We have an entry in here from @plushzilla via email. And I was just thinking... Wouldn't that be an interesting synch if plush and bengy ended up playing each other again? I guess we'll see how it works out. That sure would be interesting in my opinion! Anyways... Onto the entry.
This is my entry for the topic Synchronicity. I am not sure how to categorize this piece of writing, so I'll just let you read it and see.
Places, people and times in the canvas of life - IFC S2R1 finals
I have spent the last six months working intensely on a project with a friend who is living in the same city as me. Contrary to the many people who have sought comfort and solace in reaching out to people overseas who they don't have to have the guilt of not being able to meet in person physically, I made a stronger connection to a friend who I didn't know very well before the pandemic hit the country in early March of this year.
She had a very simple idea, to develop an app to help foster and develop an appreciation of the arts, but aimed at younger children (say 6-10 years of age), and since she is an illustrator/design and her husband is a developer, there is essentially no upfront cost other than the time and energy that they need to invest in this project. And since I am one of those people who can't help themselves in joining these types of crusades involving education and creating a better future for the next generation, I ended up with the task of translating the stories that she had written about 30 different paintings from 3 galleries around the world (so 10 for each gallery/museum) into English so that they can be shared to a wider audience.
But this is not about the app, even though that's where the connection initially started. I embarked on a journey of discovery and learning, which made me realize just how things come together in life sometimes. I suppose that's the synchronicity that people talk about, so I will illustrate with two examples.
The first happened while I was sitting on the couch and watching a re-run of a James Bond movie (you'll know the title if you remember this scene I am about to describe). It was a movie I had seen many times before, and this particular scene took place at the National Gallery of London with Bond meeting the new quartermaster. He sits in front of a painting and ponders about something, but this time it made perfect sense to me why they chose this particular painting and how it relates to the theme of the story. It took a re-connection with someone who I didn't know very well previously, a project that we poured our energy and enthusiasm into, and a re-run of a movie for me to understand the potential impact of what we are trying to do.
In this second example I am the one in the gallery, and I am walking through aimlessly and feeling a bit lost at all the different artworks and not really connecting with anything on display. Then for some reason a painting catches my attention, it was really just out of the corner of my eye but I walked up to it. Turns out that it was a landscape painting inspired by a scenery that the artist saw when she visited the place. It was actually a place that I have travelled to recently (well, less than three months ago), again with a friend who I had not seen for a while and she asked me to go on a driving trip there. And while I was there she introduced me to a man who was the owner of the cafe we dined at, who told me about his son starting a law clerkship with a very well respected judge, and it turns out that this woman was the wife of a man that I am friends with.
I guess there isn't anything particular special about these stories, but somehow it made me realize that there are lots of connections that we can only make when we are with the right people, at the right place and at the right time, and possibly working on the right things as well. This is what the IFC feels like to me sometimes, an invisible connection that pulls us from all corners of the world together to create something simple but valuable.
Best wishes to all those who have stayed for the journey. I hope that you have all managed to endure the difficulties of what has been a very tough year, and that we will get through this together and come out much stronger and more resilient :)
Here's my response to plush's entry.
Happy to see you got an entry in! :) I loved reading it! Very interesting. It's amazing all the different factors that had to come into play for it to happen that way. The first example is intriguing how the synchs led to an understanding of the potential impact of what you're trying to do. I've had a few similar experiences like that and it's really neat to think how different things might have been if events had only been slightly different! A part that especially jumped out at me was the painting of the place that you travelled to recently which was also linked to the art gallery and the Bond movie and then all of those human social interactions afterwards! Whoa... Trippy. Kinda reminds me of that movie Inception almost, and I never saw the movie but I think I kinda know what it's about. I see you mentioned you felt a bit lost before then which in my opinion could be linked as the feeling of lost with the art as I think there can be an energy of sort of randomness/spontaneity/openness or serendipity which I believe can help lead to such kinds of experiences.
Very well said at the end there... Those last couple paragraphs were deep and heart felt and your entry kind of reminds me the most so far of a similar sort of feeling I was having when I decided to make this round about synchronicity... I've been having some similar experiences in life where I just think back about how many different things had to happen in a certain order for me to be at this spot right now and sometimes I get to the point now where I can recognize them in current time instead of just in retrospect and that has been quite rewarding. I don't know how to explain it, or what it means, and maybe it's just a sort of "search for extra meaning" like bengy kind of suggested in his entry, though... I can't help but feel like there's some other kind of language going on here, perhaps something spiritual though it doesn't have to be spiritual. I dunno... It's hard to describe and put words to. It almost feels like there's another world there we can tap into if we recognize it. :) And if there is, I look forward to tapping into it and hopefully doing some neat things in the future!
Thanks for the entry plush! Great job. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Oh, also... Best wishes towards the app project and just in general!