A Numbers Game

What’s your number? There used to be a time when that was nothing but a harmless question, which was simply perceived as somebody wanting to know your phone number… does anybody still remember that? We moved on and the loaded question acquired much more controversial nuances. But all in all, it’s a numbers game from all points of view we soon got to learn it.

Just because we don’t buy a ticked, that doesn’t mean we’re not playing the lottery. Whether we like it or not, that’s what we do every second of our life and the prize varies, we’re often not even aware of what it is until it’s too late. Birthdays, anniversaries, age, addresses, time, history, biology, chemistry, genetics, health issues, income, financial and social status, living conditions, entertainment, family, friends, success and failure and so much more, life in general, it all comes down to numbers. They’re the foundation of everything we build, of all we desire and hope for, they’re also at the core of our greatest fears.

How many times, how many of us have wandered what the point of algebra was, back when we were children? Yet nowadays it often feels like 3x+4y+5z=happiness … and that’s only in the simplest of cases. Then there are those times when the equation gets blurry, endless, untouchable. So different numbers start to add up and the sum or the questions it might raise aren’t always pleasant or even bearable. How many drinks in order to relax and forget? How many pills in order to feel better, to feel nothing or to simply make it from one day to the next? How many zeros in that ideal bank account in order to feel safe? How many people in one’s life in order to feel important? How many victories against how many losses in order not to fall apart? And that’s only on a strictly personal level… There’s certainly a not at all glamorous side of this numbers game as well.

Perfection – in any subjective interpretation – also becomes a matter of numbers, be it in real life, aspirations or in art. Various numbers have defined idealised perfection over the ages, but more and more often we seem to strive for “the one”. We add all the numbers resulting from our expectations and we tend to somehow reach the one as the the only result. The one ideal person, the one perfect home, the one acceptable view on life… In case the one we find or manage to provide ourselves with turns out to be wrong, we start fiddling with all the variables in the equation, but we hardly ever accept that the solution might be something else but one. One failed “one” yields one brand new quest for a new “one”, hopefully the right “one”. Once the right “one” is found, we move on and try to get another one of those ones that we crave so badly. All too often, we believe anything that isn’t the “one” equals zero…

It’s a numbers game. It’s life. Few of those variables can be controlled, but if we manage to come up with our own numbers and set our own rules, we might even win the game once in a while. And doesn’t it feel nice when that happens, when our numbers are the winning ones…

In response to WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge – Numbers.