It's Just A Number

Funny things, numbers, aren't they? They're so definite, so actual, so real - except they're not.

I was thinking of this in relation to all the figures I posted yesterday relating to what my clever phone tells me about the steps I take in a day (assuming I'm carrying the phone, that is) and the flights of stairs I negotiate. Yes, they give some insight into what I've been up to, but they don't come close to the whole story.

It's strange how the numbers can affect one's behaviour, though. I'm thinking of those times when I start to wander off somewhere without my phone and then actually consider going back for it so as to add the steps I'm about to virtuously accumulate for my score. Fortunately I've never gone back for it.

And then there's the great mystery of exam results: condensing someone's experience of an entire discipline of thought such that the number scored comes to represent the whole experience. I hope most of us sanely appreciate that the two do not equate. But I do wonder.