There are times when one
is amazed by the kind of coincidences that happen in life like when you think
of a friend and she calls you on the phone exactly at that same moment. Sometimes,
you crave for a book or an item of food or a object and it appears right before
you. This phenomenon is called serendipity.
I have been an
avid fan of the concept of serendipity considering the fact that I have been
amazed by my good fortune in getting some of my desires granted. The word means
a pleasant surprise or a very fortunate occurrence. It is said that Horace
Walpole coined in this word in a letter to his friend in 1754, where he makes a
reference to a Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, in
which three princes main were always learning by accidental discoveries of
things.
Another
favourite quote on serendipity has been from Paulo Coelho’s The
Alchemist: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in
helping you to achieve it. In the novel, Coelho expands on the concept of the
Soul of the World, which is supposed to bind all beings together. I guess
that’s how Santiago creates the wind and saves himself and the Alchemist from
death.
However, the
best description of this process comes from the nineteenth century American
philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “The Oversoul”:
The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best… Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”
However, if you
ask me whether I live only by this philosophy or whether it is possible to get
anything specific with this philosophy, I can only answer in small print like advertisers
do : Conditions Apply!
