Children all over the world are asked “How many fingers am I holding up? One, two,three; uno, dos, tres; eins, zwei, drei; they answer. They are so proud to hold up their fingers to tell everyone how old they are. If they are asked “How many pieces of candy do you want? The answer is usually something like “A billion zillion!” Isn’t it amazing that we only need ten digits, 0123456789, to express every number into infinity, and yet we all just want to be number 1? I have to watch a lot of numbers every day so I call them “my numbers”: blood pressure, heart rate, pulse ox, Apnea episodes, sleep score, hours of sleep and a rough tally of how many calories I’ve consumed. My best friend asks me “ So what are your numbers today?” I also need to know what time it is, how many miles I have walked and what my bank balance is. It’s a good thing I remember my Social Security number. I’m so grateful for smart phones that store telephone numbers for me. We all have a name and a number, actually many numbers. Of course, I need to know how many years old I am, but I’m out of fingers for that.
I have to count, measure and rate all day long! Imagine if we lost our ability to understand and use numbers. That would be almost inconceivable and scary and dangerous too. What if you couldn’t measure how much medicine to take, or how hot or cold something was or how fast you were driving? I don’t like watching “my numbers” but my health depends on it. In my younger days, I let my daily weight, simply a number on a scale, determine how I felt about myself. I stopped using a scale after I decided that I was worth more than a number on a scale. If I’m 5’6” the weight charts say I can weigh more, but I’m 5’5”and saying I’m 5’6” doesn’t make it so. Lying about how old I am does not actually make my body younger. The phrase “numbers do not lie” highlights how numbers can represent “reality”, but we humans may interpret numbers and use numbers to create our own “truth”. In other words, “ Numbers don’t lie, but people do.” My grade point average be damned.
I like to think that I’m one of one, rather than one of 338.02 million people in the US. It’s easier for me to think I count in a small pond. My high grade point average in high school was dwarfed by all the exceptional students in the much bigger college pond. Sure I’d like to be the BEST 73 year old woman in the US. Number 1! How do I compare and where do I stand in relationship to others? There are many people who’s net worth has lots more zeroes than mine. 1,000,000,000,000 is one trillion, and count them; there are 12 zeros. We have several trillionaires in the USA. I can’t perceive one trillion of anything!
Early humans likely counted using fingers and feet. Anthropologists says this led to tally marks showing in ancient records from 40,000 years ago. It seems that having a system to count or measure things was crucial to the survival of our ancestors. I have to use numbers, but don’t want to be controlled by them. A whole bunch of numbers is just a whole bunch of numbers. I don’t have to count how many times I failed at something, or all the times I embarrassed myself. I can count the people I love and that I believe love me, and that’s what really counts.
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