Something Misunderstood

“This movie has been formatted to fit your screen.”

I used to think, when I was younger and so much more naïve, that technology was wonderful. How do they do that? I am older now, and my attitudes are tempered with the cynicism that, unfortunately, comes only with age. Now, I find myself thinking, “That’s scary – how do they know how big my television screen is?”

At the end of national news, there is always an announcement, “And now we take you to your local news team, to find out what’s happening where you are.” They know where I am. If I’m visiting friends or relatives, they still know where I am. It almost seems superfluous to worry about protecting my credit cards, or identity theft, if they always know where to find me.

Vacuum flasks seem pretty straightforward. They keep hot things hot, and cold things cold. But how do they know? I’ve dismantled one of these things, and I can’t figure it out.

I’d like to think that there are just some things we’re not meant to understand, but we no longer live in a world where we can afford to be so innocent.

Many years ago, the pilgrims left Plymouth, England, in the Mayflower, and made landfall in 1620 in America at Plymouth Rock; more recently, in 1941, the famous baseball player Lou Gehrig died – of Lou Gehrig’s disease! 

In Psalm 46 of the King James Bible, published in the year that Shakespeare turned 46, the 46^th word is "shake" and the 46^th word from the end is "spear."

You could say these things are coincidence, but I know there’s something more sinister going on. The mathematician John Allen Paulos tells us that "the most astonishingly incredible coincidence imaginable would be the complete absence of all coincidences." You can believe that if you like.

My birthday falls on the same day every year. Yours probably does, too. It certainly makes it easy to remember, but, if you think about it, what are the odds on something happening every single year on exactly the same day?

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” He knew a thing or two, that Shakespeare guy.