why chancetraveler?

“Chance Traveler” is the title of a story by Haruki Murakami in which he considers the power of chance coincidences in our lives. In his story, Murakami relates two curious incidents involving his personal passion for jazz music and uses them to preface a charmingly human story of a friend, a first-rate piano tuner, who himself experienced a life-changing series of coincidental events. I have chosen “Chance Traveler” as my blog title and online pseudonym because of my own personal love for the beauty of coincidence and its importance in my life.

It's like when you read a book with an intriguing plot and find those same events strangely playing out in your own life. Or when you meet an old acquaintance at an unusual place and at an unusual time- after they have just been on your mind. Or when you discover that two things you love are surprisingly closely connected, like your favorite band being deeply influenced by your favorite novel.

These are the chance coincidences in our daily travels and adventures (or time spent lounging around, whatever), when we see how everything is connected. The I Ching, or Chinese Book of Changes, is concerned with the idea of what is known in Jungian theory as synchronicity- or how things connect to one another in unexpected ways. These chance encounters are everywhere in our earthly stratosphere, right there in the very crust of our backyards, let's just look for them. It’s often the simplest of these coincidental experiences that throw us awesome.

So as a “Chance Traveler” it’s all about getting out there and living and experiencing it Now and loving (and loathing) every bit of it. I have taken the phrase for my own name because I have made it my human business to travel in search of such beautiful life simplicities and point them out and do back-flips over them, because they so clearly reveal the wonder of life on earth. so Go live! experience it! And remember the small things! and the way that everything is connected!

Perhaps the master explained it best-

“ ‘That’s the key. And you know, this thought crossed my mind at the time: maybe chance is a pretty common thing after all. Those kinds of coincidences are happening all around us, all the time, but most of them don’t catch our attention and we just let them go by. It’s like fireworks in the daytime. You might hear a faint sound, but even if you look up at the sky you can’t see a thing. But if we’re really hoping something may come true, it may become visible, like a message rising to the surface. Then we’re able to make it out clearly, decipher what it means. And seeing it before us we’re surprised and wonder at how strange things like this can happen. Even though there’s nothing strange about it. I just can’t help thinking that. What do you think?’ ” -from “Chance Traveler” by Haruki Murakami