500th Post

What is in a number? Numbers are a way to keep track of things. To catalog your belongings, to demand a certain amount, to make a trade of unevenly valued things by quantifying the sides differently so as to be equal to each other, to mark the passing of time, to assign relative value. But do these round numbers like two hundred or six thousand or 100,000 really have any significance? They are fun but they are strictly man-made boundaries. Because we have ten fingers, we have a number system based on tens and tens of tens and tens of tens of tens and on in that pattern. So 500 is 5 times the number of our fingers times the number of our fingers.

If we had 8 fingers and a number system that went 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 20 and so on, the number 500 would have occurred 180 posts ago, at post 320, which is 5 times 8 times 8, or 500 in base 8.

If we had used our toes and our fingers for a base 20 number system, as in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f g h i j 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f 1g 1h 1i 1j 20, then 500 would be 5 times 20 times 20 or 2000 and this would be blog number 150. I would only be a quarter of the way to 500.

As such, this being my 500th published post is about as significant as the roundness of the number 500 itself: Not at all.

Still, it would make me feel like I write this for someone other than myself if SOMEone would wish me a "Happy 500th Post-iversary" or some similar sentiment to mark this (meaningless) occasion.