Words and numbers

I admit it, I am not good with numbers in any form. This goes back to early attempts at math. In math class I never cared if train A left the station at 10:00 and if it traveled at 50 mile how long did it take to reach (you know the rest of it). 

My reaction? 

Look at a timetable. 

Now I’d say, check the internet.

Growing up in Reading, MA there were a few major road numbers: 128, 28, 29 and 93. I didn’t think of those as numbers but names. Traveling around the area with my mother, I needed neither name nor number to get to my destination. I just knew how to get to Andover, Woburn, Winchester, etc.  

I had been going to Paris for a good ten years. I felt I knew the Metro really well as I bounced around the city. When I went to Paris with a friend, she said “We’ll take line l.”

“Line 1?”

She explained the metro lines were all numbered. I hadn’t known that. When I wanted to go someplace on the Metro, I looked at the map in the stations, checked the station I wanted, looked at the direction of the Metro heading there and hopped on the correct train.

Rick is the driver in our couple. He talks about the A7 and A9 in France. I never knew roads to places like Barcelona or Marseilles had numbers.

Today we went to Davos. I have lived in Switzerland since 1990. I didn’t need to know numbers. I would follow signs to Bern, Neuchâtel or wherever I was going. I got there. This trip I noticed numbers on the signs.

Numbers are necessary. Math is necessary. There was one time I had shared responsibility of a multi-million dollar budget. The company survived me.

I have trouble visualizing when someone reads off a number like 95 in English. In French-French when they say quatre-vingt-quinze I have to think to do some basic math 20x4+15. Even in the Swiss nonante-cinq it takes a minute for me to understand it. In German fünffundneunzig gives me pause before I am comfortable with 95.

I enter every cent I spend on an Excel spread sheet so I know where my money goes. I do use the automatic addition symbol. It must work. For the last couple of decades I have had 0 debt and bought a studio cash.

I am grateful to engineers and others who can work with numbers and make life better for us all. It is a profession, I would not have had much success in.

Meanwhile, just like some people can sing but not dance and others can dance but not sing, I can write but not do much with numbers. Others can do miracles with numbers but cannot write. Better for the world if we all have different strengths.