Numbers!

A joke has been making quite a lot of rounds on Quora - What is the best geekiest joke?

Answer - Instead of rounding up the quantity of apples as 1000 you end up rounding it as 1024! (Not the exact words of the joke)

On a serious note, this is actually hilarious as well as worth a thought!

As common human beings, are we not a little fetish about the numbers and such numbers have always influenced us to such an extent that we still believe in the Friday, 13th or 17th or any number that may come in mind?

Well, this is an absolute blind faith, and I am not going to discuss about it. In general, it is a very debatable topic of which I choose to restrain right now as many people may have very different opinions about it.

Coming back to the topic. I love numbers. I love it when they are even numbers or the multiples of 5. 2, 4, 5, 10 sound so complete right? And on the other hand the odd numbers sound so incomplete. I am so attached to these numbers that, back in some time, when the whole world was not yet shifted to whatsapp, when the carrier rates where affordable and human, when we used to keep track of the messages sent per day, I made it a point to keep them in the multiples of 5! I even sent complete senseless messages to make it read that count. If you ask me why, I had the simple answer - I liked it like that. I liked to see the number ending with 5/10.

In some way, I also made it a point to leave for a place in the intervals of 15 mins. Even if I was running late, and I happen to look at the clock, I would stop till the minute hand comes on the 5/0 end! So foolish! (Oh gosh, now my friends know why I used to be the last one at any party, always!). I follow it to some extent here too!

The other weird thing is my obsession with the even numbers. In general I like the even numbers. It might be because my birth is in an even year, well, the birth date is odd, still! Still, I don't like odd numbers in general! I was so sad to join the Masters program in an odd year, but had no other option, anyway. It was so nice till now. Graduated school, high school, undergraduate college in an even year and now I am making it a point to graduate in an even year to keep up with the tradition! Even numbers are easily divisible. We can interpret - they are adjustable in whatever and however the situation be.

Interestingly I found some people who mention distances or the time in weird numbers. If you call up some one and ask in how much time will you reach, the common answer is 2 min 5 min or 10 or so on. But few smart people actually say 7 min or 13 min! How can they be so specific? Well, in their defense no one is actually going to sit and count the exact minutes, still that is weird. This is so because the norm of the society is different and they get surprised if someone says such weird things!

Does it mean I am insane, well even if I don't know, whether my mother had me tested for that (bad take of Sheldon Cooper pun) anyway, to be perfectly honest I am not (oh okay, in my own way I am). If you talk about such obsession with numbers, I believe most of you might have that! Don't be so shy about it, I know, you might be some way or the other. My best friend and one of my closest cousins are as equally obsessed with one or more of the above numerical phenomenon as I am. If you think, you are alone, you are not :) I believe we form a large community!