Apophenia

The spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. What a wonderful and interesting concept? How could it be that I haven't run into this term before now? Me, of all people, the collector of concepts, the hunter of patterns, the one on the perpetual troll for connections. Of course the term was created to refer to the pathological extent of what, to me, is a common and completely understandable phenomenon. It is how I've spent my life. 

I came upon this term today as I looked up "pareidolia", which I knew already was the tendency to see faces in random arrangements. For example, experiencing the miracle of finding a potato chip or cloud with the image of Jesus on it. While that, of course, would be some crazy shit (crazy here in the truly pathological sense), me looking for a pattern in raindrops collection on my side window while I wait for someone to come back out from the store is completely understandable and not in the least bit evidence of mental illness. You're just going to have to take my word for that.

I'm going to have to remind myself of that word often from now on just because it enriches my life immensely to have more definition of what I constantly experience but don't understand. 

I don't think I need to add anything to what I've written here as it is the most complete and worthwhile thing I've written in quite a while.

More later,