Sex and Serendipity

January 30, 2015

Earlier this week, on January 28th to be precise, a friend sent me a note excitedly letting me know that on that day, in 1754, Horace Walpole used the word ‘serendipity’ for, apparently, the first time in the history of the English language.

Accompanying this article was the following little nugget attributed to Julius Comroe:

“Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer’s daughter.”

Wowser.

Maybe my mind’s in the gutter, but that seemed like a saucy outcome  that Dr. Comroe was alluding to: Our needle searcher much to their  surprise, instead of the needle they’d been lusting after, had found the  farmer’s daughter instead. Sexual hilarity ensues …

Or, maybe, Dr. Comroe actually meant something like this:

“Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and finding a sewing kit”

I know boooring … perhaps a little more accurately connected to the  concept of serendipity though, at least in the way I’ve been thinking  about it recently

My marvelous friend, the one who’d sent me the original note, then suggested the following:

“Perhaps she (the farmer’s daughter in a haystack) too was once  looking for a needle and found hanging out in the haystack much better  than the sewing life that sent her to the haystack in the first place.  Together, the man and woman originally sent to a haystack to find a  needle realize that the utopia in which they’ve been living is actually a  dystopia.  It is in the haystack that they first discover free will and  abandon the search for the needle forever!”

On that note, I think we’re done.

Thanks for listening,

DT