Numbers in Purpose......

There is a crow’s nest in the peepal tree right outside my balcony. I am waiting for the crow to come back.
And then what?
Hmmm…no idea.
Five clips and one hair band. I finally managed to scrunch up my hair into a sad excuse of a pony tail (when did the horse’s tail enter the world of vanity?).
Lazy lizard crawls into its dark cool world behind my one pot claim to greenery in this hostel room…
I like the cover design of Amitav Ghosh’s new book. How can anyone plan and write a trilogy? Rowling is a freak...no rephrase- freaky genius. Ha!! Better!
Are these even blog-mention worthy details of a monotonous life?
No.
But space fillers? Length expanders? Yes to that!

And I return to my favorite- 'WHY'
Why did we establish this blog?
Why did we let it lie sad and dormant for soo long?
Why have we entered this phase of frantic blogging now? A sea squall-ish development?

And the hardest question of all- Why the fixation with numbers? To be more specific, why the fixation with getting a fatter number on the 'Followers' list?
(I hate looking at the right hand side of this blog!!!)

Somewhere in the last few weeks I think, purpose has cross bred with numbers. I marvel at all those people who have blogs with two three or four hundred followers. Where do these people come from? How did they find these blogs? Are they regular readers? If they are then I wonder how much time they spend reading these blogs online. And how can anyone write so consistently on a virtual platform? But these are semi-tangential questions right now really.

Anyway, so when we began the purpose was to just write...we thought we did not care for what others thought or felt about what we wrote, how we wrote and why we wrote.
Sadly, we missed the operative words in this first statement-of-purpose like sentence to self.
"We thought".
Yes...you thought...we thought..
It was only a thought. A delusional attempt to garb this modern extension of individual vanity and narcissism under nobler wraps of self expression with an undertone of 'the-world-be-damned'.
We were writing for ourselves. Or were we? The least I can say right now is that the delusion at least has ended...Where this delusion ends, there the reality of our world in numbers begins.
I recently watched The Matrix Trilogy and this realization of the numerical grip over our lives reminds me of the green run of numbers in the matrix (should I have written that with a capital 'M'?). Amidst these creeping and crawling numbers we live happily and quietly.
(I shouldn't have mentioned the Matrix here....its uncalled for...or is it?)

Each tiny aspect of our lives are caught in numbers...they are everywhere.
Dates.
My age.
My grades.
Your salary.
Your expected bonus.
Prices.
Rent.
Bills.
Your car mileage.
Gigabytes.
Days.
Weeks.
Blah.
Blah.

How does all this apply to the blog? Well like this....
How many hours will I spend writing this post? Should I care about the number of words or the length of this post? What number post will this be again? So how many people can I expect will read this one? How many will like it? How many will trash it? How many comments will I get on this post? Will this post change things for the blog and actually inspire someone to join the blog?
Comments.
Followers.
Hits.
Likes.
Dislikes.
Blah.
Blah.
Blah.

But I write for myself don't I??!!!!
Oh no I don't.
Lets get one thing absolutely straight....No one, and I mean no one, writes and maintains a blog for their own sake. With the very first word that you put on your blog its a delusional journey to make yourself think, rather to lull yourself into thinkin that you are writing only for yourself. You 'blog' to be read by others. Thats it. In other words 'NUMBERS'
If I were to extend this line of thought to all other forms of self expression, you may plead for artistic sensibilities getting offended with the idea of needing social acceptance and appreciation in numbers. But would I be lying if I were to say, that somewhere or the other, we all need assurances from others around us in our small limited worlds for the choices we make in expressing ourselves?
What is the point of expression if it is not received by another?

And so they run and walk...sit and laugh..sleep awhile and never quite drift away..Numbers.
Everywhere..
In clocks that time us and our lives.
In calenders that cross off days as they go flying by.
In to-do lists that fill the hours of a day and the days of a life.
In passivity and in action.
In words and minutes of silences.
In this, that and the other.