126.

5. All you know about that number is that it is written there; nothing more. The number five is written there, that is it. You do not know why or for what reason it was written. You especially don’t know how it was arrived at. Is it the length of a match or is it the number of matches? You don’t know. It is not known if that five is a measurement or a counted number. Maybe it is the number of chickens in the garden, or maybe it is the number of times I looked at my watch. Well, now that you don’t know how that number came up you begin to wonder how it was written. This curiosity stems from time plus boredom. You wonder if the person who wrote it down was in a bad mood since it looks as if the pen was held tightly. You wonder if indeed that five is a continuous line, or whether or not the person lifted his pen to make that horizontal line. It is there but why is it there? It gets you thinking. An itch is what its like. An itch you need to scratch. This aggravation is aroused from a practical standpoint: How do you correctly integrate it into your life> This is a serious question. Is it a favorable idea to store this number in memory - just as other famous numbers are stored - or do you just continue moving on as if nothing pierced your reality in the first place? But once you try to answer this question or decide that you should indeed reference it somehow, you fall short of information. Too many why’s left unanswered, too many reasons left undefined. And so it is actually not possible to integrate that number at all. And this is the point at which we are right now. The five is brought to our attention but of ourselves we expect an authentic interpretation. Possibly, if we are lucky enough, a valid one. Of course we can just move on, and entertain ourselves by some other means, but would that be just? Would that not be and injustice - not only to that five written in the middle on one sheet of blank paper - but also to ourselves. It is easy to see that failing to record this number correctly inside of us would mean that we are in one way failing. This has now turned into a very personal battle for you and just as much me. This failing would reflect a deficiency and would lessen your dignity. In the eyes of the one who wrote that five down you have fallen into his trap and are now less of what you were before. And the question still remains whether or not there is any hidden meaning or just arbitrariness. Considering the two options you are left standing still. For one, due to lack of information you cannot decipher any code and reveal any meaning because there is nothing to work with. And the randomness, the pure coincidence that you came across this number does not calm your mind or give you any satisfaction. Take it for what it is - you say to yourself. Then what is it? The number five. But this leaves the glass empty and we are both thirsty. More time will not solve anything, it is just right thinking that is needed. The more time you spend thinking, and conjuring up reasons of justification, the more you realize at how much skill you lack in your abilities to think. You find out that although you may appear to be acting like a rationalist you are only a clown. As you begin to understand this you are motivated even more to figure it out. You become very passionate, and it no longer affects your mind but your way of life. This incident - very minuscule in proportion - is extrapolated into your day to day experience. You try your skills at finding the meaning of other things. If successful there is no doubt in my mind that you try this technique on the original number five. It is now carried in you under the category of uncertainty. And day by day that category soon begins to grow in number. It fills your head. Soon that category takes precedence and becomes the heading, the title of everything around you and inside you. You continue to live your life but now you just aren’t sure any more. Everything, just like that number five falls short of providing enough meaning for you. You yourself do not provide meaning enough for it, and everything else. This can be visualized as sinking into a hole, with the possibility of climbing back out just as uncertain as everything else.