For years, that title has sat in my sidebar—Coordinator of Synchronicity. Some might see it as a poetic flourish, but as I’ve delved deeper into “The Appalachian Odyssey” over at AppalachianMountainDreams.com, I’ve realized it is actually a precise job description for the modern digital chronicler.
To coordinate synchronicity is to stand at the intersection of heritage, high-tech, and happenstance.
The Intersection of Three Worlds
My work is rarely about “creating” something from thin air. Instead, it’s about managing the collision of three distinct forces:
- The Analog Past: The dusty records of the Linville and Vanderpool families, the physical geography of the Blue Ridge, and the oral histories that survived the trek west.
- The Digital Present: Using Large Language Models (LLMs) to parse data and Generative AI to “photograph” the 1700s when no cameras existed.
- The Human Intuition: The “gut feeling” that tells me when a piece of music, a specific image, or a string of words finally captures the truth of a moment.
Case Study: The Appalachian Odyssey
In the Linville series, I wasn’t just a researcher. I was coordinating a “meaning-making” event.
When I asked an AI to generate an image of a 1750s homestead in the Shenandoah Valley, I wasn’t looking for a “pretty picture.” I was looking for a synchronous match to the grit and isolation I felt in the historical records. When the AI produced a vista of low-hanging mist and rugged timber, and it matched the “feeling” of the Linville migration notes I was reading, that was synchronicity. My job was simply to coordinate those two distant points in time and technology.
Why “Coordinator”?
I chose the word Coordinator because I don’t own the history, and I didn’t build the AI. I am the conductor. I arrange the instruments.
- The AI is the orchestra—capable of immense scale and technical perfection.
- The History is the sheet music—written by people long gone.
- The Synchronicity is the moment the music actually moves someone.
The Goal: Just Words, Strung Together… Nicely.
Ultimately, being a Coordinator of Synchronicity means I am constantly looking for the “click”—that moment when a blog post stops being a list of facts and starts being a bridge. Whether I’m blogging about a Houston heatwave or a 250-year-old mountain crossing, I’m looking for the thread that ties us to the “then” and the “there.”
I’m just here to make sure the right threads find each other at the right time.
