When I was a kid, my dad bought a Macintosh SE/30 and set it up on the desk in our living room. One of the pieces of software that was on it was a program called Synchronicity. I remember it being pretty weird. It’s sat in the back of my mind for some 35 years and I wondered what really it was. This week I finally found out.
The 80s were a weird time to have a computer. Society hadn’t quite nailed down what would be considered useful or meaningful so you got a lot of unusual stuff – stuff that people probably wouldn’t bother making today. Synchronicity is billed as Software For Intuitive Decision-Making.
In my memory, using the application went something like this:
- Write down something
- Think about it
- Sit next to an animated garden stream for an indeterminate amount of time
- Write down some words
- Watch those words fly around a candle flame
- Mission accomplished!
When I was digging around for something else in the Garage, I stumbled upon my dad’s disk copy of Synchronicity. I instantly remembered it, and how odd it felt. But I was 9 or 10 and wasn’t really paying attention to the purpose. Nor did I bother reading the user manual (I assume there was one in the box)
The intent of the application is to help you through big decisions. In the included Readme file, the software is described as “…a mood-altering software experience featuring multi-media effects and eloquent hypertext.” as well as “Synchronicity is a good-humored and precise way to consult the Book of Changes (author’s note: I think more famously known as I,Ching), the ultimate personal strategy tool.” It also goes on to describe how things intersect and correlate through the concept of synchronicity as studied by German philosopher Carl Jung.
The thing I remember more than anything else is this screen:
Here you’re sitting by a stream, contemplating your thoughts. I remember this being distinctly more Japanese Garden than it is – probably because in the late 80s going up to the Japanese Garden in Washington Park was a popular and enjoyable activity, and we’d spent time learning about Japan in 4th grade (I think). This screen was the part of the program that I was most interested in.
After this, you get to write down a few words, and then those words circle a flame for some reason. I think it’s intended to get you to focus on those words and how they might be correlated. Which is of course where Carl Jung’s philosophy comes in – which I haven’t touched since college, if ever.
Then you’re presented with a selected writing from the Book of Changes. If I understand it correctly, this is supposed to help you decide the course of action based on the words you just spent time thinking about and the randomness that resulted in this reading. Incidentally, I think I did exactly this sort of thing at the Lan Su Chinese garden in Portland – the lines in the lower left suddenly make sense!
I think a lot of my fondness for this program has to do with the wonder of being an early computer user, or even just an early Mac user. Back then there wasn’t an internet like we know it today. You couldn’t just “go out and get” something. A lot of the software you’d end up using was shareware: You’d make a copy of a program on a disk and hand it to a friend. Software like this and Cosmic Osmo where it wasn’t really a game you could win, but just a thing you would do.
It turns out Visionary Software was based right here in Portland. I suspect they aren’t around anymore, but I’m tempted to look them up anyway.
