Those who know me would say I am not obsessive about anything. Some might even say I could use a bit of compulsion to fuel more action, but in any case, here's a chain of thoughts that has begun to feel like mild mental illness. It started innocently enough with a fascination with statistics and a willingness to analyze them. This is relatively new for this language lover; if I had known how much I would come to love numbers, I would have worked harder in math class. Perhaps around the time of the big fuss over America being over 300 million, the idea of repetitions, or more specifically, simultaneous activities, began to occupy my thoughts. When turning the key in the ignition of my car, I would think "How many other people are turning the key in the ignition at this very second?" The instances of this can be infinite. As I turn off my alarm, the thought of tens of thousands of beeps (more?) being silenced by sleepy people wakes me. As warm water courses over my hands before lunch I can't help thinking, "How many others are washing their hands?" I sometimes intentionally imagine several others in the act, but my brain is limited, a point this exercise reminds me over and over, and I move on to other things. But the count, or the concept of this number of simultaneous activities that cannot be counted arrives repeatedly. It comes at me at more intimate moments as well, but I'll let you imagine those.
And it's more than my activities that are multiple, common acts. In the mall food court a young mother plays peek-a-boo with her baby and I contemplate the scope of peek-a-boo. How many games played at this minute? How many throughout time? Something trivial takes on odd importance. Yesterday, in a thrift store, (where a brochure told me a woman is raped every 46 seconds--how do they know that?) the game took a turn as I looked around for my friend and found not one, but three other women in the store of about the same age, hair, build, dress, etc. How many women are there that fit my friend's description? As much as I have contemplated simultaneous activities, I hadn't thought much about duplication in appearance although, of course, it's everywhere.
The worst part about it is the anxiety it provokes. Okay, there are many, many people in the world and our experiences bear strong similarities. So what? How does this change my life? I don't think I'm over-invested in my own uniqueness, although our society seems to force us to focus on being distinctive, being different, even while fitting in. Do people in Japan have this problem? What exactly is the problem? Am I simply freaked out by the number of people in the world? Is this an identity issue? I truly don't mind my own insignificance, like a sky full of stars I find it comforting in some ways. Is it that the numbers are too big for me to conceptualize while I have a need to do so? I am pretty good at accepting what I can't understand, Lord knows I've come across plenty that fits into that category.
Once I tried to explain this to a friend and she basically told me I was stupid to give any mental energy to it. Of course, she said it a little nicer, after all, she is a friend. The reason it feels like OCD is because I can't turn it off, but it does feel better to at least see it in words. Is there a use for this concept? If I have to live with it, I'd like to find some value in it.
5 comments:
This is the disease suffered by the intelligent, rational person. You are afflicted with a need to see the big picture. In a funny way, the larger the picture the picture pans, the more difficult it becomes to see.
Perhaps the use for the concept is theological. How can random scientific theories account for all that is common and simultaneous? Somewhere there had to be a plan, and maybe we're all on the spreadsheet.
Is it chaos or just a pattern we cannot see? We want order and comfort in numbers and so many times they do the opposite. Embrace the realm of the infinite and then chase it with repeated viewings of Green Acres. Only then will it all make sense.
I think about numbers like this all the time. There are x number of stars in the universe. There are x number of atoms in the universe. I enjoy the contemplation of infinity.
Your comments and the fact it's out of me have made the whole thing less anxiety provoking. Now repetition seems more like rhythm and the idea of a pattern I cannot see is comforting. Thanks.
Did I forget to comment? I loved the title. It doesnt seem so strange to me though--your thought processes. It's weird to me that famous people are also living simultaneously with us, not just when we see them in the papparazi's camera lens.
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