This article popped up on MSN's site yesterday, which seemed a strange and not altogether unamusing coincidence, given recent developments in my little corner of the universe, about which more at a later date, maybe.

I like to think the universe, while largely impersonal and certainly impervious to human pain, at least has a sense of humor about it all. If the universe were not so, it could not sustain sentient life, which would surely be crushed under the weight of its cruelty.

And if the universe has any personality at all—gods or demons in any of their guises—we are its agents on earth. And through our inscrutably complex interactions its meaning is manifested.

And so it is that through the static of shout-outs to The Void occasionally a message comes ringing out clear as a bell.

Yes, it could always be meaningless coincidence—everything we do can be classed as cliché when looked at from the outside—it's as much a matter of statistical correlation as coincidence that a message poignantly relevant to our inner life would pop up on a coffee cup (twice, as if I didn't get it the first time) or a computer screen. It could be meaningless, yes, but what's the fun in that?

Mankind has always looked for omens and augurs to guide him through mazes of his own making. He reaches out to the universe to confirm (and in the process affirm) his inner life.

What is curious to me at this moment is how things come together so perfectly when they fall apart.

Like the delicate timing of a car crash.