We Do Not Live in a Coincidental Universe

Synchronicity, kittens, and the search for meaning

In 2001 ten-year-old Laura Buxton wanted a pen pal, and her grandfather got an idea.

It was the grandfather’s 50th wedding anniversary, so he grabbed one of the golden helium balloons from the party and suggested Laura write her name and address on the balloon. She did so, and the note said, “Please return to Laura Buxton” followed by her address in Staffordshire, England.

Laura set the balloon aloft, along with her hopes of finding a pen pal far away.

A few days later and 140 miles away in Milton Lilbourne, a farmer named Andy Rivers discovered the slightly deflated balloon entangled in his hedge. He almost threw the balloon out until he read the note, which perplexed him.

Laura Buxton was the name of his neighbor’s nearly ten-year-old daughter. So he gave the balloon to her, and she later wrote a letter to her namesake in Staffordshire.

And that’s when things got stranger.

Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?

The girls began corresponding and discovered that they not only shared the same name and approximate age. They also shared the same height of 4 foot 7 inches.

The girls both had brown hair and blue eyes. Upon their first meeting, they both showed up wearing jeans and pink jumpers.

Even more curious, they discovered that they both owned a 3-year-old black Labrador, grey rabbits, and guinea pigs with identical orange spots on their hind legs. Both girls, without coordination, brought their pet guinea pigs to their first meeting.

The girls went on to become friends, and their story has appeared in numerous media accounts including a Ripley’s Believe It or Not video segment.

“Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together? Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences.” — Emery Allen

According to the fact-checking website Snopes.com, one of the mothers reported that her daughter is now 19 years old.

The mother added:

“The girls are still very good friends and meet up as and when time and commitments allow them — in fact, they are meeting again before they both go back to University. We have no idea why this happened but it did and out of it has come a wonderful friendship.”

We have no idea why this happened.

Indeed, the universe unfolds and touches us in unexpected ways.

The sense of the numinous

Is there such a thing as divine guidance?

People of faith will answer in the affirmative, and agnostics and atheists will say it’s all about chance and coincidence. Still, others point to synchronicities or the spiritual sense that things happen for some kind of cosmic reason. As if the universe understands what is lacking in our lives, and maybe even reminds us of our wholeness and oneness.

The YouTube channel “Modern Intuitionist” explored the notion of synchronicity in an episode titled, “Change Your Story, Rewrite Your Life.”

Here’s an excerpt from the narration:

“According to the late, famous psychologist Carl Jung, synchronicities are meaningful coincidences that happen when an inner state of the mind lines up with an event in the outside world. They are not connected by cause and effect, they are connected by meaning.”

Recently my wife and I were wondering if our young cat, Monkey, was bored. I play with him every night, but my wife felt he needed more stimulation and interaction.

“Maybe a kitten would help?” my wife suggested, adding, “That way they could play with one another.”

The next day our pest control guy, Dean, came by the house to spray outside for cockroaches and scorpions (a common nuisance here in southern Nevada). He was chatting with my wife and me and said, “Hey, did I tell you that our cat had kittens? If you’re in the market for a kitten, I can send you pictures.”

Just like that, I came face to face with synchronicity.

The YouTube episode of “Modern Intuitionist” went on to state:

“Jung tells us that what defines synchronicity is the sense of the numinous, it’s the feeling of wonder and awe that lifts us outside of ourselves, connecting us with the divine. And it’s so powerful precisely because it hints at the possibility that our lives are connected in ways we can’t see. A deeper pattern, an underlying meaning, and a single unified reality from which everything derives. It’s what Jung calls ‘Unus mundus’ which is Latin for ‘One world.’ Synchronicities can bring us in contact with people, ideas, and opportunities we need at just the moments.”

It wasn’t long before Dean was sending us videos of the kittens, and one brave little fur ball stood out.

We have since named the fuzzy little feline “Bear” and after a rough start, he and our cat Monkey are beginning to hang out and play together. It still surprises me, how we went from a brief conversation about finding a kitten to Dean showing up the next day announcing that his cat had kittens.

My wife is fond of saying, “We do not live in a coincidental universe,” and I’m beginning to agree with her.

My art and profession is to live

I’ve been reading Sarah Bakewell’s national bestseller, “How to Live or A Life of Montaigne.”

Michel de Montaigne was one of the most important philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known as the Godfather of essays, having popularized the essay as a literary genre.

What I like about Montaigne is that he observed and wrote about life without moralizing or telling others what to do. So many self-help gurus and “influencers” today like to tell us how we should live our lives.

Montaigne simply observed life, without issuing edicts. I like the humility in that.

As Bakewell notes in her book:

“Moral dilemmas interested Montaigne, but he was less interested in what people ought to do than in what they actually did. He wanted to know how to live a good life — meaning a correct or honorable life, but also a fully human, satisfying, flourishing one. This question drove him both to write and to read, for he was curious about all human lives, past and present. He wondered constantly about the emotions and motives behind what people did. And since he was the example closest to hand of a human going about its business, he wondered just as much about himself.”

If we are to live “fully human, satisfying, flourishing” lives, perhaps we should follow Montaigne’s example. Don’t take yourself too seriously, read, think, and be open to moments of synchronicity.

We may not always understand how the universe works, and why serendipity and inexplicable events enrich our lives. Perhaps we should simply take it all in, without judgment, like Montaigne did.

“My art and profession is to live.” — Michel de Montaigne

We will always search for meaning in our lives, but in the end, the Universe is bigger than all of us. It holds meaning and secrets beyond our understanding.

“Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.” — Michel de Montaigne

Who knows what exactly caused the two Laura Buxtons to find one another. Or how talk of a kitten suddenly became a reality.

I believe that we do not live in a coincidental universe. Serendipity and synchronicity happen. Lives are inexplicably drawn together. Kittens appear.

It’s all such a marvelous journey.

(First published here)

Before you go

I’m John P. Weiss. I write elegant stories and essays about life. If you enjoyed this piece, check out my free weekend newsletter, The Saturday Letters.