Re: Envelopment.

Roy T. Fielding (fielding@kiwi.ICS.uci.edu)
Tue, 07 Jul 1998 14:27:08 -0700


>for a paper. All my life whenever my choices forked in multiple
>directions, I have looked "for a sign" in nature whenever I felt lost or
>confused. Perhaps this is a silly, superstitious attempt to connote an
>underlying order to the universe when there actually is none. Or
>perhaps there are no coincidences and everything happens for a reason,
>and looking "for a sign" is our best way to receive divine guidance.

Or maybe focusing on something other than the immediate problem allows
your mind to escape your angst and come to a conclusion that was already
winning on the rational side of the brain.

OTOH, my animist ancestry would agree with the superstition. The problem
with signs is not the finding of them; it's the interpretation of what
you have found. A person who wasn't ready to be wed would probably
interpret the bird's newfound freedom as a sign of breaking the
relationship, rather than making it stronger. In that way, a person's
superstitions can reveal their underlying thought process and feelings,
which is probably more important as the basis of a relationship than
any individual action.

Congrats on the wedding,

....Roy