Just City by Olga Tymofiyeva

Author:Olga Tymofiyeva [Tymofiyeva, Olga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2022-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The next evening I’m at my grandma’s, and we are about to have dinner. There has been tension between us since that conversation two weeks ago, when she suddenly got all judgmental about Alex, Maria, and the meditation center. I still don’t understand what came over her. She has never been like that with me before. I hope we can get back to where our relationship was. Maybe if I tell Grandma about Lora, that would help? She always listened with curiosity and openness to anything I had to say about my past girlfriends. I’m sure Grandma will be happy to hear I met someone I like so much.

After we finish our meal, I notice a flyer on her kitchen table from Golden Era. Wow, that’s a perfect opportunity to talk about Lora. I casually say, “Lora is right; once you get more attuned to them, synchronicities are more likely to happen. I just ate at this restaurant yesterday.”

Instead of asking who Lora is, Grandma suddenly frowns. Grandma never frowns. Man, what’s going on? She says, dead serious, “Nathan, you know that people are excellent at pattern recognition, and at the same time, we have a very poor understanding of probabilities. We tend to notice coincidence when two events seem to have a connection with each other, and we see that coincidence as highly improbable.”

I can see Grandma breathe in and out, her nostrils widen. She continues, “Because of this poor understanding of probabilities, some people think that there are no coincidences—that everything happens for a reason.”

“Grandma, you know, Lora is my new girlfriend, a friend of Alex and Maria. She is amazing, and I like her.” I still can’t believe Grandma didn’t even ask me who Lora was. “So, are you saying Lora has a poor understanding of probabilities? Or that I do?” I’m not enjoying this unexpected lecture.

“On an intuitive level, we all do.” Grandma says, stressing the word “all.” “Evolution led to this way in which humans think, and some people start seeing meaning in random things. It’s one of the cognitive biases, the so-called ‘meaning bias,’ which is the need for the world to make sense or have some meaning. This naïve assessment ignores all the many events in our lives that do not line up. Add on top of that the ‘confirmation bias,’ the tendency to notice only what fits our already existing beliefs, and we are in trouble.”

I don’t like her using the word “naïve.” I take it personally and frown, but she continues.

“Look, Nathan, this flyer…” She picks up the Golden Era flyer. “I don’t mean to offend your new girlfriend, but it’s even more important to tell you this because she is your girlfriend. We experience, hear, see, and dream thousands of things daily. By random chance alone, events should appear to line up occasionally. For example, you dream of a friend you haven’t seen in 10 years, and they call the next day. In isolation, it seems amazing, but if there were never any such coincidences, that would be unusual and demand some explanation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.