The Numbers Game

Happy 12/12!!!

Dates like this always make me smile. Jackpot Day (7/7/07), Deca-Day (10/10/10), and any time Sequence Day rolls around (11/12/13 was the last one)… I love them all.

One of my “aspie passions” is math – I love all of the things you can do with math. The laws of the universe are written in the language of math. If you can interpret the laws, there is so much magic to be experienced. I love that I can use math for very important and also very silly things. I’ve become a pretty decent poker player over the last few years as I realized that successful betting boils down to a strong understanding of probabilities (a.k.a. MATH!). Then I find myself doing useless things with math like calculating expected value coefficients in order to choose between the Big Box or Curtain 2 on Let’s Make a Deal.

3X + cos(2XY – 20) – X/R = ZONK

I think that sometimes numbers can be integral to a person’s life, if one’s mind is open enough to see the connections. For example… a very long time ago, for no apparent reason that I can remember, I chose 28 as my favorite number. I used it everywhere I could. When I was in high school I found out that 28 is a “perfect number” – all of its factors besides itself (14, 7, 4, 2, 1) add up to the number (14 + 7 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 28!). The number I chose as my personal favorite just happened to be perfect! And not only that, a few years ago I looked at my birthdate and found out that the digits of my birthdate add up to – you guessed it – 28.

Brain asploded.

I’m not saying that I believe in horoscopes or things like that, but I do believe that numbers and math play an important role in the universe and our lives. I think recognizing patterns and number sequences in nature is a way to pay respect to the power that these forces play in our lives.

Ignorance is NOT Bliss

A conversation on Twitter earlier today brought up an interesting point about my aspie traits – my ability to handle bad news compared to my inability to not know what’s going on. Most people would rather not know about something bad that happened so they can go about their day without being affected by the events. Not me.

First of all, I’m hardly ever deeply affected by things that don’t directly involve me. It may seem callous and cold to say that, but seriously… have you read any of my other posts? It’s clear that Aspergers causes me to be somewhat self involved and gives me some emotional insulation from the rest of the world.

Hey, what can I say? I’m the King of I Don’t Give a Shit.

Secondly, I can’t just not know what’s going on. In fact, once I’m alerted to something going on, I MUST know what’s up. It’s my thirst for knowledge – there can’t be something that somebody knows that I don’t know about. Or at least I have to be able to make a decision about whether it’s worth my time to investigate. Saying “nevermind” or “don’t worry about it” to me is the same as saying “you’re going to obsess over what I’m not telling you about for the next three days or until you find out exactly what it is I’m hiding from you.”