Following the Court Jester of the Universe

Yesterday, I’m talking to the dog (yes, I talk to the dog, but that’s not the point of this particular writing) and we’re discussing being depleted. Getting the give-downs. When all the energy seems to suck out of you like someone’s pulled the plug and down the drain your energy goes. I’m wondering aloud if I might get repleted. Or whether the opposite of deplete isn’t replete but plete. The dog, not being a language-phile, has no opinion on the topic, and we move on.
Today, up pops my A.Word.A.Day email and the word is—repletion. The condition of being completely filled or satisfied.
That made me think of the phrase, “replete with,” as in, “my life is replete with coincidences.”
I’ve read before that coincidences are one of the most puzzling things to womankind (or course, I read it as mankind but I don’t mindlessly use gender-based words that are intended to be, but never have been, universal). The allure of coincidences is a tangent of our eternal quest for meaning—why are we here? Coincidences tantalize as evidence of pattern, patterns being one of our primary ways for our brains to see meaning. Coincidence makes us think someone is in charge. The universe itself is in charge. Or God, if you will. Serendipity, some call it, and consider “coincidence” a pejorative term.
I’m also familiar with the selective notice theory, a phrase I made up but which means once we register a bit of data out of the billions of pieces of data in the universe we tend to keep noticing it, creating our own patterns, you might say. Like the time I was standing in the bookstore, one day back from a trip to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and glanced down. There, on on the stack of books, lay a book set in . . . Grand Isle, Louisiana. Coincidence? As it turns out, the book—The Awakening—is famous, actually a banned book. So, yes, it would be displayed in a New Orleans bookstore and, yes, I was busy scanning the books and, yes, my eye would fall on it.
Let me just say, I’m susceptible to coincidences—for example, I bought The Awakening. I like them. They somehow strike me as physical puns, like little court jesters in the great hall of the universe jumping up and down, the bell on their pointy hat tinkling. Whatever their origin, I hope they keep happening to me. Of course, the little bell ringing somewhere in the universe that I follow might be a God-sent clue to the next stepping stone in the path of my life. Or I might be creating the most erratic of wakes, following a hopping court jester. Either way, I’m good with it.

here’s to creative synthesis . . .