreboard where I watched myself wrestling with the Celtics fan in my 1/9/12 blog).  Her eyes were huge as she jabs me in the arm while pointing up, and that same SNL Chippendale skit was just starting to play on the scoreboard!  We both stared and watched it with our mouths hanging open.  “No way that just happened.”  I said to Nadia.  There had been a time-out on the court and for some reason they were playing the Chippendale skit!  I had never seen them play that there before and had no clue it was going to be played, much less right at the exact moment that we were talking about it.  What a weird, random, incredible coincidence…or something.

Another time, exactly 5 years ago today on 3/29/07, I was on a flight to Las Vegas to meet up with a bunch of friends and see my favorite band ‘The Radiators’ who were playing 3 nights of shows there at a hotel called The Aruba.  As my plane landed and was taxiing up to the gate, I suddenly remembered that my oldest friend Cire Wonhsak’s birthday was the next day.  My birthday is 2 days after that so for as long I can remember we have a tradition where I call him on his birthday and we wish each other a happy birthday.  So I was making a mental note that no matter how hung over and spacey I was the next day after my first night in Vegas, that I needed to remember to call Cire.  Then for no reason at all the thought popped into my head of how cool it would be if Cire was here in Las Vegas.  Maybe celebrating his birthday or something?  I had not talked to him in a year and had no idea where he was or what he was doing, but for some reason the mental image of him being here in Vegas was strong in my head.  I of course dismissed the thought as I was getting off the plane and then headed through the terminal to meet up with another friend who was arriving at the same time at a different gate from a different city.

As I was walking through the crowds of people I suddenly hear my name and get a tap on the shoulder.  I turn around and it’s Cire’s wife Shauntee.  No…f*cking…way.  Seriously?  Shauntee and Cire’s mom Marshelle (who was like my 2^nd mom when I was growing up) are suddenly standing there in front of me.  I could not believe it.  I managed to sputter:  “Is Cire here too?”  Yep.  Turns out he was in Vegas celebrating his birthday along with his brother Jerry, Shauntee and Marshelle.  They had been there for a few days and were now at the airport heading back home to San Francisco.  Cire was back at the gate getting ready to board his plane and I did not have much time, so after finding my other friend I ran back to Cire’s gate hoping to say hi.  After getting word I was in the airport and despite the protests of the flight attendants, he de-boarded the plane to come out and say hi.  We chatted for a couple minutes until they dragged him back on the plane and then it was over.  Did that really happen?  Did I just happen to think about Cire being in Vegas and then moments later I run into him at the airport? 

Again, what a weird, random, incredible coincidence.  Or can it be explained by quantum mechanics?  Einstein did not approve or subscribe to quantum mechanics theory, but it appears to be the only way to explain some of the things that happen on a microscopic level.  If you really get into it quantum mechanics is weird, crazy stuff.  For example, based on the laws of quantum mechanics it is possible to walk through a wall.  You may have to try it several trillions of times, but there is a slight probability that it could happen if all your electron particles are primed for ‘tunneling’ and everything is lined up perfectly, then the object of your body could theoretically pass or jump through the object of another body like a wall.

I just watched a show on PBS’s ‘Nova’ about quantum mechanics, and the ‘Fringe’ TV show that I watch every week is about parallel universes which ties into quantum theory…the theory being that everything that happens is based on probability.  Like if you roll one dice, there are 6 possible outcomes…and when you do it, there are 6 parallel universes where each of the 6 possibilities happens.  I love my life and my universe, but I also love the idea that based on different probable outcomes there could be other universes with me in them living different lives.  Like maybe in one universe I am an airline pilot, and in another universe I am a wide-receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, or a movie star who occasionally gets invited to the Playboy mansion, or a guitar god, or the guy who invented the cure for pancreatic cancer.

So maybe when you think of something and then BAMM it suddenly happens, maybe you could think that thought a million times and only once will it then actually happen, but there is a slight probability that it could happen and when it does is when we happen to be in the right universe for it to happen.  So maybe I just happened to be in the universe where I thought about Autumn crying out for the first time in 7 months and then it happened at exactly that moment, but in all the other parallel universes that did not happen. 

Is it possible to skew the odds in your universe by your actions or even your thoughts?  Like positive thinking?  Or possibly the ‘Law of Attraction’…that is, what we think about we bring about?  Maybe we can make the universe work for us by thinking positively instead of negatively, and just let the good stuff happen.  Good things seems to happen more often than not when you visualize them happening and believe it is going to happen…like maybe if you believe it then the universe does too and then it happens.  And conversely bad stuff seems to happen if you are negative and expect it or visualize it.  I don’t know, okay, I’ll just close with the wise words of Bill and Ted:  “Be excellent to each other.”