Coincidence

One of my favorite things in the Conan finale (aside from his admonishment against cynicism, which made me cry) was the montage set to Cheap Trick's Surrender. It's one of my favorite songs and the subtext it provided for sending Conan off was perfect. The next day I got in my car and plugged in my Zune (set to shuffle, as usual) and that very same song was the first thing I heard.

An interesting coincidence (if you believe in coincidence).

That week I was reading Fear of Flying (by Erica Jong). I wasn't really enjoying it but as a lit nerd and a woman I felt like I needed to read it. There is a remarkably peripheral mention of Carl Jung in the book (peripheral given that the book is primarily about psychoanalysis), and how he is viewed, by some as antisemitic for taking over Freud's post when he was deported.

When I finished Fear of Flying I started reading Craig Ferguson's Between the Bridge and the River which is by far a better book in almost every respect. It features Carl Jung much more prominently and his theory of the collective unconscious.

Around this same time I found myself suddenly and somewhat inexplicably in a Zachary Qunito fan bubble. I mean, not completely inexplicably, I like Heroes and I loved Star Trek (and yes, Spock was my favorite character but that probably has a lot to do with my love of logic), and yes the juxtaposition of the two characters (Sylar and Spock) does highlight Quinto's range as an actor very well...so yes, I am a fan of his, and have been, but the recent...fixation is somewhat surprising.

I have a new blogging venture. It's my compromise on a dream. I had once dreamed to have a platform, possibly a magazine or TV show but preferably an NPR radio show, where I (and my collaborators whomever they might be) would interview people we are fans of and do articles on things we are fans of and then the people we interviewed would tell us what they are a fan of and we would research that and do an article on that as well (companion pieces). I decided to compromise and start blogging the fan mail instead.

So, when my Zachary Quinto fixation arose a couple weeks ago I started reading everything I could about him (research you might say, for my fan mail, though I didn't use any of it really). I found this interview (from Playboy which, by the way, does often have pretty great articles and interviews) in which Zachary Quinto says that he is a fan of Carl Jung.

Also, as a result of my ZQ fixation, I started re-watching Heroes from the beginning. As I write this I am watching Season 3 Episode 4 in which Parkman is marooned somewhere in Africa with another guy who can paint the future. The future painter tells him he needs to look inside himself and find his "totem, a spirit guide that attaches itself to your subconscious". When Parkman asks him about if that's "some sort of African mystical mojo thing", he responds that it's from Carl Jung's theory of analytical psychology.

I don't think Carl Jung believed in coincidence, though I could be wrong since it's been over a decade since I studied about Jung (during my brief flirtation with majoring in Psychology). I believe that some things are pure coincidence but that many things which appear coincidental are something much larger. I think it's unlikely that I would stumble across four references to Carl Jung in two weeks by pure coincidence. It seems to me like something larger than coincidence but at this point I'm not entirely sure what. I guess I need to look into my subconscious for my totem to give me the answer. Or maybe I should pray about it. Or maybe prayer and analytic psychology are one and the same, maybe God and the Collective Unconscious are one and the same....