Maybe that’s what I’m doing?
May 2024
I’ve been thinking about my discussion with Ann Marie McKenzie about Numerology and Listening. Usually once I learn something new I am all over learning about it. There would normally be eight podcasts to listen to and ten books from the library to pick up about the new topic. Not the case this time though.
I’ve been fascinated with all the “occults” since I was a girl – tarot, spells, astrology, divination, Wicca, Gnosticism. Pretty much anything the Catholic Church (the religion of my family and therefore my religion) said was wrong or evil.
But Numerology was never something I got into and still am not into – which seems a bit odd. I was into ALL of it. All of those other things were WAY more complicated (and seemed to be based on) Numerology. And I LOVE learning new things.
Even more so now, it seems very strange I’m not digging into it.
Plus, I spend my time with numbers. Looking at numbers. Figuring out why numbers are doing what they are doing. Making sure the numbers are in the right order, in the right place at the right time (also more numbers.) It’s satisfying to clean things up, make sure they are correct and watch them add up (or subtract) to what they are expected to be.
A lot of times, I have to find the missing numbers. When did it occur, why did it occur, how do I make it come back?
Growing up my mother did the same for multiple hospitals, moving numbers, finding numbers, making numbers work, merging numbers. I remember seeing the printed spreadsheets (or printed versions of Lotus 1-2-3) in her bags coming back and forth from work.
They were just bunches of numbers to me. Looking back though (and now that I’m doing similar work) there is actual money behind these numbers. Many times while I am working with it, it can almost seem like the words I’m typing on this screen right now. Almost like magic. Add a zero there, a comma there, subtract that there and ta-da – there’s your total. I type a word or two and then here’s my sentence! Ta-Da. Seems the same.
Except there is physical money behind those numbers. They make physical things appear in the world. (Don’t words make things appear in the physical world too?) Sometimes my head hurts considering that there should be (in theory) X amount of physical dollar bills (in any amount) to cover the amounts of money I am moving around on a regular basis.
I wonder if that is why it seems the silos of math and art keep being built taller and taller and further and further away from each other.
It doesn’t help that the Maths, in general, are taught and studied in a way that makes them seem imaginative and theoretical, with no practicality in everyday life (cosine, sine and Pi anyone?)
We think of art as making things tangible. Taking emotions, feelings, and experiences and making our best attempt to convey and express what that experience was to share with others.
The most easily understandable tangible math is money. Money used to be more material (in some way, shape or form). Now though in this age of sending code and numbers from computer to computer, the only way you see the math physically is in the goods or services paid for by those numbers on the screen. The wads of cash taken out of a pocket aren’t a thing anymore…it’s the cars or the houses or the trips or the cleaners or the dresses or the boats or the toys that now represent the cash.
And sometimes it just doesn’t translate, that the numbers matter. We forget that the numbers behind the items mean something (not just “look at how much money I have/had!”)
Fear of maths, fear of money, fear of things we can’t touch, can’t explain, can’t fully understand (sometimes don’t know why we would want to understand it in the first place). Things we can’t seem to actualize or materialize the way we thought we could (or want to.)
It makes sense why I push away, why maybe I don’t want to understand…if I know something, I can’t go back. Sometimes it is easier (momentarily) to not know than to take the responsibility of knowing. I can think of many times I wished I hadn’t known – I was better for it for sure but the work and the responsibility felt overwhelming.
Maybe that’s happening here?