Nothing is special about Tommy, apart from him not fitting in very well in an ordinary people group culture.
The story deals with the life of Tommy, the spiritual parts, and the materialistic parts. It is easy to pretend that we can always walk forward on the path of life. However, life does not work like this, setbacks and diversions are the norms for most of us.
The story intends to show that ordinary people can – and will – divert from the spiritual path. Life at the material awareness level is interesting, and it is easy to divert and believe in the illusion we call: The Material World.
Although at some stage during the story Tommy loses himself in the material world, a series of occurrences steer him back on the spiritual path. We class these occurrences as coincidences.
A coincidence is part of the spiritual development process, and it represents a communication that we receive from our Soul.
Coincidences are, therefore, not accidents or plain luck; they are planned events. We just do not know who planned them, and what for.
Tommy eventually follows the path of coincidences, and in the process, he returns to the spiritual development path and leads a happy life.