Yesterday, as I was walking to my car I went past two policemen who were standing by the side of the road. While I’m normally not bothered by policemen, I noticed that one of them had a sub-machine gun hanging by his side and it bothered me. For some strange reason, I had an irrational fear of the policeman aiming the gun at my back and shooting me after I walked past him. I have no idea why the thought popped into my mind but less than half an hour ago, I had just posted my writing prompt which was about firing a gun.
The day before that, I watched Seven Psychopaths (a great movie by the way) and there was a scene about a self-immolating monk. This morning when I took my routine dump, I was browsing reddit and came across this article about a mummified monk found inside a statue. Now they aren’t exactly related, but they did both involved a monk sitting cross-legged and dying. Another coincidence in the span of two days.
It’s like putting an item on my Steam wishlist and seeing it go on sale the following day or appearing in a Humble Bundle. However Instagram and Facebook ads – those aren’t coincidences. You see them based on your browsing history (and phone usage).
Coincidences happen only because we recognize them. Humans are good at recognizing patterns. Like how I remember the feeling of losing too clearly – not winning 15 games of Dota in a row kinda does that to you.
There was a time where every time I watched Na’Vi play, they lost and when I missed their matches, they won. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay away from watching them during their tournament playoffs ?.
Seng Yip asked me about jumper cables the other day. I told him that he could buy them from a petrol station because I experienced it a few weeks ago on my road trip to Penang. Ian’s car couldn’t start so we had to purchase some jumper cables to bring the car to life. Turns out the battery was dead and the cables were useless. But I had information on where to get jumper cables and how much they cost.
You only stop learning when you’re dead. Everything you’ve done and learned in the past is to prepare you for something in the future. Whether or not you live long enough to apply the knowledge is another thing.
Like working at my first job in Inspidea, I learned to tell stories through animation. Next month, I start my new job, telling stories through animation. Seven years later. Seven Years is a great song. Seven. Seven Psychopaths.
Seng Yip’s lucky number is Seven. On my trip to Penang with The Propositions, we briefly spoke about the movie Lucky Number Slevin.