My Favorite Word: Serendipity

The fact of finding interesting or valuable things by chance

So the other day I was in a brief on board my ship and the Commodore with us made a reference about getting the correct wordage on the brief, which, was due to be sent to someone important who was working ashore. It got me musing about words during one of my looong 8 hour watches. (I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Watch-keeping sucks.) This soon got me musing about my favorite word.

Anyways. Words. One of the greatest inventions the human species has ever devised. They allow us, in a way, to achieve immortality. They help us convey our ideas, how we feel, what our dreams are, where we are. We’ve even managed to put our words into space via the Voyager spacecrafts. Some form of word/linguistics was being used in Southern Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE. Words and language has only evolved as time has passed, the same way that we humans and our own scientific knowledge has grown and evolved. Words have allowed the powerless to gain more rights and to improve their own lives.

I googled to see some quotes about words and thought I’d post a couple that I found that I liked.

I, like many of you reading this, have spoken and written millions upon millions of words during my life. We probably have words that we love and ones that we hate (mine currently is influencer.) Studies suggest that men and women speak about the same amount of words in a single day. I have used my words to help people, to show love, to convey happiness. I have also lashed out with my words, intending to hurt which I am not proud off. I have taught and encouraged people with my words.

I thought that I would just write a small little post about my favorite word. Serendipity. So a little background. I LOVE reading. My parents hated grounding me as a child because I would just accept it, then disappear into my bedroom and read all day. Not the punishment they were hoping for. I’ve been reading my whole life. I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was 10 years old. Since then I’ve read it once a year like Christopher Lee. I will read anything. There’s a quote that I really like about reading but for the life of me I can’t remember who said it. “Someone who doesn’t read lives but one life. Someone who does read can live thousands of different lives.”

So over the years I’ve read a LOT of books and my vocabulary grew which my mother and father loved. I’m pretty sure they once got me a dictionary and thesaurus for Christmas when I was a kid (my favorite Christmas gift will always be the board game Atmosfear.)

So it was in 2001 (my god that seems so long ago) at the tender age of 16, having left school (a little bullied but generally okay) when I saw a trailer for a film called “Serendipity”. I remember liking the trailer (I’ve always liked John Cusack in his films and I was 16 years old so Kate Beckensale was absolutely beautiful to me.) and I did go to the movies to watch it.

If you’ve never watched the movie then go watch it. I think it’s a lovely little romantic Christmas movie. I’m not going to lie. A small part of me at that age (before I became a grumpy, cynical old bastard) wanted to have the same experience as the characters. Meet a beautiful girl and just connect (and fall in love) instantly over something as silly as both of us grabbing a pair of black gloves. (I did have a serendipitous moment with a girl but it didn’t work out.)

Anyways it introduced to me the word “serendipity” and I immediately had to know what the word meant as I had never read it before. I loved how it sounded as it rolled of the tongue. The meaning was even better as I realized that I had had lots of serendipitous moments in my life and hadn’t realized that this word perfectly captured it. As time has passed I have had many little serendipitous moments and each one has always made me smile as I have realized that I have had such a moment.

As I mentioned above, I did have what I always thought was a serendipitous moment with a girl (she insisted it was fate) that I was crazy about but it didn’t work out. I once saved a little girl from drowning and was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I always thought that was serendipitous. Another major one was pulling a guy (he had his ear phones in, head in his phone) back onto the pavement. He very nearly walked in front of a London double decker bus. What a lucky accident that I was there as I wasn’t supposed to be.

Has anyone ever had moments that were serendipitous? If you have then please share. Do you have a favorite word? Do you have a word you hate? I’m interested to hear and read what you think.

Finally I’ll quickly share what people on Quora say is the difference between serendipity, fate and coincidence. “Fate is fixed and beyond our control. Coincidence is random, sometimes you win sometimes you lose. Serendipity on the other hand is finding unexpected value and good fortune from unexpected sources.”

Anyways I hope I find anyone who reads this happy and healthy. Please feel free to comment and please share if you enjoyed.

Vulkan.