An Accident

Surfing through the Internet, I recently came across a photo of an Japanese old man closely resembling my father. Actually, I thought at first he was my father. But he couldn't be my father because my father has been ill in bed for more than a year. I asked the photographer when and where he took the picture. The answer: recently in Shibuya, Tokyo. My father lives in Shibuya, next to my house. I showed the photo to my father, and he denied the photo was him.

This is an example of an accident, an unintentional happening. Or, it can be called coincidence, a simultaneous agreement without human intervention. But I doubt this happened truly without human intention or intervention. Given the global population, it is conceivable that anyone's appearance resembles someone other than himself/herself. But the probability that they would meet face to face, unless they are identical twins, is very slim. Does the emergence of the Internet, where time and space are minimized, make this probability greater? I think so. But the meeting of any two persons on the Internet, even for the first time, is not an accident or coincidence because it necessitates a series of intentional selections on the part of both parties.

- MT