Quantum share:

Yesterday, a student asked help about Gat Jose Rizal's trials and challenges, when still a boy, for
his comparison and contrast essay. Having brought home in the province all my Rizal books, I
had to rely on my memory. Trying to recall a specific detail from an old book I read around
2004, I was stumped. (I expected mnemonic failures like this. It's hard to teach far away from my
mini-library coz if my memory fails, I don't have a fast way to access information. As much as
possible, I don't want to indulge myself in relying on the Internet. It weakens memory.) Since the
paper is due next week, the student said he would research the detail. BUT THIS MORNING
ANOTHER AMAZING THING OCCURRED. Right there in the Philippine Daily Inquirer is an
article about Rizal by Ambeth Ocampo, the Rizal scholar whose books I am collecting. And
almost everything that we need is mentioned in the article.

This, in ordinary language, is called "coincidence" or "serendipity". But in Quantum Physics, this
is a concrete proof of the phenomenon known as "nonlocality" or what the Swiss Psychologist
Carl Jung called "synchronicity" (the simultaneous occurrence of two meaningful but not
causally connected events). Others may consider it as "the butterfly effect". If I were to jot down
all events in my life similar to this one, I might fill up an entire volume. Coming by books I just
wished to buy yesterday or the other day, encountering information my elem/HS teachers and
professor would ask the next day, and many, many more!

Quantum share: Illustrating the power of attraction of the mind

It all started when one day I came by the book "Lectures in English Literature
by Professor Borges. I was so impressed by his encyclopedic knowledge of
literature that I decided to emulate him. I told myself I would read every
book he had read. After a few days, visiting National Bookstore Gateway, I
came across "The Use and Abuse of Literature" by Marjorie Garber, the William
Kenan Professor of English at Harvard, and "Fiction...and the Novel" by
Sebastian Faulks. Reading these three books alternately led me to other books
I have to read. (I only read one Borges lecture every Sunday as my virtual MA
in Lit degree.) Reading Borges made me desire to read any history of England,
Norse Myths & James Boswell's Life of Johnson; Garber, any biography of John
Milton; and Faulk, "Joseph Andrew" & "Shamela" by Henry Fielding". But how on
Earth could I buy all these supplementary books? Yet, I never doubted I could
find them all.
One day, my tablet got broken, so I went to Cubao to have it fixed. While
there I decided to drop by Book Sale. And there, right there were two of the
books I exactly needed! "Milton: A Biography" by John Forsyth & "Joseph
Andrew" & "Shamela" by Henry Fielding, back-to-back in one volume. After a few
days, I went to Book For Less Store at Ali Mall. And to my surprise, "Life of
Johnson" by James Boswell was also there! Then I saw "The Anthology of World
Masterpieces", & when I scanned it I noticed that the majority of information
there was also found in Borges! "Uhuh! Ergo, this is one of Borges'
references!" Gotcha! I went home that afternoon floating with my head
swimming. I could not believe things anymore!

Quantum share: Illustrating the power of the subconscious mind

I visited Book Sale once again to look for references. While there I didn't
understand when I found myself looking at the Religion Section. Yet, I just
kept on scanning titles and lo! in that section was the book "Lectures in
Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres" by Adam Smith. What was Adam Smith's book doing
in the Religion Section?! Suddenly I recalled "Lectures in Rhetoric and
Belles-Lettres" used to be the most widely used book in composition writing in
Canada and the USA. In short, I immediately bought the book, and went home to
check from which of my books I've encountered that title. This is because I
was not sure if it was Adam Smith who wrote that book.

I was already searching for 20 minutes but I couldn't find the book where I
have read that title. I was getting frustrated!

So, what I did was to sit in my bed and relax. I closed my eyes and let my
subconscious help me. I knew that it has the answers to all questions. So I
recalled all possible writers who could have written similar books and my
subconscious fed the surname "Blair", and I was like "Woooohh! Blair! Hugh
Blair!" I quickly opened Marjorie Garber's Use and Abuse of Literature, and
there I found the title I was looking for--"The Lectures on Rhetoric and
Belles-Lettres" by Hugh Blair.
So how was it that my memory got confused? It's because Hugh Blair was Adam
Smith's student in Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres, and he decided to write the
same book. He just improved it.