Synchronicity 101

by John R. SedivycloseAuthor: John R. Sedivy Name: John R. Sedivy
Email: john@capecodbranding.com
Site: http://www.capecodbranding.com
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What A Coincidence… Or Was It?
Recently I have had an interesting phenomenon occur, which has become increasingly noticeable since I have started this blog. I would think of an idea for an article and decide to shelve the topic for a few days and come back to it when I had more time or after I had finished with other topics. Prior to my writing about the intended topic I would read about the very same thing in an online article from a news source or blog feeds that I read daily. At first this seemed like coincidence, but it started happening too often for me to ignore. In the early days of this blog Amy and I had discussed what was happening and she had shrugged it off as “synchronicity” and acted like it was something obvious. This of course begged the question – “What’s synchronicity?” as I had no clue what she was talking about.

Synchronicity Explained
Amy went on to explain that synchronicity occurs when two completely unrelated people have the same idea at the same time. These individuals have no contact but basically have the same moment of realization at the same time. The only differentiator is who acts upon the idea first. Amy had also mentioned that her mother had taught her as a child if she had an idea she had better act on it quickly as someone else would be having that same idea at that very moment. Of course my initial reaction was that this was all silly and had to be untrue – so I smiled, nodded and went on with my business. Besides, I have never been a very superstitious person.

As time passed I started noticing this phenomenon on a regular basis. But this did not make any sense, why did I not experience this earlier in life? I mean, I had encountered plenty of coincidences, but nothing frequently enough to make me take notice. The only explanation I have is that prior to the past six months I had not been in creative fields, and had been grounded in the sciences and surrounded by other individuals with similar background and grounding. When occupied with a creative profession such as writing or art, one tends to notice the creative works of others and the timing of events – and really you just become more in-tune with your environment.

Finally, I started acting upon my ideas quickly. Then I started noticing something even more odd – after acting on the idea, for example – posting an article to this blog – I started noticing the same (or very similar) topics posted by others. I am not referring to “screen-scrapers” who take articles in their entirety and provide a slight reference to your blog, but reputable sources such as The New York Times with very similar content and a different angle. The material was not the same, however the topic was strikingly similar.

A Recent Example
Here is an example. Late last week I wrote an article called “Knowing Yourself”. Basically the article was about the importance of knowing yourself and capitalizing on your strengths and improving your weaknesses. The article recommended using the Jung Typology and Myers-Briggs assessment to get a rough idea of who you are, as a starting point of sorts – this article was posted on April 17, 2009. The next day on April 18, 2009 an article was posted by New York Times columnist Alexandra Levit titled “First, Know Yourself” which was of similar topic, albeit geared more towards the corporate-minded individual – although I did appreciate the “Entrepreneurial Bent” subheading in the article. The Times article even had links to online assessments for getting to know yourself better.

I am not implying that the Times is copying my material – I am not that naive, although it would be great to have that problem this early in the game This was just one of those occurrences that makes you stand up and take notice – too obvious to ignore. My thought is that it was likely two intelligent writers having the same idea at the same time – I had just acted on it slightly faster – synchronicity. As mentioned earlier this was not the first time that I have encountered this but initially I had not acted on my ideas quickly enough. Later, once I had become more aware of synchronicity I had noticed the events occurring but had never made note, this is the first time that I have done so.

That is one of the great aspects of blogging and the permanence of the Internet, one can counteract synchronicity by committing their ideas to the Internet at the moment the idea occurs, should the person wish to do so. Even better, the idea can be continually built up on the Internet and a solid web presence developed around the idea allowing an individual to stake a claim to the idea. I had initially done this with the concept of Vulnerable Marketing and am working to build a presence around that concept, following the lead of pioneering authors such as David Meerman Scott and Chris Anderson.

Curiouser & Curiouser
As with most things that spark my curiosity I seek out more information – in this case I needed to know more about synchronicity. So I did some preliminary research and thought I would share it with everyone. Here is the definition of synchronicity as provided by Wikipedia:

“Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.

The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.”

This seems to be a pretty fuzzy definition but from what I can gather it is based on three prerequisites:

1. Two or more unrelated events occurring together
2. Meaningful
3. Not linked by chance

The entire overarching concept appears to be based on meaning. There are at least a few interesting concepts explored in the article on synchronicity. The first is that the concept of synchronicity was coined by Carl Jung. For those who read this blog, you may recall that Carl Jung is the inventor of the Jung Typology which serves as a foundation to the Myers-Briggs assessment. Carl Jung was also referenced in my “Knowing Yourself” article which is the article I had provided as an example of synchronicity above. Could be purely coincidental but it is interesting nonetheless.

Another interesting point was that the referenced Wikipedia article identifies one of Jung’s favorite quotes concerning synchronicity from “Through the Looking-Glass” by Lewis Carroll. In this quote the White Queen says to Alice: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” I had not read this book, however this suggests to me the possibility of some forward seeing memory which examples provided by Jung are provided in the Wikipedia article. Of course “Through the Looking-Glass” is fictional and categorized as literary nonsense, however as with the previous point it is good food for thought.

A Good Starting Point
In the future I would like to delve deeper into this subject, at the very least I am intrigued. There is one reference that is of particular interest to me which is a book called “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle” by Carl Jung, as time permits I will start there and move on to follow-up work by others.

Synchronicity is an interesting concept that attempts to explain seemingly coincidental events!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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