.9375 is edgy....or "until you've walked a mile...."
When I used to do diagnostic interviews with a pediatric neuropsychologist, we had a clever little diagnostic probe in which we took considerable pride. It was "Do you have a favorite number?"
We would listen patronizingly to the interviewee's response as little lights blinked in our own brains at decision tree branches marked "OCD?" "Autism spectrum?". Strangely, I don't think we followed up with questions about *why* numbers were meaningful. We just assumed that we had an Atypical Kid on our hands and that said child must be on an inexorable downward slope to some diagnostic label.
Well, my brilliant, beautiful love also has favorite numbers. Boatloads of them. Only because I know and love this individual....I wanted to know more about the mysterious appeal behind these numbers....what makes .4375 and .9375 special? Why do you notice certain numbers on license plates and not others? Why do your programmer friends do the same thing? Well, he patiently explained to me...and it made perfect sense. There is a whole beautiful structure and applied context into which these numbers fit for him...related to musical metre and also related to units of measurement important in computing. And I am guessing they are beloved in the way a carpenter might love his tools or a painter his brushes. They are recognized the way a master chess player recognizes configurations on a board that to me just look like a meaningless jumble of pieces.
Now I am ashamed that we didn't ask those kids more about their favorite numbers. Now I know why for many---though not all--there was that certain flash of recognition, of hope, that people get when they begin to think that maybe they are not so different from others, that maybe they have found somebody who understands.
We would listen patronizingly to the interviewee's response as little lights blinked in our own brains at decision tree branches marked "OCD?" "Autism spectrum?". Strangely, I don't think we followed up with questions about *why* numbers were meaningful. We just assumed that we had an Atypical Kid on our hands and that said child must be on an inexorable downward slope to some diagnostic label.
Well, my brilliant, beautiful love also has favorite numbers. Boatloads of them. Only because I know and love this individual....I wanted to know more about the mysterious appeal behind these numbers....what makes .4375 and .9375 special? Why do you notice certain numbers on license plates and not others? Why do your programmer friends do the same thing? Well, he patiently explained to me...and it made perfect sense. There is a whole beautiful structure and applied context into which these numbers fit for him...related to musical metre and also related to units of measurement important in computing. And I am guessing they are beloved in the way a carpenter might love his tools or a painter his brushes. They are recognized the way a master chess player recognizes configurations on a board that to me just look like a meaningless jumble of pieces.
Now I am ashamed that we didn't ask those kids more about their favorite numbers. Now I know why for many---though not all--there was that certain flash of recognition, of hope, that people get when they begin to think that maybe they are not so different from others, that maybe they have found somebody who understands.