Product of a coincidence

Picture This: I was in the Play Section of a bookstore yesterday reading a Tom Stoppard play,The Real Thing. There was music playing in the store, and at this particular moment it was “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” The song’s still playing, and I’m reading, and I get to the third page, where this man and his wife are having a disagreement. The character of the man, says, in a sing-song voice, “Let’s call the whole thing off.” And I read those words just as the song came to its jazzy conclusion, with the singing of that very line.

I don’t really believe in coincidence; I know the mathematical fact that yes, maybe hearing “Let’s call the whole thing off” sung while reading the line “Let’s call the whole thing off” is a one in a billion chance, but I’ve read a billion books and listened to a billion songs while I read, and they’ve never once synched up until now, so it’s just the law of averages that it would happen at this moment, on this particular afternoon.

There’s no significance behind the song, or the line, or the play, or the sentiment; I’m not taking it as a sign to stage the play or buy the CD or, in fact, to call the whole thing off, or to decide on a thing that I might want to call off and then call it off, and give as my reason that I received a message in the form of the confluence of a line from a song and line from a play.

What I’m wondering about is whether life is better if you go around believing in coincidence and signs and auguries. Seeing meaning in every billboard and opportunity in every meeting. There’s something about that kind of life that seems young and hopeful.

There’s a way of thinking about the world when you’re young, before you’ve learned all the rules of social order and acceptable behavior and career path, where you think that anything can happen, when you believe in ghosts and angels and UFOs and government conspiracies and true love, and everything seems connected, or at least sometimes it does.

I can still feel the feeling that I had while reading that play, with that background music playing with my insane mind. The feeling of wanting to be a part of something big and significant and magical, and half-believing that I was; of half-believing that I shared mystical connections with the people around me, as well as with Woody Allen, and Steven Spielberg, and Barack Obama, and you.