Yesterday, my roommate and I had a pretty mysterious experience.
For what I thought can be considered a coincidence, this has nothing to do with such thing.
It did though, need many sets of coincidences to make it work.
It will be boring at first, though. I will tell you the story with detailed precision, and you can figure out why I have to do this later.. ;)
Yesterday, I actually had a free day, but I decided to go to the campus.
I ended up just going to the computer room and watching some videos on youtube. My girlfriend was around and so we decided to talk just a little bit.
At around 18:45, we decided to go back to our place, she to her dorm, and I to my host family's house. This is a pretty weird timing to start going back, at least to me, because I usually go back after the end of classes. (Well.. which I didn't have yesterday..)
In Shinjuku, as it wasn't so crowded as usual (because of the time), I decided to wait a little bit to catch the Rapid (快速) train. By doing that, there's a possibility to get a seat on the train, while getting to reach my station in just 18 minutes (plus the time to wait for that train, which was only around 8 minutes in Shinjuku).
The train arrived, and people started to rush to get a seat on the train. I in the other hand, because I'd already decided to wait for 8 minutes, I was in front of the line, and could easily get a seat which I did. It was though, filled with people. I had to put my backpack on my lap to let a person stand in front of me, as the manner here suggests.
The only thing to do in these situations was, well, getting our eyes glued to our cellphones, or books. I guess it's a thing here. Individualistic behavior 101. This is a thing I noticed just too well because of my recent coming back to Indonesia. People do, talk in public transports in Indonesia.
My train went quite fast stopping at Sasazuka, Meidaimae, Sakurajosui, Hachimanyama, Chitose Karasuyama, and finally my station, Sengawa, skipping out Daitabashi, Shimo Takaido, Kami Kitazawa, and Roka Koen.
Don't get bored yet. It gets interesting after this, trust me;)
In Chitose Karasuyama, the next station to my station, my roommate chatted me asking where I was. I replied I was in Chitose Karasuyama which I was. His answer surprised me a bit because he also said he was in Chitose Karasuyama. He said we might have been in the same train.
I firstly looked to my left side, and then to my right side just to find no trace of him. To my surprise, when I looked straight in front of me, behind the person who was standing in front of me, I noticed a very similar pattern of my jacket. I knew immediately that it was my roommate just close to a meter away in front of me because the pattern was unique. I chatted him to look at his back. He turned around and smiled finding out it was me.
Of all the trains' schedule in a day. Of all the rows on a train. He said he got on the train in Meidaimae. I said I didn't notice him then. He said he didn't notice me then. We couldn't decide if the probability of that happening was just a coincidence or God's plan. At least to him, it was something unexplainable by men. It had to be God's plan. I said to him that it must have been God's plan. I didn't say to him that I still thought of it as pure coincidence. We went out of the station feeling awesome.
It didn't stop there though. My roommate was feeling sick yesterday, actually since the day before. He said he was going to get a haircut to get rid of his disease or bad luck away, at least. We went to a nearby hair-cutting place only to find out that he couldn't get his haircut while using hair gel. He wanted to wash his hair gel away in the station and went back, but I suggested to do it tomorrow because he looked quite tired in which we reached an agreement to do so.
We walked to the bicycle parking area to get his bicycle. He took a while to unlock his bicycle. I walked to the station this morning so I didn't have to get my bicycle there (well, I don't have a bicycle now because I'd already lost it there before). So, I walked, and he rolling his bicycle started walking with me home.
While still talking about the coincidence we had on the train, we met our host mother and her two children on the way to the station. They were surprised as we were. The host mother was already quite far away back continuing her ride only to slow down a bit. We just asked her boy Calvin who were following her where they were going. He answered with a body language to show an eating action. We knew they were going to have dinner together, which was really nice. We thought what a nice family. We understood exactly why they didn't want to tell us that they were going to have dinner together which was easily understandable I guess. We continued our way home.
To have this coincidence after the previous coincidence was really mind-boggling for me. We talked about the probability of this happening. I rethought the whole thing.
Had I not gone home in that train's schedule, had I not sit on that row, had he not done the same, had he already noticed me in Meidaimae, had he not used his hair gel, had he washed his hair in the station, had I not suggested him to get his haircut tomorrow, had he not taken a while to unlock his bicycle, had we not taken a different path home with the host mother and her two children, had they not done the same, had we not taken a while to talk about the coincidence that we had experienced before. All these things had to happen in a perfect timing to make these two coincidences happen, if they were coincidences at all.
The other day I was thinking about how it takes such a coincidence to make us live in this world. How it only takes one out of the average three hundred million sperms that go inside a woman's body. How mothers have to take care of the zygote for around nine months well enough. How she has to be healthy enough to give birth to a baby. These things can be considered coincidences, maybe.
But man, if all these things are coincidences, we tend to take them for granted, really. It really doesn't matter what it is, actually. What I'm saying is that, people tend to consider this kind of experience a religious one. And I don't blame them for that, really. It's because the probability of something happening in this world can be really, really, really small, I'm saying it's fine to have different opinions about what it actually is. Well, we never really know if it's God's plan or just random coincidences. The thing is, we must be given a freedom to have our own opinions about something. Spiritual, religious, coincidental, scientifically-explained experience can be similar experiences. Why do we have to argue about what it is? It's better to share our experience, think it's a really cool thing or not and move on with it, basically.
Have a good day.
