I was talking the other day about tarot cards, and about how, even with the deepest scepticism (and mine runs pretty deep), we can be tempted to ascribe some possible 'significance' to them.
Yesterday morning I suffered a vaguely comparable experience with bathroom scales. The friend I'm staying with in London (a regular - and much appreciated - way-station for me here over the past several years) has an ancient set of scales which I have long been convinced weigh several pounds over the true mark. I was particularly alarmed by the news they gave me when I arrived here on Monday. However - for various convoluted reasons which I needn't go into - I am actually staying this time in his girlfriend's flat (virtually next door), and she has a much more modern (and perhaps reliable?) set of scales - digital readout and everything. They gave me exactly the same reading as the other scales. I am, apparently, above 205lbs (for only the third time in my life)..... and closing in on 210 (which would, I think, be a new all-time low for me; or rather, an all-time HIGH).
Now, of course, they could both (as I fondly like to suppose) be reading 7 or 8lbs high; but somehow the fact that they are both giving me exactly the same readout predisposes me to think that they are speaking an unwelcome truth.
Exactly the same with the tarot last weekend.
We humans are programmed by evolution to seek for and recognise patterns in the world around us. And whenever we see an apparent pattern, we can't help but think that somehow it's terribly important. Most of the time, we're probably wrong about that; but it's hard to overcome the atavistic impulse to believe in the significance of mere coincidences.
"A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two is never sure."
Unless both watches happen to show the same time - when our watch-wearer will be happily convinced he knows the time exactly.... even though both his timepieces are inaccurate by precisely the same amount.
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