Do we live in a meaningful universe? Is there a plan lodged somewhere? Or competing, contradictory plans? Do coincidences open a window onto the underlying architecture of subjective experience? And is there any point whatsoever in asking such unanswerable questions? Well, probably not, and even if there is, I am not remotely qualified to supply any answers. But then, who is? The Pope, perhaps, or Richard Dawkins, or (possibly my favoured candidate) Joni Mitchell? But how would we even recognise the correct answers, given humanity's track record so far? [OK, that's quite enough stupid questions! Ed.].
I only ask as, having recently raised the subject of joyriding and abandoned vehicles, it seemed quite appropriate, if not inevitable, to come across the scenario above on Sunday afternoon, in a quiet corner of the Southampton Sports Centre. At first sight, it looked like an accident, but the multiple muddy tracks gouged into the grassy verges, the rifled contents of the pannier, and the missing registration plates soon told the true story. Yes, the incident may well have ended in a terminal skid (or simply an empty fuel tank), but it started with a stolen motorbike. A Yamaha Diversion 900, as it happens, which appears to be a fairly serious, but unflashy set of wheels.
So far, so normal. What happened next, however, rather raised the spookiness quotient of an everyday coincidence. You may recall that earlier that same day I had also, quite frivolously, conjured the idea of travel through space and time in Southampton, via the soon-to-be-notorious Shirley Stargate, which I had located near a prominent tower-block in an area unusually dense with mistletoe. So, this was the sight that greeted us in a puddle next to the abandoned motorbike:
Yikes! No trickery involved, I promise, and it gave me quite a start when I saw it for what it was, having thought it to be a crumpled plastic bag. Whether it came out of the bike's pannier, or arrived there independently, I couldn't say. But it's precisely the kind of thing that causes the susceptible mind to ask idiotic and unanswerable questions. Like: Do we live in a meaningful universe?, etc. However, on reflection, I think I'm more inclined to infer that there is some as yet unidentified force at work in the universe, that has a sense of humour. Or rather, a force which is chiefly detectable by means of the adaptation we have come to call our "sense of humour". What we might call the Weak Pun Force.
Anyway, by whatever means it got there, why it should be me that came across it, and whether any derivable "meaning" resides entirely in my own (very susceptible) head, I'm sure I might be able to find a use for it in future. So, thanks, Weak Pun Force, for that little moment of insight into the unreason of rhyme.
2 comments:
I don't get it. What's the coincidence? What's the pun? Is that a mask of a particular person I don't recognise?
Zouk,
This is what comes of reading posts in reverse order... It is also what comes of expecting things to make sense.
However. A pun, as you will know, is "a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings". A "weak" pun is a particularly poor example, one with no subtext, and where the similarity is at best partial, superficial, or contrived. So, in a previous post, I imagined a druid being transported into the current day. Heh! I then later saw what looked like a supernatural being emerging from a puddle, which gave me a shock, and then made me laugh. It felt like a joke was being played on me, whereby a thing which vaguely resembled another thing (druid? goblin? kinda sorta...) being contrived into a place where only I would notice it. Heh!! Looking for a name for the kind of free-floating "sense of humour" that seems to make such things happen, I liked the similarity of a sciency thing like "the weak force" and the idea of a "weak pun". Put them together and, voila, an entirely original, mildly amusing idea is born...
And they say explaining a joke kills it dead! Not so much when it's half-dead to start with...
Mike
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