I had multiple happenstances like that when I lived in New York City. On Seinfeld, people were constantly running into one another--as if Manhattan were Mayberry. People used to laugh about that, but I used to tell them that it's true. If you've ever read Longfellow's "Evangeline," part of the tragedy of the poem is this separated lovers who almost meet over the years, but never quite manage to do so.
I think it was Carl Sagan who said that the reason we have not encountered extraterrestrial life is that planetary civilization’s rise and fall in the universe, but the possibility of them existing at the same time and proximity are too great
I was walking down W 4th St in Greenwich Village NYC. Looked across the the street and there was my friend, Widi.
I had not seen him since college 1974.
I crossed and discovered that he lived about 7 buildings away from mey building around the corner on Charles Street.
We shared the same route to and from the subway at Christopher St. I had passed his building thousands of time. We had both lived there 9 years.
The coincidence is that we connected at all in a city of millions of people and schedules that did not coincide
I had multiple happenstances like that when I lived in New York City. On Seinfeld, people were constantly running into one another--as if Manhattan were Mayberry. People used to laugh about that, but I used to tell them that it's true. If you've ever read Longfellow's "Evangeline," part of the tragedy of the poem is this separated lovers who almost meet over the years, but never quite manage to do so.
I think it was Carl Sagan who said that the reason we have not encountered extraterrestrial life is that planetary civilization’s rise and fall in the universe, but the possibility of them existing at the same time and proximity are too great
That’s the Fermi Paradox. Or at least one approach to the paradox. Cool stuff.
Cool