[karma] and the need to remain circumspect

Further to that business of all the cars arriving at once when I reach a certain spot on the pavement with my bike, I did a little research and it seems that coincidences or maybe conjunctions of circumstances have been going on for a long time:

In 1893, Henry Ziegland ended a relationship with his girlfriend. Tragically, his girlfriend took the news very badly, became distraught and took her own life. Her distressed brother blamed his sister’s death upon Henry, he went round to Henry’s house, saw him out in the garden and tried to shoot him.

Luckily, the bullet only grazed Henry’s face and embedded itself in a nearby tree. In 1913, twenty years after this incident, Henry decided to use dynamite to uproot a tree in his garden. The explosion propelled the embedded bullet from the tree straight into Henry Ziegland’s head – killing him immediately.

What about this one from February this year?

The chance of winning the lottery is often said to be a tad bit smaller than the chance of being hit by lightning. Lightning is said never to strike twice at the same place. So consider the odds of someone winning the lotter. Twice. On the same day. From the same lottery.

That’s what happened to James McAllister (62) from Acworth, USA, when he bought two scratch off tickets on Valentine’s day. James brought his wife for a Valentine’s breakfast. Along Highway 92 he bought a Georgia Lottery Millionaire Jumbo Bucks scratch off ticket — and won $5,000.

Apparently not completely satisfied, or maybe feeling this was his lucky day, later on in the day he bought another ticket as he was shopping for a Valentine’s card for his wife. Scratching that one off was worth $250,000.

Agatha Christie played with the idea by putting these words into Mr. Satterthwaite's mouth, the woman he was addressing considering suicide:

“You say your life is your own,” went on Mr Satterthwaite to her, “But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a Divine Producer? You, as you, may not matter to anyone in the world but you as a person in a particular place and a particular context may matter unimaginably.”

Broadening this

Today I had a commenter on one post [now deleted] and instantly, the moment came to mind when Poirot said this to Jacqueline de Bellefort who was contemplating murder:

‘Don’t open your heart to evil, Mademoiselle because if you do, it will surely come and make its home in there.’

You can call that melodramatic but I really do believe that if you pursue MAD, you really do become mad in the deepest and most permanent sense and you can't get it off your back or out of your system. You get locked in until something is destroyed but the black joke is that it is never destroyed - it comes back at you and destroys you from inside.

I don't think "turn the other cheek" was an exhortation to weakness, quite the opposite - it was something which requires great willpower. Today I paused and I was going to make the mistake of responding. Now I'm glad I didn't.

Positive karma

Don't start getting the idea I'm a tree-hugger but I do believe that if something occurs, it may well have a bearing on something else or have a reason for it. Douglas Adams made fun of that with his "fundamental interconnectedness of all things", the Australian aborigines are right into this stuff and I think there's something in it. Not sure what but there is.

Enough mysticism for one evening.