A Thought ~ 19: Numbers

On an earlier occasion, I suggested a Wildebeest's Theorem. At the heart of The Book of Numbers, I think, is, allegorically, the notion that numbers count; and that numbers are a thing.

Numbers are the promise of the future -- of surviving long enough for the species to be in it, still. It's not simply that there's safety in numbers; but also, crucially, that number (number) has the power to push back danger -- and even to crush it. That's the flip side (the understated aspect) of the Wildebeest's theorem.

Numbers are, in a seemingly tautological fashion, the reason why we count. There would be no need for it if everything and everywhere were a singularity. Numbers are a strength, as all armies know. And all snipers. Conversely, they are in certain instances seen as a weakness and a threat to stability and progress, as when there are "too many mouths." Too many noisemakers. Too many cooks. Too much plastic, even.

Numbers may be a tyranny, and a weapon against it -- a sure tyranny against tyranny. We pit number against number. In many fields now, and in all team sports, an equality of number is a prerequisite for legitimate contest. And for its conclusive end.

It is with numbers that, in important ways, we measure material deprivation and wealth; and determine winner and loser, failure and success, progress and regress -- and even realize our destiny.

Numbers are a code with which we contemplate and master complexity and great mass. Numbers are in the spirit -- of Genesis -- when/where God instructs Adam and Eve (Them Africans) to go forth and multiply number with number, and so to dominate:

"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and every living thing that moves on the earth."

It is with numbers that the human species will do what it is that destiny demands of it. In the universe. In the multiverse, if you please.














Updated: September 8 and 13, 2017

The Re-Mix

The re-mix is always a disfigured song.
It is a cancer of sorts in the body-politic.
It appropriates what is already settled.

It is by definition a scheme
For the degradation;
A two-faced symbiotic which, 
For the knowing ear,
Can only go awry.

Let there be a collabo,
But not a re-mix.
One is plainly one too many,
For a song.

It spoils the broth,
As in that old adage.
It debases,
Turning art into craft.








Updated: September 5 and 13, 2017