Coincidence or not?

Yesterday I was taking a walk through the neighborhood, the same path as usual. I was listening to some music so a lot of the environment surrounding me was tuned out. There were two sightings along my walk in particular that grabbed my attention. The first was when I happened to look down at the sidewalk. I noticed a butterfly opening and closing it's wings right there along the walkway. The other was closer to the end of my walk, on my street actually. I noticed a black cat staring at me on someone's lawn. As I walked by it just stood there, staring. Both of these sightings I found rather interesting, particularly because I just started this blog not too many days ago. Not only does the title of my blog refer to butterflies, but also I have a daily picture and a link about black cats on it as well. I attribute these sightings to synchronicity.

Synchronicity, according to Merriam-Webster Online is as follows:

"synchronicity

Main Entry:

syn·chro·nic·i·ty

Pronunciation:

\ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē, ˌsin-\

Function:

noun

Inflected Form(s):

plural syn·chro·nic·i·ties

Date:

circa 1889

1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous 2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung"

It's been a while since I've studied psychology, so I had to refresh my memory on the concept. I shall include a link about Carl Jung's synchronicity in my relevant links section. There is much skepticism about synchronicity, as according to skepdic.com, they attribute it to the human mind's ability to find meaning and significance where there is none.

Certainly people suffering from schizophrenia/psychosis often find meanings in our everyday surroundings. Being hyper-vigilant is one of the symptoms I have had in the past. There is a website though that argues that synchronicity is not psychosis .

Whether or not you believe in synchronicity, is entirely your choice. Fact is though, that coincidences happen- whether synchronous or not. I do happen to know however that Synchronicity II is an awesome song by The Police. :)