Do you believe in Mercury Retrograde?

[Aura]

as in, Mercury's retrograde influences life here on earth?

 

Just curious.

 

My bil just did something REALLY stupid, and really, it's completely in line with MR. Doesn't mean I'll let him off the hook! Just got me thinking.

 

ETA: This is meant to be a light-hearted post! No need for anyone to get upset if someone else does/doesn't follow, believe in, or whatever with regards to astrology!

Edited December 8, 2017 by Aura

[Tanaqui]

No. The position of the other planets in relationship to earth can have no influence on our behavior. There is no mechanism by which this is possible.

 

Humans are great pattern seekers, and the movement of the heavens makes a wonderful great pattern. And so when special things happen in the skys, we relate them to things that happened on earth. But it's not real! We're just superstitious pigeons. I'm sure most of the billions of humans on earth did nothing "in line with MR" today, or else they do things like that all the time. You just happened to notice your brother-in-law doing something dumb on a day you'd already marked out in your mind as special. But it's not. It's a coincidence. Coincidences happen all the time.

 

Edited December 8, 2017 by Tanaqui

[creekland]

Can't say I've ever even heard of Mercury Retrograde being a thing with regards to human behavior.

 

Learn something new on the Hive every day!

 

And no, I don't believe it does.

[Aura]

 

[Aura]

And of course, this one, which directly goes with what happened to my bil today.

 

 

[regentrude]

No. You can easily calculate that the average gravitational force of Mercury on a human on Earth is negligible.

The difference in mercury's gravitational force on an object on Earth when it is at different positions during its orbit is as little as the difference in the gravitational pull from a person who sits across the table vs one who stands halfway across the room - you don't feel their gravitational pull at all.

 

And of course there is no actual retrograde motion anyway.

Edited December 8, 2017 by regentrude

[Word Nerd]

One of my former coworker friends posts about it in a joking way every so often or I’d have never even heard of it before. I don’t think she really believes it, but who knows.

[Lady Florida.]

No. There is no connection between the position of the planets (or the phases of the moon for that matter) and human behavior.

[Spryte]

No.

 

But I do believe humans can do stupid things. Often.

[sassenach]

No, but I wouldn’t think anything of someone blaming it. It’s like blaming karma or a full moon- it’s not real, but sometimes it’s still convenient.

[eternalsummer]

Astology is a dead hypothesis for me, but my mom was/is fairy seriously into astrology and has sort of used it as a thinking tool, I guess you'd say, her whole life.  I view it (for her) kind of like the I Ching is for others (though she used the I Ching too) - not religious others, but people who use it to clarify how they feel about something or what their unconscious motivations might be, I dunno.

 

The only thing that gives me pause about modern dismissal (largely) of astrology is this: it's not that it's illogical - people believe all kinds of illogical things, and have vast rationalizations for why these things are true, but it's just groupthink.  What gets me is that many of the most educated and intelligent and insightful and logical men for hundreds and hundreds of years used or wrote about or maybe even believed in astrology.  Did they all believe it or use it sort of metaphorically, the way my mother does?  I dunno.  They were also very religious, and often quite literally so - and much smarter than me, so I guess I'm just not sure that my lack of belief (and I don't believe) in either literal religious belief or astrology is justified.

 

But at the same time I don't believe, either in the literal truth of the Bible or in Mercury's being in retrograde.

[Twolittleboys]

I don't believe in it and agree that there is no logical reason to. However, the older I get the more I realize that there are some things that don't make any logical sense and yet do seem to be true (or at least partly true). So while I don't believe in it I wouldn't completely rule it out, I guess.

[J-rap]

Ha, I've never heard of this nor do I believe it influences behavior.  :)  But, I do think there are some unknowns as far as how things like lunar cycles can affect us.

[kewb]

I love being able to blame my stupid acts on Mercury being in retrograde. Takes the pressure off me for the incredibly tactless friendship ending thing I did the other day. I no longer have to be racked with guilt for my behavior or feel bad that my attempt at making amends was shot down. Now I can grieve for the loss of the friendship without feeling bad for how it was all my fault. Mercury in retrograde is the bomb.

[regentrude]

As I stated above, I do not believe the planets directly affect any person. HOWEVER, once somebody believes that the planets affect your behavior and that Mercury in retrograde spells doom for travel and communication, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for that person. If you are convinced that bad things will happen and you will be misunderstood, you will find problems because you are expecting them - where another person would live obliviously just fine because they are not expecting bad stuff to happen. So, this can definitely have a psychological effect.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

As I stated above, I do not believe the planets directly affect any person. HOWEVER, once somebody believes that the planets affect your behavior and that Mercury in retrograde spells doom for travel and communication, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for that person. If you are convinced that bad things will happen and you will be misunderstood, you will find problems because you are expecting them - where another person would live obliviously just fine because they are not expecting bad stuff to happen. So, this can definitely have a psychological effect.

I don’t believe in astrology and I had never heard of “Mercury in retrogradeâ€. I had to look up what it meant and what it was supposed to effect. It’s supposed to have something to do with travel and communication right? Coincidentally, we found out yesterday that our van (main family vehicle) needs a new transmission and then at 4am our computer started beeping loudly like a smoke alarm. If I believed in astrology I would most certainly see these things as the effects of Mercury’s position. Since I don’t, I just view them as massive annoyances coming at the worst possible time. They could have happened anytime though and the van had been making a faint knocking sound that turned out to be the transmission for several months.

[creekland]

I'm curious. In what area of the country is this popular culture? I have really never heard of it except for this thread.

[regentrude]

I'm curious. In what area of the country is this popular culture? I have really never heard of it except for this thread.

 

I have a circle of friends who believe in all kinds of wacky stuff. Mercury in retrograde. Filling jars with spring water at full moon and putting rocks in them to "infuse" the water with the crystal energy to "alter its molecular structure".

I love them dearly, but it's hard to bite my tongue and not say anything.

 

[creekland]

I have a circle of friends who believe in all kinds of wacky stuff. Mercury in retrograde. Filling jars with spring water at full moon and putting rocks in them to "infuse" the water with the crystal energy to "alter its molecular structure".

I love them dearly, but it's hard to bite my tongue and not say anything.

 

I haven't heard of any of these either, not even from my Grandmother who was more into astrology and fortunes and Old Wives Tales.

 

Gap in my education I suppose...

[Lady Florida.]

I'm curious. In what area of the country is this popular culture? I have really never heard of it except for this thread.

 

I have some friends here in Central Florida who believe this kind of stuff. Many of them also believe in tarot cards and things like the universe wanting them to have a particular parking spot. They also think they can "manifest" things. I view them the same way I view my religious friends - believing in something for which there is no proof and ascribing certain events to the supernatural.

[Bluegoat]

Astology is a dead hypothesis for me, but my mom was/is fairy seriously into astrology and has sort of used it as a thinking tool, I guess you'd say, her whole life.  I view it (for her) kind of like the I Ching is for others (though she used the I Ching too) - not religious others, but people who use it to clarify how they feel about something or what their unconscious motivations might be, I dunno.

 

The only thing that gives me pause about modern dismissal (largely) of astrology is this: it's not that it's illogical - people believe all kinds of illogical things, and have vast rationalizations for why these things are true, but it's just groupthink.  What gets me is that many of the most educated and intelligent and insightful and logical men for hundreds and hundreds of years used or wrote about or maybe even believed in astrology.  Did they all believe it or use it sort of metaphorically, the way my mother does?  I dunno.  They were also very religious, and often quite literally so - and much smarter than me, so I guess I'm just not sure that my lack of belief (and I don't believe) in either literal religious belief or astrology is justified.

 

But at the same time I don't believe, either in the literal truth of the Bible or in Mercury's being in retrograde.

 

No, they often believed in it in the most common sense way.

 

But I think when we say that it seems obviously untrue, we are actually being a little unfair, especially when you consider they may have had a very different cosmology.

 

The basic sense of astrology was that everything is connected.  Kind of a butterfly effect thinking.  Which in itself is perfectly rational, as far as it goes.  In the ancient world there were arguments against astrology of two kinds - one was practical, and just said that people who are born at the same time actually have widely different lives.  The other major one was an argument around determinism and how it relates to the possibility of fortune telling.  Augustine of Hippo made that kind of argument.

 

A lot of that fortune telling stuff came back into fashion in the Renaissance, along with magic, alchemy, the photo-sciences, and the rest.  That  goes on into the Enlightenment too, where you start to see ideas like homeopathy and such, anti-witchcraft stuff (which wasn't a big thing in the ancient and medieval world.)  They came out of people looking back and idealizing the classical world, a different relationship to the church (which said that magic was superstition) and also what we now look back on as scientific interest.  People wanted to bring out causal connections and principles in nature, and so the origins of modern science, and interest in alchemy, astrology, and magic, are very much intertwined.

[luuknam]

I'm curious. In what area of the country is this popular culture? I have really never heard of it except for this thread.

 

 

No clue, but the internet and library books can tell you oodles about astrology. It's been quite a while since I've last heard about Mercury retrograde stuff, but I went through a phase where I read a bunch of stuff like that for fun, and it's not super obscure (as far as astrology goes).

 

ETA: no, I don't believe in Mercury retrograde or w/e. 

Edited December 8, 2017 by luuknam

[Aura]

I'm not going to make any decisions based on astrology, but I find it fun in a reflective sense. I like to find things to make you smile, even if it's something like laughing and blaming Mercury's retrograde for accidentally sending an inappropriate to text to your mother-in-law.  :scared:  :rofl:  

 

Astrology is one of those things that's way more nuanced than saying this alignment caused a particular whatever. Everyone that I know that takes it seriously will be quick to tell you that it doesn't cause anything...it simply makes certain things more likely, and even that is dependent upon other factors. I don't understand it well myself. But I do think it's fun and can even be useful.

 

Having been so certain of various things in my younger years, I've learned to be very careful of saying never.

 

Also, I see belief in astrology as essentially being a religious or faith-held belief, something not far from belief in, say, spiritual gifts. For instance, some [people I know IRL] would swear that astrology is bonkers, but have no problems proclaiming their "spiritual gift" and using that to excuse certain behaviors. For instance, I know of one self-proclaimed "prophet" who excuses her rudeness because her spiritual gift means that she speak it like it is.

 

All of that is meant with a smile and a tone of casual conversation over coffee...

 

...but since Mercury is in retrograde, I will assume there was a communication mix-up and apologize now to whoever I offended.  ;)  

[Stacia]

 We're just superstitious pigeons.

 

That was an interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Sandwalker]

I have lived long enough not to mock anything.

[Guest]

I have some friends here in Central Florida who believe this kind of stuff. Many of them also believe in tarot cards and things like the universe wanting them to have a particular parking spot. They also think they can "manifest" things. I view them the same way I view my religious friends - believing in something for which there is no proof and ascribing certain events to the supernatural.

I must admit, though, that it can be really incredible how things can turn up when you expect them to/are looking for it to. I read the book E-squared a few years ago and I did the little exercises, which are all varying versions of woo-woo. Some were too stupid in my view. But one did blow my mind, and it was about “manifesting†the thing you hold in your mind.

 

So it’s strange; I have this tension of don’t believe/sort of do believe, too, because of things like that one experiement. The way in which the item category I was holding in my mind showed up and the way it turned up at the eleventh hour (and 59th minute) was seriously mind-blowing. I grant you, this does not mean that I can “ask the Universe†to turn up a million dollars or, heck, even a full college scholarship, but I’m just saying the way that short experiment turned up was kind of insane if it was a mere coincidence.

 

But at the same time, my mom, who is an extremely devout Christian, thinks God and the angels do all sorts of things for her and it just sounds like so much lunacy to me. The way she interprets her experiences is...interesting.

[regentrude]

I must admit, though, that it can be really incredible how things can turn up when you expect them to/are looking for it to. I read the book E-squared a few years ago and I did the little exercises, which are all varying versions of woo-woo. Some were too stupid in my view. But one did blow my mind, and it was about “manifesting†the thing you hold in your mind.

 

So it’s strange; I have this tension of don’t believe/sort of do believe, too, because of things like that one experiement. The way in which the item category I was holding in my mind showed up and the way it turned up at the eleventh hour (and 59th minute) was seriously mind-blowing. I grant you, this does not mean that I can “ask the Universe†to turn up a million dollars or, heck, even a full college scholarship, but I’m just saying the way that short experiment turned up was kind of insane if it was a mere coincidence.

 

I think a lot of these techniques work by not actually altering the universe, but opening a person's view. I do not believe that manifesting actually causes different opportunities to suddenly exist, but it certainly alters the way the person is viewing the world and will make the person more receptive to recognizing opportunities. I think it is very much a matter of mindset. The mind is a powerful thing. Vision boards etc can definitely work.

Edited December 9, 2017 by regentrude

[Guest]

I'm not going to make any decisions based on astrology, but I find it fun in a reflective sense. I like to find things to make you smile, even if it's something like laughing and blaming Mercury's retrograde for accidentally sending an inappropriate to text to your mother-in-law. :scared: :rofl:

 

Astrology is one of those things that's way more nuanced than saying this alignment caused a particular whatever. Everyone that I know that takes it seriously will be quick to tell you that it doesn't cause anything...it simply makes certain things more likely, and even that is dependent upon other factors. I don't understand it well myself. But I do think it's fun and can even be useful.

 

Having been so certain of various things in my younger years, I've learned to be very careful of saying never.

 

Also, I see belief in astrology as essentially being a religious or faith-held belief, something not far from belief in, say, spiritual gifts. For instance, some [people I know IRL] would swear that astrology is bonkers, but have no problems proclaiming their "spiritual gift" and using that to excuse certain behaviors. For instance, I know of one self-proclaimed "prophet" who excuses her rudeness because her spiritual gift means that she speak it like it is.

 

All of that is meant with a smile and a tone of casual conversation over coffee...

 

...but since Mercury is in retrograde, I will assume there was a communication mix-up and apologize now to whoever I offended. ;)

Yeah, I think I get you. That’s kind of what I mean when I say I both do and don’t believe certain woo-woo things. On the one hand, my mom takes this very far. If she drove to a restaurant and couldn’t find parking near the door, or there was already a car in the handicapped space or something like that, she would interpret it as a Sign that she is not supposed to be at that restaurant at that time. She would go directly home. And then, if it turned out that a woman choked to death on a crab cake that same night at that restaraunt, that would “prove†to her that she narrowly escaped death by crabcake herself.

 

On the other hand, though, weird things have happened. To me; around me. They are things that are so man-oh-man-I-cannot-believe-it that they do seem like something more is going on than merely random events with random outcomes.

[regentrude]

On the other hand, though, weird things have happened. To me; around me. They are things that are so man-oh-man-I-cannot-believe-it that they do seem like something more is going on than merely random events with random outcomes.

 

Humans have a deep seated need to find patterns. Pattern recognition aids humans in survival. But it also means it is very difficult for humans to accept that randomness. Perhaps that is at the core of humans constructing religions.

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-patterns/

Edited December 9, 2017 by regentrude

[Guest]

I think a lot of these techniques work by not actually altering the universe, but opening a person's view. I do not believe that manifesting actually causes different opportunities to suddenly exist, but it certainly alters the way the person is viewing the world and will make the person more receptive to recognizing opportunities. I think it is very much a matter of mindset. The mind is a powerful thing. Vision boards etc can definitely work.

Yes, I agree that it makes one open to what was already there, and is not making the thing suddenly exist. BUT! When I did this exercise, the item in mind was so perfectly trivial. It was a yellow butterfly. I was just going to see anything that was a yellow butterfly within this short time frame. I think it was 12 hours. So, when there was only about ten minutes left in my time frame, I was about to conclude that I was not going to see a yellow butterfly simply because I held it in mind, when I drove up to the Goodwill to drop off a donation. On the donation bin, there were a bunch of little, childish stickers and what do you think was among the random stickers? A tiny yellow butterfly sticker! I gotta say, it was weird.

 

So, I left the Goodwill, musing about that sticker and noting that my experiemnt had literally only one minute left and I pulled up to the Hallmark store to get a card for a friend. Hanging right in the front of the shop, with one minute left in my time frame was what do you think? A yellow butterfly suncatcher. I bought it. It hangs in my sunroom as a symbol that we don’t always know.

 

So, while, yes, intellectually I don’t think a sticker and a suncatcher materialized because of my experiment, there is nevertheless something compelling about the timing and the way those things turned up when I was holding yellow butterflies in mind. It was a little wild.

[Lady Florida.]

I must admit, though, that it can be really incredible how things can turn up when you expect them to/are looking for it to. I read the book E-squared a few years ago and I did the little exercises, which are all varying versions of woo-woo. Some were too stupid in my view. But one did blow my mind, and it was about “manifesting†the thing you hold in your mind.

 

So it’s strange; I have this tension of don’t believe/sort of do believe, too, because of things like that one experiement. The way in which the item category I was holding in my mind showed up and the way it turned up at the eleventh hour (and 59th minute) was seriously mind-blowing. I grant you, this does not mean that I can “ask the Universe†to turn up a million dollars or, heck, even a full college scholarship, but I’m just saying the way that short experiment turned up was kind of insane if it was a mere coincidence.

 

But at the same time, my mom, who is an extremely devout Christian, thinks God and the angels do all sorts of things for her and it just sounds like so much lunacy to me. The way she interprets her experiences is...interesting.

 

We humans are not only pattern seeking, we also seek meaning in the meaningless. It's most likely an evolutionary survival response. If our ancestors interpreted the rustling sound in the grass to be a predator and it was only the wind, it cost them nothing. If it was a predator and they figured it was just the wind, it could cost them their lives*.

 

Even now, even the most skeptical among us (moi) are sometimes susceptible to thinking, "Hmmm. Is that really just a coincidence?" (spoiler: yes, it is)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

 

 

*This isn't an original example thought up by me. Michael Shermer uses it often when explaining our pattern seeking tendencies.

[Guest]

We humans are not only pattern seeking, we also seek meaning in the meaningless. It's most likely an evolutionary survival response. If our ancestors interpreted the rustling sound in the grass to be a predator and it was only the wind, it cost them nothing. If it was a predator and they figured it was just the wind, it could cost them their lives*.

 

Even now, even the most skeptical among us (moi) are sometimes susceptible to thinking, "Hmmm. Is that really just a coincidence?" (spoiler: yes, it is)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

 

 

*This isn't an original example thought up by me. Michael Shermer uses it often when explaining our pattern seeking tendencies.

Yeah, but would the butterflies not make any impression on you? (I guess you wouldn’t be trying the experiment to begin with, though.)

[sassenach]

Yes, I agree that it makes one open to what was already there, and is not making the thing suddenly exist. BUT! When I did this exercise, the item in mind was so perfectly trivial. It was a yellow butterfly. I was just going to see anything that was a yellow butterfly within this short time frame. I think it was 12 hours. So, when there was only about ten minutes left in my time frame, I was about to conclude that I was not going to see a yellow butterfly simply because I held it in mind, when I drove up to the Goodwill to drop off a donation. On the donation bin, there were a bunch of little, childish stickers and what do you think was among the random stickers? A tiny yellow butterfly sticker! I gotta say, it was weird.

 

So, I left the Goodwill, musing about that sticker and noting that my experiemnt had literally only one minute left and I pulled up to the Hallmark store to get a card for a friend. Hanging right in the front of the shop, with one minute left in my time frame was what do you think? A yellow butterfly suncatcher. I bought it. It hangs in my sunroom as a symbol that we don’t always know.

 

So, while, yes, intellectually I don’t think a sticker and a suncatcher materialized because of my experiment, there is nevertheless something compelling about the timing and the way those things turned up when I was holding yellow butterflies in mind. It was a little wild.

So here’s a puzzler. Maybe your brain had previously catalogued those stickers and because you were searching for the yellow butterfly, your brain “suggested†an errand to goodwill?

 

I think our brains are taking in and filing away much more information than we’re consciously aware of.

 

So what you’re manifesting is your brain’s ability to store and retrieve information. (If my hypothesis is correct)

 

That’s a worthwhile skill, imo.

[regentrude]

Yes, I agree that it makes one open to what was already there, and is not making the thing suddenly exist. BUT! When I did this exercise, the item in mind was so perfectly trivial. It was a yellow butterfly. I was just going to see anything that was a yellow butterfly within this short time frame. I think it was 12 hours. So, when there was only about ten minutes left in my time frame, I was about to conclude that I was not going to see a yellow butterfly simply because I held it in mind, when I drove up to the Goodwill to drop off a donation. On the donation bin, there were a bunch of little, childish stickers and what do you think was among the random stickers? A tiny yellow butterfly sticker! I gotta say, it was weird.

 

So, I left the Goodwill, musing about that sticker and noting that my experiemnt had literally only one minute left and I pulled up to the Hallmark store to get a card for a friend. Hanging right in the front of the shop, with one minute left in my time frame was what do you think? A yellow butterfly suncatcher. I bought it. It hangs in my sunroom as a symbol that we don’t always know.

 

So, while, yes, intellectually I don’t think a sticker and a suncatcher materialized because of my experiment, there is nevertheless something compelling about the timing and the way those things turned up when I was holding yellow butterflies in mind. It was a little wild.

 

Does not surprise me at all. If your mind had not been fixated on yellow butterflies, you might not have noticed.

 

This reminds me of the phenomenon that, when you get a new car, suddenly lots of people are driving cars of the same make/model or of the same color. It's simply because you are more sensitized to noticing; your car purchase does not alter the assortment of other vehicles on the streets.

[Guest]

So here’s a puzzler. Maybe your brain had previously catalogued those stickers and because you were searching for the yellow butterfly, your brain “suggested†an errand to goodwill?

 

I think our brains are taking in and filing away much more information than we’re consciously aware of.

 

So what you’re manifesting is your brain’s ability to store and retrieve information. (If my hypothesis is correct)

 

That’s a worthwhile skill, imo.

Maybe. But the donation bins are not always the same ones. They are portable and rotate either within locations at the store, or possibly to different Goodwill stores in the region. I have not seen that same bin with the stickers again since that one time.

[Guest]

Does not surprise me at all. If your mind had not been fixated on yellow butterflies, you might not have noticed.

 

This reminds me of the phenomenon that, when you get a new car, suddenly lots of people are driving cars of the same make/model or of the same color. It's simply because you are more sensitized to noticing; your car purchase does not alter the assortment of other vehicles on the streets.

I’m sure I would not have noticed had I not been thinking of yellow butterflies. The reason I find it interesting is because of all the things I could have held in my mind, it was yellow butterflies and yellow butterflies are what happened to be stuck on the bin. Why not orange kittens? Why not blue fish? Why not industrial gibberish stickers?

 

The author of that book calls it something like The Green Jetta experiment, because of that car phenomenon. So, I guess I am saying two things: 1) yes, I agree with all the brain science about how we seek patterns and we try to assign meaning. Some people do this to a pretty extreme degree, like my mother, with her angels-made-me-get-a-parking-spot thing, while others view most things as random events. Also, though, 2) despite believing the brain science, fact-based view and typically applying it that way, there are still some things that seem too “coincidental†for me to think that is literally all it can ever be - always coincidence, no matter how improbable it may have been.

[Reefgazer]

No.

[mellifera33]

I’m sure I would not have noticed had I not been thinking of yellow butterflies. The reason I find it interesting is because of all the things I could have held in my mind, it was yellow butterflies and yellow butterflies are what happened to be stuck on the bin. Why not orange kittens? Why not blue fish? Why not industrial gibberish stickers?

 

 

 

I don't know, counting the sticker as a yellow butterfly kind of seems like a reach. It wasn't a real yellow butterfly. If you had chosen an uncommon object, do you think that there would have been a sticker of that object on the bin? Yellow butterflies are so common that I think you could have seen one almost anywhere you went. You just noticed it because you were looking for it. 

[Guest]

I don't know, counting the sticker as a yellow butterfly kind of seems like a reach. It wasn't a real yellow butterfly. If you had chosen an uncommon object, do you think that there would have been a sticker of that object on the bin? Yellow butterflies are so common that I think you could have seen one almost anywhere you went. You just noticed it because you were looking for it.

I didn’t intend it to be a live butterfly. It was December and winter. And I get what you’re saying - what if my thing had been a purple tiger? I did wonder that, too, and I actually did another similar experiement. In the book, she talks about looking for a Green Jetta. But I thought that was too easy. So I said, “What if it were a specific green, like Apple Green? Or a car I am very unlikely to see, like a Lamborghini?†In fact, I did not see any Apple Green cars within the next 24 hours. But within a few days, I did see an Apple Green Camero. And then a few days later, a pop-up add on my computer had a picture of an Apple Green Lamborghini.

 

Not saying it “proves†anything, but It is a thing that makes me go Hmmm.

 

But, I understand what you’re saying. My mother was doing a little thing where she was going to take it as a Sign if she saw a deer at my house. Well, she saw a deer at my house. But, that’s like saying it would be a Sign if you saw a dog being walked at a park. Deer are ubiquitous here this time of year. I see them every day.

[Tanaqui]

On the other hand, though, weird things have happened. To me; around me. They are things that are so man-oh-man-I-cannot-believe-it that they do seem like something more is going on than merely random events with random outcomes.

 

Really, it would be a lot stranger if there were no coincidences. And because coincidences are funny, our brain logs them as SUPER IMPORTANT.