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Apophenia

I finally found a term to explain what I was doing when I fell in Love. Or perhaps right now I still want to find reasons to explain myself but I actually couldn't because I acted purely on emotions and there were no rationalization or reason. Chapter 12 of the current book I am reading had the subheading called "Apophenia" and it demystified everything I had thought to be magical. It debunked all the things I thought were beautiful coincidences and I cringe as I read through the chapter as I could feel the entire chapter was describing my behavior so well. Everything so magical only had its magic because I had put magic into it. And to burst my bubble, all the coincidences were a routine part of life or just mere random chances. 


I also learned a new term called "pareidolia". Speaking about pareidolia, I committed the error of thinking that the clouds had gathered in such a manner that it left a space of blue sky in the shape of a heart. Seeing that, I thought it was a sign from above and I thought it meant something and had held on to this belief. However, after reading the book, I realized it was just me creating a story from a photo innocently taken at random with the only purpose of showing me the scene from a high rise. I remembered I was the one who noticed the subtle blue heart and upon pointing it, he thought it was pretty cool and did not notice it if I did not mention it. Both of us also seem to be so into angel numbers that we noticed it more often than before we had the conversation about angel numbers. 


I liked how the book quoted a mathematician called J. E. Littlewood who has successfully convinced me that all the things we find miraculous or magical are just random chances. In the end, it is up to us to give meaning to those events. The mathematician had roughly made a deduction that on average a person is alert about 8 hours in a day and something happens about once a second, so saying 1 in a million means monthly. This was known as the Littlewood's Law. I think I and him took only 2 months' worth of time to discover so many coincidences and have put so much meaning to all the experiences we had together that we were both clouded by our emotions and failed to rationalize. I guess this is how I will remember us, two emotional people who had immersed and lost ourselves in a sea of random chances. I am glad it was with him because at least in the end due to the level of intellect both of us have, we were able to see through and escape although the end was rather paradoxical and not what I had imagined but it is the best. 


Gosh, this book is really scary but at the same time, some of the contents speaking about various biases made me think of the book he recommended to me - The Art of Thinking Clearly. I have yet to finish the book as I was afraid to pick it up but I think I will get to it next month as I feel pretty ready to face anything that reminded me of him. Anyway, there are too many things that remind me of him which now I learn are just routine and random chance so it could have been the same with just anyone. Surprisingly I have never taken a new friend's book recommendation so seriously but I took his recommendation seriously and purchased a hard copy of the book. I could not explain my behavior because it was purely executed with emotions. This too is clearly explained by the current book I am reading that not everything in life has an explanation. 


Every day I am discovering new things! Good Night! 

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