What's in a number?
***May contain some strong language and unconventional analogies for the grin. Welcome to my mind. Please enjoy me responsibly***
A question asked by many a man and woman for as long as time can care. We've had key numbers that continue to crop up for centuries, 3, 7, 8, 13, 777, 589...
I won't go into numerology or anything, you can make your own assumptions about what certain numbers mean, and they will differ from culture to culture around the world. It's a real nag of mine though, the question; what is in a number? As you can see, my shot above depicting a seemingly random '349' sets the tone for a thrilling read. First off, I love the shot because the low watery, winter light had filtered between the trees and revealed the number. I'd walked past that spot numerous (yep, there's a theme here) times and never noticed it before. This was the case until this spiritual, godlike, call it what you like, light cast itself upon this quirky number, yet it then began a story of its very own.
Which brings us here, and to the question posed. Part of me wanted it to be '369' but that wouldn't have intrigued me quite as much. In fact i'd have probably snorted at it's mathematical uniformity (ok Kev, let's not get too deep...gently bently...) but it had sparked my mind. It was just a damn number on the side of a ramshackled ex crack den, but it had me gripped, just like the crack! Why did it have me so hooked? Was this some unknown psychological nod to Aspergers', was I finally at a point of no return towards a spiralling path of insanity? I thought I'd already opened that door but it seems I wasn't even close. Until now.
I trawled search engine results '349 meaning', '349 special number', 'is 349 important' and so on. How could three digits do this? Anyway there was nothing of note, not anything obvious anyway, unless it being a prime number is enough to give you a square root hard on! I don't think so somehow. So where was all this leading? I asked friends, family, pets, begged the question into the eyes of Proboscis Monkey just to try and find one morsel of information. I was all set to give up and put '349' to the back of the mind shelf – along with 732, 12834, 62 and 6.27 – when I glanced down and, to my amazement, there it was. Looking at me like a freshly bleached asshole...