Is it just that we attend to things so selectively, or is there really coincidence in the world? Have you ever noticed how when you start thinking about something, it seems to pop up everywhere? Like when you've just learned you're pregnant and suddenly there are pregnant women everywhere...of maybe you're trying to get pregnant, just got your period and there are pregnant women everywhere?

Okay, maybe not a good example...but the freaky overlap of my friend's post and my student's discussion last week was certainly eerie. And okay, I will admit that talking about war at this time is not coincidence....but this is....

Schadenfreude. It's a German word that doesn't translate well into English, but I heard it explained as the delight someone feels in seeing another person fail. This is the first reference to it I had ever heard - that was three days ago - and now I run across it on a website discussing popular culture. Is that coincidence? Seems to me it is. I don't think there's a distinction made between the (understandable) joy at seeing an enemy fail and the more insidiously human-nature kind of delight at seeing a friend fail. As if there's only a limited amount of success in the world, and if too many other people get it, there's none left for you.

It's an interesting word, but the fact that I've never heard it before in my life, and now suddenly, I hear/read it twice in one week is certainly unusual. Is it coincidence, or is the cosmos trying to tell me something? Hmmm....