Twenty Three countdown -10 Days

Twenty Three...

It's interesting what meaning we associate with numbers. They can be lucky, fatal, memorable, tragic, stoic, mathematic, milestones... ect. For each set of ten numerals different people assign different meanings. For example, 4 stands as my lucky number. Not for any good reason, it was my number in kindergarten soccer and my Dad told me it was lucky. I don't know if he had a good reason for that logic, I was 5 and what my Dad said was universal truth. To this day it is my lucky number. Whether or not it has brought luck I do not know. But it serves as an example of how 4 meant luck to me for 18 years as well as identified the curly haired kid putzing along the sidelines to the referee.

Sometimes numbers span whole cultures. For example, the symbols 1 and 3, in succession, signify misfortune to Western Culture. 9 slash 11 signifies a historical event in American culture. While these numbers signify concepts and events, they still have a personalized meaning to each person. I know 9 slash 11, while signifying an event, means something different to George W. Bush than it does to me.

Is it not amazing how Hindu-Arabic numerals, outside of mathematics, designate to a person an individual meaning?

So the numerals 2 and 3 in that succession form the number 23. To me and my family it marks the twenty-third anniversary of my birth at Shorham-by-the-Sea, England. Through the lens of a camera and the electronics of my computer it will mean a little bit more. Three hundred and sixty-six self-portraits, each for every day in 2008, beginning on January 19th, 2008 and ending on January 19th, 2009. This is what the numerals 23 mean to me, and maybe to you as well.