19

For as long as I've known, I've always been decent at numbers. From an early age it seemed that I had a certain gift for basic arithmetic never having to really try in order to do decently in mathematics examinations but over time I had realised that high school mathematics involved more than simply basic numbers, it had evolved to complex operations and patterns that could only be solved with practice. That is the crux of something as fundamentally logical as mathematics - to entice the left hemisphere of our brains to take into consideration the marvellous subtleties of something like a number.

Let me tell you now that if you expect something substantial in this post, you will not find it, instead you will find the rantings of someone who simply appreciates the aesthetics of something as simple as basic operations of numbers. There is a certain calming effect of doing mathematics that I am sure many high school students would disagree with. It is funny now that with the specialities of university that we will slowly but surely lose our ability to manipulate equations, and appreciate the beauty of geometric shapes. Regardless of the fact that we forget to do calculus or vectors or remember complex physical equations, we will always hold on to the basics of numerical operations. It is funny that at the end of all this we will probably only remember what we were taught in year six, those basic questions about money, some $50 clothing discounted at 20% or something about how many ways can we divide a 8 slice pizza fairly between 2 of our closest friends. We will probably fail to appreciate the beauty that a computer works in bytes made of 8 bits, and that 1024 bytes make a kilobyte and so forth. The binary code that consists of our computer will become lost in the graphical user interface that disguises the underlying beauty of logic. Everything can be represented in 0 and 1. Furthermore our entire language, the works of Shakespeare to T.S. Eliot can be displayed as words because of the fact that 2 to the power of 8 is more letters than necessary for the English language. And that failing that, for international language, Unicode has our back.

Computers aside, while I may sound like a broken record talking about how numbers make every aspect of our lives just like that stupid television show Numbers where the mathematician somehow models the most complex of human behaviour by some equation (which is obviously impossible because humans are in essence very illogical creatures), I will continue preaching how numbers form an undeniably part of our existence. The truth is, I read a long time ago that considering we have about 365 days a year (not including that stupid quarter that makes a leap year every 4), and if we consider ourselves lucky enough to have 100 years in our lives, that we will only have 36500 days in our entire lives. It had an undeniably impact on my impression of the world - when we are having the time of our lives, we wish this to never end, and we wish that we will stay like this forever but the undeniable and sad truth is that we only have 36500 days if we are lucky in our lives. Now while some may consider this to be a finite amount, a small amount, a testament to the fragility and mortality of humanity, I would rather consider this to be a lesson. That these numbers, these thousands of days that we have represent how we must spend every single second, every single millisecond, every single unit and measurement of time enjoying what life has rather than counting down the time, counting down that time till we no longer persist in this physical realm, rather than wondering how many days until that next big event, how many months until that big event and how many days have elapsed since some big event happened. Rather than waste our time counting, let us simply enjoy what we do have. Let us not simply think that our existence can be prescribed by something as logical as a processor or numbers but rather appreciate that humanity is a massive messed up collection of illogicality, biochemicals and social constructs. While I might be 21, It might be the 14th of the 9th of 2014 and at a 1/2 past 12, but really who's counting?

Loving that fact that humans love to think we are completely logical but really are not so bye.

P.S. This is a sobering up but still appreciably drunk post.