Serendipity

Photo by Kati Turkina Model: me

I have always been fascinated by the notion of serendipity. Often conflated with chance and fortune and carrying with it a sense of magical occurrence,  in my view serendipity is much more complex in that it taps on one's creativity and inventiveness, as a number of writers have noted. Serendipitous discoveries in science were often due to the scientists's openness and readiness to see opportunities. I am convinced that openness and readiness are the key to serendipity, as also the ability to make links and connections, often without thinking them through logically.
I am fascinated by  the tale that gave the name to serendipity, the story of the three Princes of Serendip. I am using here as a source the book by Robert Merton and Elinor Barber The travels and adventures of serendipity: a study in sociological semantics and the sociology of science (2004).
It was Horace Walpole that coined the word serendipity  in 1754, in a letter to Horace Mann in which he refers to a Persian tale translated into French and then into English about the Princes of Sarendip or Serendib which was the name for ancient Ceylon. The Princes  had been wrongly accused of stealing a camel because when a camel driver who had lost one his camels had asked them whether they had seen it, the Princes had been able to describe the camel in great detail on the basis of clues they had found on the road which led the camel driver to believe they had stolen it. Walpole used the story of the Princes and their great sagacity to explain  his own fortuitous finding of information about the Capello arms. Since then serendipity has become part of the English language, even though as Merton and Barber note, Walpole somewhat manipulated the story to fit his own discovery.

Photo by Kati Turkina. Model: me

Be that as it may, serendipity is a word with great charge and I believe it could be used to describe almost everything that happens in one's life. Every encounter can be serendipitous. Some New Age writers and thinkers would associate serendipity with flow and being in alignment. I do understand what they are saying but I prefer to think of serendipity as serendipity. The thing is that serendipity is linked with sagacity. And what is  sagacity? According to the OED sagacity is:
wisdom, (deep) insight, intelligence, understanding, judgement, acuity,astuteness, insight, sense, canniness, sharpness, depth, profundity,profoundness, perceptiveness, penetration, perception, percipience,perspicuity, discernment, erudition, learning, knowledgeability,thoughtfulness; rare sapience
So serendipity is about astuteness and awareness of opportunities, among other things. I am happy with this gloss.

Comments

  1. Serendipity...chance discovery of a good thing, but of course one needs to be bright enough to recognize it as such.

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