Numbers Game

Once in a line-up at the bank, I overheard someone say, there are too many numbers to remember. It spurred some thought on that comment. It's quite true. Our lives are controlled by numbers. There are must-haves and the I-choose kinds of numbers. We are given a driver's license number but we may if we pay, choose our own license plate number or letters. There are numbers given or forced on us by governmentals: SIN numbers and so on. We have a number hammered out by insurance companies, credit carders, banks, housing, schools and so on. Computer IDs require passwords or numbers, all of our listed personal devices have a number. We are surrounded by numbers and to think about all of them that we use over a lifetime, is likely to drive us insane. We don't think how our lives are run by numbers. They are much the same as telephone wires: the myriad of ugly wires that block our clear view of the sky everywhere, that we ignore or realize how many of them there are and what an eyesore they are. When an appliance or piece of equipment goes wrong and needs repair or to be returned, off we go to our files to find out the numbers: model number, serial number, date purchased, invoice, price and so on. To trace a parcel we have ordered on-line we are given a number. Yes, numbers are us. Once, as an educator it was suggested at a planning meeting, that we assign each student a number according to his or her socio-economic style. It wasn't an IQ number into which we place, pathetically, an undue amount of importance, but a number that would project the student's personal self. At these meetings, I am generally a rather bland occupant of a plastic chair, but this time, I simply had to make my views perfectly clear that never would I number a young student. It seemed an inhuman thing to do, much like the mass tattooing of persons during the horrors of the world war. People are not numbers. I know that some say it is easier and more efficient to deal with the vast numbers of populations to assign them numbers for this and that. Okay. My argument is then, when a human is born, why not give them a unique number that is theirs only thus everything they do, will always have solely that number and no other. Think how simple it would be to remember your personal and private number. No one could use it because there would be only one, yours, that would follow you all of your lifetime. And I don't mean the SIN that we hide so diligently. Then again, with that thought in mind, why would you need a name? You'd be remembered as Good Old 1234 instead of Good Old Micky. When you passed on, your number would be recycled after an appropriate time. You could look up all of your numeral predecessors and see that particular "family tree" as well as your other one. Perhaps parents when their child is born, could look up the heritage of the number they might select for their baby if they wanted it to reach the heights of a former numbered individual. Your house number, your license numbers, your club number, your student number and so on would all be the exact same handy set of digits. Your phone number, same, and all of your account numbers.  Even if your memory slipped, you could still remember your own dear little number. But now that I think of it, I really do prefer a name with a little line-up of letters in some kind of romantic order, rather than a number. Numbers are rather cold things.