Inside the numbers
Numbers are weird.
The math department down the hall likes to talk about the objectivity and precision of numbers, but in typical English department fashion, I think “Yeah, but what about how they feel”
How numbers feel is completely subjective and personal but provides important meaning to numbers outside of a simple measurement.
Two is a number of miles. An exact, precise distance. But life doesn’t exist in precise distances with no context. Two miles on a freeway can be a blink. Two miles from camp is a story.
