There's a scene in Repo Man where the prophet-like character named Miller expounds on the interrelatedness (is that a word? these web browsers really need to get spell-checkers) of all things. I can't really remember what he says, but the phrase "lattice of coincidence" is featured prominently. It's a spin on what Carl Jung once described as "synchronicity".

What's it all about? Well, paraphrasing the classic Repo Man iconography, it's where you might be thinking plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp, and then someone will say out loud "shrimp". Well okay, maybe that didn't explain a whole lot, but it did at the time I saw the movie. I guess you had to be there. Let me take another example. Have you ever been taken with an interest, a sort of all-consuming passion? And all of a sudden, everywhere you look, like in the newspaper, or in the news, or in overheard conversation, the topic comes up again and again.

Another good example would be the sudden and strangely related deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa, with parallels and intriguing conclusions all over the place. Oh, that's just coincidence, you might say. But what if it wasn't a coincidence? What if there aren't any coincidences (forgive me if I'm starting to scare any small children who may be reading this)? If you start looking at life as if everything were planned, and that chance encounters with ideas and people that shape the direction of our lives really aren't all that random, well then. Sort of gives you the heebie jeebies, doesn't it?

Perhaps the best example of life being stranger than fiction is the Web. It's an interrelated collection of ideas and passions and business opportunities that at first glance have nothing to do with one another. And yet they do. That's the nature of the web. All pages have links to other pages, and those pages have links to others, and so on. All are linked to one another in some way, sometimes in an unlikely fashion. Just think about it. Just think about it.

This essay may not do a thing to change your mind. Well fine, go on living your small little lives. See if I care. But before you go, click on the leetle button below to find perhaps some sort of method in the madness. Go ahead. You know you want to. Do it as often as you want. No one will ever know. It'll be our little secret.