CHARLOTTE, NC: Some of the most joyful moments in life occur at times when an unanticipated series of events align themselves to create memories that can never quite be explained and certainly never be duplicated. It is the Spontaneity, Serendipity, Synchronicity of life.
In the simplest of terms, most of us would refer to them as you had to be there moments.
We have all had them, and no manner of explanation or retelling of the events can ever completely replicate the pleasure of the experience by the participants.
Perhaps another, deeper and more philosophical, way to put it is to call it the Three Ss: Spontaneity, Serendipity, and Synchronicity.
In their own way, each of this trio of phenomena is related.
Over the years, I have come to revel in the serendipity of travel as one of the driving forces for my wanderlust passion. It lies deep within my psyche and growth as a person in ways I could never have fully attained in a classroom or a book.
For me, the classroom and books come after the experience in ways that serve to reinforce what I have discovered and promise to further arouse my curiosity.
No matter who we are, it is the anticipation of such events that create the excitement of a journey before we ever take the first step out of the front door. The sensation is much the same that football fans experience before the Super Bowl.
All too often, the game is not able to live up to its billing because the hype diminishes the reality of the expectations.
Likewise, travel is also filled with unpredictability and possibilities. However, unlike sports, an entire destination becomes the product rather than the limitations of a finite playing field. Thus, the opportunities for unique and awe-inspiring occurrences are enhanced and magnified by the destination.
One of my high school classmates, who is also someone whose life has been broadened by travel, describes serendipity as those delicious random mysteries that appear like magic in our lives.
While those are some pretty heavy-duty words, Jung simplified their meaning with the following example:
I was sitting opposite (a patient) one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab a costly piece of jewelry. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room.
This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, Here is your scarab. This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance.
Although the affliction frequently denotes more negative connotations than positive.
On the other hand, if you think about it, be it for good or for bad, life itself is an amalgam of events that are either serendipitous, spontaneous or synchronous or some blending of the three.
Not long ago, an ALS patient wrote a poem that upon first reading appeared to be little more than his own private pity party. Truthfully, I had to force myself to re-read it, but by the time I finished the second review, I realized that the message was, indeed, one of hope.
As the author later clarified,
If we are honest with ourselves, life is only temporary for anyone. All ALS really does is to provide a slightly more defined awareness of the inevitable.
That being the case, I plan to continue my pursuit of the Three Ss until I am no longer able.
Following that, I can sit back and savor each precious moment, encounter and person who passed through the pageant that has been my life.
Even ALS cannot take that away from me.
About the Author: Bob Taylor is a veteran writer who has traveled throughout the world. Taylor is an award-winning television producer/reporter/anchor before focusing on writing about international events, people and cultures around the globe.
Taylor is the founder of The Magellan Travel Club (www.MagellanTravelClub.com)
Read more of What in the World and Bob Taylor at Communities Digital News
Read more of Bobs journeys with ALS and his travels around the world
Editors Note: Support Bobs GoFundMe to give him a hand up
Follow Bob on Twitter Facebook
Original post:
Living with ALS: The Three S's of life Spontaneity, Serendipity and... - Communities Digital News
- Rationalism | Psychology Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia - December 12th, 2016 [December 12th, 2016]
- rationalism facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com ... - December 22nd, 2016 [December 22nd, 2016]
- Rationalism in Philosophy - January 3rd, 2017 [January 3rd, 2017]
- Rationalism vs. Empiricism Essay - 797 Words - StudyMode - January 5th, 2017 [January 5th, 2017]
- Logic: Rationalism vs. Empiricism - Theology - January 5th, 2017 [January 5th, 2017]
- Rationalism verses Empiricism - dummies.com - January 5th, 2017 [January 5th, 2017]
- Taking Liberties With Workable Liberty - Big Think - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Go for introspection, Left parties told - The Hindu - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Look back in anger, unplugged | Asia Times - Asia Times - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Food by the Book: Philosophy, love, steak - Muskogee Daily Phoenix - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Hypocrisy isn't the problem. Nihilism is - Los Angeles Times - February 8th, 2017 [February 8th, 2017]
- The separation of church and state - Helena Independent Record - February 8th, 2017 [February 8th, 2017]
- Don't become a pawn in the NHL's Olympic Games - Fear the Fin - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- Australia's new political divide: 'globalists' versus 'patriots' - The Sydney Morning Herald - February 10th, 2017 [February 10th, 2017]
- Laura Akin: Overwhelming majority of the Founding Fathers were Christian - Modesto Bee - February 10th, 2017 [February 10th, 2017]
- Hecker reemerges with more text-based synthesis on two new releases on Editions Mego - Tiny Mix Tapes - February 10th, 2017 [February 10th, 2017]
- Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the ... - The Times (subscription) - February 11th, 2017 [February 11th, 2017]
- Hanson denies Liberal preference hypocrisy - SBS - February 12th, 2017 [February 12th, 2017]
- When religion rules social life - Daily News & Analysis - February 12th, 2017 [February 12th, 2017]
- Will science go rogue against Donald Trump? - Socialist Worker Online - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Valentine's Day and Romance - Commonweal (blog) - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - Camden Haven Courier - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - Warrnambool Standard - February 14th, 2017 [February 14th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - The Northern Daily Leader - February 15th, 2017 [February 15th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - Western Advocate - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Canadian architecture firm discusses design in the Midwest - Iowa State Daily - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Why sports industry sides with transgenders - WND.com - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Arrival - slantmagazine - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Americans 'plain dumb' - Hastings Tribune - February 17th, 2017 [February 17th, 2017]
- 'Modi combines Savarkar and neoliberalism': Pankaj Mishra on why this is the age of anger - Scroll.in - February 17th, 2017 [February 17th, 2017]
- Biography examines political motivations of Montaigne - UChicago News - February 18th, 2017 [February 18th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - Daily Advertiser - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Will the Science Community Go Rogue Against Donald Trump? - Truth-Out - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- The Red94 Podcast: On the Boogie Cousins trade - Red94 - February 21st, 2017 [February 21st, 2017]
- Refugee resettlement study bill passes North Dakota House, Democrat calls it mean-spirited - Bismarck Tribune - February 21st, 2017 [February 21st, 2017]
- Refugee resettlement study bill passes ND House, Democrat calls it ... - Jamestown Sun - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- P. Sridhar - The Hindu - The Hindu - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- The Magical Rationalism of Elon Musk and the Prophets of AI - New York Magazine - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- There is an Is - Patheos (blog) - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- Letter to the Editor: Banning Immigrants on the Basis of Faith Has Hudson Valley Roots - Patch.com - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- You Don't Have To Choose Between Alt-Right And Regressive Left - Huffington Post Canada - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Encountering Change: A Chaplain's Perspective - Patheos (blog) - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Freemasonry Catholics' Deadly Foe - Church Militant - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Modernism and Its Rages - City Journal - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- In Scorsese's adaptation of Endo's novel, a stark depiction of statism against religion - National Review - February 25th, 2017 [February 25th, 2017]
- Outcry over Dalai Lama threatens free speech | The Daily Cardinal - The Daily Cardinal - February 27th, 2017 [February 27th, 2017]
- When a guitar and Sarangi took over Qalandar's shrine - The Express Tribune - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - Whyalla News - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Review: 'Target in the Night' is punchy, graceful, ambiguous - The Daily Herald - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Meet the Group of Extreme Rationalists Bent on Cheating Death - Signature Reads - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Barnaby Joyce condemns WA Liberals' preference deal with One Nation - Eyre Peninsula Tribune - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Architecture's Pritzker Prize lauds Spanish trio for 'a strong sense of place' - The Globe and Mail - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- The ideas election | The Indian Express - The Indian Express - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Serpents, owl men and demon dogs - BBC News - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Why America Can't Afford to Get Into a Trade War with China - The National Interest Online - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Reason, Creativity and Freedom: The Communalist Model - Truth-Out - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Pankaj Mishra's 'Age Of Anger' Is A Flawed But Fascinating Intellectual History - Swarajya - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Thomas Isaac budget: Split between populism and Marxist rationalism - Times of India - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Philharmonic program celebrates passion, youth - Albuquerque Journal - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- Interview with Deo Ssekitooleko Representative of Center for Inquiry International Uganda - Conatus News - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Is Democracy Dying Before Our Eyes In America? OpEd - Eurasia Review - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- SBCC Presents 'A Flea in Her Ear' - Santa Barbara Independent - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- A French Surrealist's Eclectic Remembrances of His Cohort, Finally in English - Hyperallergic - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- Junk restrictive faith-based laws: Mumbai atheists - Daily News & Analysis - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- How to Use Imagination to Grow Your Business - Business 2 Community - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- Martyn Lawrence Bullard's Sumptuous Palm Springs Hideaway - Architectural Digest - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- Saturday (novel) - Wikipedia - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- Abortion Debate Poisoned By 'Pro-Choice' And 'Pro-Life' Labels - Huffington Post Canada - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Stand on Tradition - The Weekly Standard - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- The bewildered present-day world - The New Indian Express - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- I watched Alex Jones give his viewers health advice. Here's what I ... - Vox - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- How James Ramsey of RAAD Studio, Carlos Arnaiz of CAZA, and BalletCollective turned design into dance - The Architect's Newspaper - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Going overboard with cow protection - Kasmir Monitor - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Anti-Intellectualism Is Just As Revolutionary As Liberalismand Much More Dangerous - Slate Magazine - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Pakistani thought process - Daily Times - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- French president to the resistance: The world believes in you - Shareblue Media - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Sophisticated Man Is Stupid - American Spectator - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- COLUMN: The statistical fallacy - The Auburn Plainsman - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Modi governments greatest trick: Hate the intellectual - DailyO - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- A labyrinth is coming to Washington - Observer-Reporter - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]