How Long is a Red Piece of String?

Everything is connected?

I love the Japanese legend of the red string of fate, but this version quoted below from a linked article and not that crappy soul mate version (can you tell I'm recently divorced?-) -
The legend of the red string of Japan
"According to this myth, everyone's pinky finger is tied to an invisible red string that will lead him or her to another person with whom they will make history.
For the Japanese, who know so much and intuit more, human relations are predestined by a red string that the gods tie to the pinky fingers of those who find each other in life. 
Legend has it that the two people connected by this thread will have an important story, regardless of the time, place or circumstances. 
The red string might get tangled, contracted or stretched, as surely often happens, but it can never break.
This legend, so much more aesthetic than that of the twin souls, occurs when it is discovered that the ulnar artery connects the heart with the pinky finger (which is the same reason why in many cultures promises are made by two people crossing their pinkies). 
The thin vein running from heart to hand extends through the invisible world, to end its course in someone else’s heart. 
But unlike other amorous superstitions, the Japanese one isn’t limited to couples, or a single person who one is destined to find. 
It speaks of a type of arterial ramification that emerges from a finger toward all those with whom we will make history and all those whom we will help in one way or another. 
For the ontological imagination, the myth of the red string is a way to understand our itinerary of encounters as a predetermined plot where couples’ relationships, the intimate brushes against someone, and all the little stories we crisscross with others are neither random triumphs nor accidents, but part of a scarlet tapestry whose threads were given to us when we were born but which we knit ourselves.
One Japanese legend tells of an old man who lives in the moon and comes out every night to search among kin spirits to reunite them on Earth, who have something to learn from each other, and when he finds them he ties a red thread to them so they find their paths. 
Thus, our red strings end in someone else. 
Accepting this, or at least considering it, is a secret consolation: it is as if our steps — stubborn as they may sometimes seem — knew the route and geography of our multiple amorous destinations, and therefore there were no “slips” or poor decisions."

I was looking for images on Google for red string rings that I could wear on my pinky finger to show that I was into synchronicity, wondering if I should get one as a talking point when meeting people to explain the red string story from Japan and my belief in synchronicity and how that theory isn't too far off the mark in real life.

At least red ink fades pretty quick when
 your tattoo is no longer valid;-)

Favoured by 237 people and 26 reviews?!

I was even considering getting a tattoo, but I think people would just see that as a sign that I had a "soul mate" with one tattooed on their pinky like a matching set, and I don't buy that "soul mate" crap. 

  A red string ring on a pinky is more annoying to wear, but at least you can remove it easily when you want to.

When I saw the red string pinky ring at this site that was favoured by 237 people and had 26 reviews, I couldn't help but think of that soulmate couple from 'The Shining' and how well that went relationship wise:-)

(Room) 237 people?!

Also 26 reviews got my attention as far as synchronicity goes, because in 'The Sync Book' there are opinions on synchronicity from 26 authors in each Sync Book.
I was asked by Alan Green to write a chapter in the second book because of this blog of mine you are now reading, but I really thought opinions about sync were like arseholes, just about everyone has one, so why make an opinion of myself in a book while I'm doing perfectly well writing this blog?-)
I did contribute a piece in the second book where Alan asked various people who had an interest in synchronicity what they thought would happen at the end of 2012, which turned out to be quite prophetic for me personally in the years after 2012.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!
TWENTY-SIX AUTHORS
WRITING ON SYNCHRONICITY

TWENTY-SIX ESSAYS
ON SYNCHRONICITY,
FROM ALL NEW AUTHORS

String rings don't last long though and are hard to keep clean.

I considered getting a metal pinky ring like the one above, but it looks like you can't get them anymore at that site ... such is fate.

I find it amusing that a lot of red string rings and bracelets are marketed as "lucky" like they have the ability to protect you from a life that is "fated" to end badly, or turn south all of a sudden, as I don't believe you can outrun "your fate".
The red string of fate doesn't just mean you will run into nice people who will cross your path, it means you may also run into that drunk driver who runs your green light killing or maiming you, or a family member, plunging your life into a living hell if you are "lucky" enough to survive.
Life is full of "good" and "bad" lessons and to think a piece of 

red string is going to keep life humming along in life's happy lane is as delusional as showing a crucifix to a serial killer who is coming at you with a chainsaw.
Superstitious offerings won't keep the grim reaper from calling your number over the loud speaker as you board that last fatal flight that you were destined to take from the day that you were born.
If you go to a fortune teller and ask them how you will meet your end there are really only two outcomes to be told, the real answer to your question, which you will not be able to avoid, and the wrong answer of how you might die (you either die that way, or you don't) and how to avoid that ... which is not the way you were going to die (not your fate) if you avoid it.
If it is really your "fate" you can't possibly avoid it, no matter what warnings are issued to you.
Anything you avoid in your life can NOT be your fate.
Which is why I would never want to know how I was really going to die in the future even if I could find out, because the right answer can't be avoided if it is your fate.

So that brings us to another conundrum, if some events in life seem to be to be inevitable, which events aren't?
I personally think fate plays more of a role in life than chance, but since we don't know our fate in advance, we should play our lives as if we can influence our destiny, because that makes for a happier journey through our fated lives.
It's good to think that you are doing the driving, but life has a habit of showing you that you are a passenger more than the driver, so it's probably good to look around and think about the journey you are on, no matter who is doing the driving in your life.

I think we cross paths with people we were meant to in life, even if briefly, because it changes our lives in some way and steers us in directions we never would have dreamed of "steering" ourselves in life.
For instance I ran into Michael Leunig the cartoonist whose cartoon is up the top of this post and ended up buying his books and he did a little cartoon duck for me in each book.
Michael Leunig at the BBWF

Did it change my life? 
Yes, it did, and everyone we run into changes our lives to some degree, for better, or worse.
Was it fate, destiny, or just luck of the inner duck?
Maybe sometimes you are just destined to be lucky and that becomes your fate?-)

They say only fools tell God their plans for their lives, so I'm planning on getting a lucky red sting to tie around my finger, or wrist to remind me of those moments of synchronicity that bring people into my life for the better ... and not the worse. 
I wonder how long that red string fad will last will last with me though?

I'll let fate decide that one:-)

Palm with fate lines diagram

Anyway, that's my string theory about fate, which I'm destined to be wrong about probably.