Saw a movie a couple of days ago, ”Number 23”, with Jim Carrey. I wasn’t completely sure what it was about other than it concerned coincidences. I like coincidences. I’m a bit obsessed with them myself on an on and off basis. But in a good way. In the movie the obsession certainly wasn’t of the pleasant kind, but full on paranoia!


To put it briefly, it’s about a guy who feels he’s being followed by the number 23. And then weird and bad things happen. (I told you I’d be brief.) But seeing the film made me feel as if I had heard something similar before, I just couldn’t remember exactly what it was. So I decided to quickly check it up on the internet. Apparently this is a well known phenomena! This fear of number 23 has been around forever! It sounds like absolute lunacy at first, but when you start reading about the “proofs” it becomes rather intriguing. Everything seems to add up to 23 in one way or another.

But at the same time, mankind has always felt a need to look for patterns in things as some way of finding reason and order. It’s in our nature. Having said that, even Jung (Freud’s college), has acknowledged the fact that coincidences do occur in inexplicable ways.
One of his example was a person sitting in a room thinking about a beetle only to find one flying in through the window the next minute. He explained that he had come upon a lot of these occurrences in his time as a psychologist, but meant that instead of it being a higher power throwing in a beetle in order to give the person a sign, it’s the person who’s able to “feel” or see it in advance.
I’ve studied psychology but haven’t yet looked into that specific area much. But either way it sounds as if Jung were quite open minded to at least the ability of having somewhat of a sixth sense. But I’ll have to check up on it further before I’m making any assumptions.

Maybe number 23 really is the answer to the mystery behind life, I don’t know, yet, but I did find some of it quite amusing…

The letter “W” is the 23rd letter of the alphabet. (Here you’re supposed to feel a rising level of expectations. You’re somewhat excited.)
The letter “W” has also got 2 edges pointing downwards…and 3 upwards. (Now, you’re probably uttering things like “I’ll be damned” and start fidgeting with a paperclip or nervously chewing on a pen.)
Now is where it gets really spooky.
Look at your keyboard…the letter “W” is placed exactly below the numbers “2” and “3”!
(You’ve probably fallen off your chair by now, or got a hiccup. Probably both.)

But to be fair, there are other “more convincing” arguments as well, like 2/3= 0.666

;)

I even found a guy who had written to a magazine for help explaining that his girlfriend had lately become obsessed with the number 23, and felt that it was following her. Only the other day at the same time as she was in a taxi explaining her problem to her friend, the fare turned out to be…23£!!! Now he was wondering if this could possibly be contagious and if he was risking ending up with the same psychosis himself?

It’s horrible, really, I feel sorry for them. But it’s hard to refrain from at least smiling gently.

Then yesterday I went swimming. Only two kilometres, but they say one equals a full workout so I figured two would be quite ok. Even if it doesn’t take that long, it’s easy to get just a little bit bored there and then while doing the lanes. At the same time you’re feeling incredibly relaxed! But your mind starts to wander. And I started thinking about what actually causes paranoia. While reading about it in the papers or seeing films about it, two comments seem to frequently occur.

-“You’ve got too much time on your hands! You need to distract yourself!”
-“You’re too busy! You’re simply stressed out. You need to relax!”

They seem to contradict each other somewhat. So does paranoia hit in when we’re either bored or overly stimulated? Or in both situations?I read an interview with Bill Nighy today, where he was asked

-“When and where are you happiest”?

And he answered

-“At work, because, like most people, I use work as a way of not having to do all the tough stuff – like life!”

Paranoia and all other anxiety disorders are about fear. And it made me think that, a lot of people, maybe even most, seem to have a need for distraction in order to keep themselves from facing life, which means they/we seem to have a fundamental fear of life in itself. That we unconsciously equalize life with fear! (But this is a larger subject that deserves a post on its own!)

Either way, while swimming I was thinking about the connexion between the boredom and the relaxation that I felt and thought about how differently people behave to feel relaxed.
And I thought that if something as repetitive and boring as swimming can make you feel so relaxed, then surely the best holiday for someone seeking relaxation would be to go somewhere incredibly boring, with no stimulation whatsoever! They’d come home mellow as cucumbers! Surely!
And it would work on other levels as well. Let’s say you’re spending your holiday on a beautiful paradise beach in Thailand, and then coming home to go back to a grey office in a rainy town somewhere in England, surely that’s not the happiest of endings? But if you went to the most horrible rat infested hellhole on earth, just imagine how happy you would feel to get home and get back to work! :)

Once, me and my friend went on a daytrip from Malmö to Rostock in Germany and were both agreeing on that that must have been the worst city we’d ever seen. When we got back home we were laughing in pure ecstasy! We were happy beyond belief!

But I don’t think this idea is something that is going to catch on. Honestly. I really don’t. And after all, fun and excitement can function as distractions from …life, which after all, I guess would be the most efficient way to relax of them all.

Anyway, I’m off to Sweden next week so am having a busy time at the moment. I’m trying to find ways to fit in as many friends as I can in my last week, which is not exactly easy to be honest. Tonight I’m going to some sort of party based on a Dutch tradition of having a scary Santa dressed in black going around freaking people out. Sounds promising. If you’ve been good, you get to sit in his lap and be fed candy and if you’ve been bad, you get spanked! :)

Sounds like there could be a fair few interesting police reports coming up.

Crime: Sexual harassment.
Surname: Claus
First name: Santa

:) :) :)

Oh, by the way, by using numerology (A=1, B=2, C=3 etc) my name – EVELYN NYSTRÖM equals…………………………………………………………………………….23