Numbers

After watching the movie, “Proof”, I was intrigued by the general belief of mathematicians that their ability to make ground breaking contribution will reach a plateau at 23 years old and then decline over time. Our destination seems to be dictated by numbers that are like social paradigm. Without numbers, our life, theoretically, could be a mess. Engineers love numbers. Scientists love numbers. CEOs love numbers. We all love numbers. How many times you tell someone about things that you love, it won’t be completely understood until you quantify it. For instance, if I told someone iPod is a good companion for traveling because it can plays all the music I own. All I got was a scratching-head nod. After I explained my iPod has a 20GB hard disk space and stores more than 5,000 songs, good enough for 8 hours listening, and best of all, it is a $300 most popular gadget in the world. Then, immediate jaw-dropping envious faces can be seen. We were taught to quantify everything we do in our daily life. How many hours of sleep, how many hours of work, how many caloric intakes should one have in a day, how many teaspoon of sugar for coffee, how many percent of fat in the milk, and we should brush teeth 3 times a day. These numbers though, were suggested by researchers in the respective field after years of empirical studies.

Is that always true that we can quantify everything we do? How should I express my affection? Can I say I love you as much as a thousand gallon of whole milk (although I only take 2% fat milk)? How long you have to date someone before you can kiss her/him? 1 hour, 1 month or 1 year, 23 days and 5 hours? How deep in love should one get before getting married? How deep? You mean, like 10 feet or 1000 miles? If one got married after 1 month of dating and divorced 3 years later, you would say I told you, I can see that coming. If one got married after 3 years of dating and divorced 1 month later, you would say that is a surprise! Who designate those special numbers so that you can be “socially, politically, and morally correct” for what you did for your own freaking life? I think it is not fair to judge others if they did something that are not obeying these special numbers. After all, you have your own life to live. Oh, by the way, I am getting engaged, 3 months after dating a girl who I in love with.