A Series of Shocks

The logical mind doesn't quiet easily.

It's a study, I've found. When it comes to such mental silencing, each branch of the mind is different. For me, the illogical subconscious can be shut up by a single, quick event or experience of adequate consequence, such as seeing gravity repel one's foot from the ground instead of pulling it down. The logical, conscious mind, on the other hand, is quieted by the opposite: it takes a succession of events to penetrate the conscious mind and its calcified hedge of logic, being resistant to the individual hard-hitters that can flummox the subconscious so.

Case in point.

One afternoon, I was out driving. That day, I'd been haunted by numbers again -- 137 and its variants, namely. They were assailing me from everywhere, as I've documented in past posts; but, chiefly, they were arriving via the license plates of other cars.

I stopped at a light, and there it was again, on the car in front of me: a 137 on its license plate.

But that could easily be chance, my logical mind announced, in answer. If it's not just chance, then shouldn't the car next to that one have one of the numbers?

I looked to the next car over, and its license plate ended in 3733.

Still just coincidence, insisted Logic. Were there three, you might be on to something.

Immediately after this pronouncement, a car edged up closer to the light, thus exposing its license plate directly into my view: 3701.

My logical mind made no response, its figurative jaw left open.

And then, for good measure, I looked to a fourth car, the next one over: 1137.

Logical foot entered logical mouth.

Shocked, I thought then. My logical mind has been quieted by a good old-fashion synchroshock.

But, no, it didn't stop there.

Precisely as this thought crossed my mind, the lyric "a series of shocks" sounded over the radio, in classical thought-synchro fashion, that so distinctly patternistic of past incidents.

A series of shocks, yes. That's what's necessary to quiet the logical mind, after all.

I laughed out loud.