243

 I used to like 243 as one of my favourite numbers. It is a straightforward fifth power of 3. The good thing about it is it doesn’t have carryover when you multiply 81 by 3 so it is easy to do it in mind. Also who doesn’t like three consecutive numbers one after another?

These all led to me thinking maybe numbers are numbers as pain killers. They numb the pain by putting the mind on silver threads of logical relations that lead to another. 

Thin and negligible so we don’t feel they are overrated and prevalent enough that we keep them in the back ground of our mind if not on the foreground. 

The relations sometimes spark happiness and sometimes problems. Happiness when they feel happy to think about and problems when they require extra effort to bind into something that easily could be thought of.

Happy when it feels natural and effortless. No bandaid no force. The path of least resistance which minimizes the integral of the effort. (Or maximizes) 

We seek the lowest point of potential where nothing wants to be changed into another thing. Everything is as much as it should be and the right mix. Lowest point or group of points. 

It is funny how humans slowly become what they do. Kafka wasn’t talking about something extraordinary. Something about how those who seek complexity end up becoming more insect like. Robotic and always looking busy and doing something. 

Take my cat for example. Other than the basic functions like eating and dealing with it, it’s chosen to have a beautiful coat and eyes. A little bit of agility and understanding environments and territory. The rest of it is just sleeping. 

Doesn’t flap wings around endlessly, doesn’t make webs, doesn’t live in a colony, doesn’t go through metamorphosis, etc. It’s the insects who have chosen to be complex and as the consequence of biting into the apple, they have become insignificant. 

The system wants insect like people. Those who are robotic and feel less and make their own thing around themselves to make more of themselves. Then when one is under control, all that is produced is going to be under control. 

The system seeks efficiency not personal gains and satisfaction. An ideal candidate for the system is a person who is awake enough to do the job and sleepy enough to not think too far. Someone who has eaten enough to not think about food but not too much that makes them sleepy. Someone who looks like an ideal pawn, there for business without having to many facets to deal with. Uniformity and path of least tension is the goal for conformity. 

Then what happen to the weekends and after hours? 

Does the System want robots or people? 

We pay our energy to the system and after hours aren’t clear and restful. Only if there was a valve. But the problem is the system is made to satisfy the insect inside of us. Someone who doesn’t think and just want to do something with their hands. Curiosity. Digesting like the way worm eats the leave and leaves no trace of what was there before. Bite by bite. 

Only when you get to unplug for a bit, things get to take turn and you get to notice how bounded people of systems are. 

The choice of satisfying desires indirectly with misplaced efforts is the beauty of it.