Numbers are that which destroy a civilization, while fooling the people into believing they are building.
-Anonymous
I have a lot of questions for numbers that I don’t think they can answer. How many of you are there? Why are you here? Are you worth having around? Numbers don’t have convincing answers to any of these questions. Numbers are the tools of reason and economists. How many trees are there? How much money are you making? How many friends do you have? Counting things is something I never liked. What number of little sections of garlic does this recipe call for? I’ve never been any good at recipes.
It’s morning in May. That sentence is teeming with numbers. 8:22am is before the twelfth hour of the day. It’s the fifth month of the year. A better way to put it might be: there is light outside from the sun and I feel chilly. There is coffee. Though is vs. isn’t is another heuristic representation of numbers. One and zero were the original sins. The apple and the snake. So perhaps this “it’s morning in May” is really this: … (that was the silent sound of me listening, feeling things, and interacting with sensations that defy descriptions, as represented by an ellipsis). Are words derived from numbers too? Is a question that has a yes or no request baked into it really asking, “is it zero or is it one?”? I’m not sure. I think because “I don’t know” is a completely appropriate answer even a yes/no question, words might have a chance. The phrase “I couldn’t possibly know and am therefore in awe” can be represented by words but not numbers. Even the sideways number 8 can’t bring upon the kind of misty-eyed reverence that words can, when they strike just the right pose (infinity as a mathematical concept merely serves to cheapen the truly infinite).
I was wondering and musing this morning about why I write things. I was missing the notion of writing things that matter to people, that they “have to” respond to. And I realized that I don’t actually want that. The level of numbers-orientation (usually the number of units of a currency) in environments where people “had to” listen to me read something I wrote or more often read it themselves was disturbing, even in the least effectively organized organizations (let alone at Amazon.com/youworkhereandwecontrolyouandyoubettermakeyournumbers). Human Resources departments are as gross as they sound (specialty legal with the mythical power to measure humans with numbers). I don’t feel resentment when I think about management by the numbers and companies that count everything, but I do feel revulsion. That Google’s motto used to be “don’t be evil” makes me laugh every time I think of it. Organize all the world’s data is just about the most evil mission I could imagine, unless you just came out and said “organize all the world’s people” outright; but this latter statement is certainly the goal of a company that uses the looking for of information as an end-around to getting people to buy things that are advertised. Malevolent mind-control if I’ve ever heard of it.
Anyway, even though I’ve given up on Nietzsche’s approach to supervaluator status achievement, he’s pretty cogent on good and evil, and moving beyond them. They’re both numbers projects (How evil, in measurable numbers, is Google? A silly question, just like is Google evil (0 vs. 1)). I’m happiest, most satisfied, and most filled with joy when I’m with living creatures (incl. humans) and we’re not counting anything, nothing counts, and there aren’t any numbers around. The turtle next to the road isn’t wondering why I’m sitting on a machine with two wheels; the deer aren’t saying to themselves, there’s a dozen of us, we can take this one human; and I love playing semi-organized games where no one is keeping score, everyone is always changing teams, and there’s no money that gets exchanged for anything. Paying attention, being paid attention to (but without counting out the change for the payments); this is what I want, and largely from humans, animals, and plants. Though I do like it when the sun seems to be paying some of its attention on me. One cannot measure awe, and one probably shouldn’t.
Cold coffee can be a joy, if it was chilled past the point of lukewarm. Lukewarm coffee can be a joy, if it’s found unexpectedly. Milk in coffee can be a joy, pretty much no matter what. And while I do love bean-water-roast-drugs in the morning, afternoon, and evening, coffee is mostly a joy when there are people around. This seems related to numbers and their rejection.
Roman Ryan 