Numerology Rules, Deal with It … Or Die!
(Or “The Day the Universe Rained 2’s Onto My Blond-Ass Head!”)
(Or “The Day the Universe Rained 2’s Onto My Blond-Ass Head!”)
Making Personal Growth Playful Makes Life Better
One of the things I enjoy about myself is the broad-minded and playful way I approach personal growth.
For example, in the past several years, I’ve learned a lot about myself and others by diving deep into MBTI personality types, Integral Theory, playing the Japanese game of park golf, riding my bike like a demon, breathing and taking cold showers Wim Hof style and, in the past six months, going full in on learning about the magic of astrology.
These likely are not the same things you’d undertake to learn about yourself and your world and that’s totally cool. The point is, don’t limit yourself because you never know what you might discover simply by being open-minded and not being so serious about what is classified as a tool for personal growth.
In part, my openness is a result of some pretty mind-blowing life experiences, some induced by psychedelics, some while being totally sober, but all convincing me that Life is much more magical than our modern “skeptics” would ever dream.
Ole Terence McKenna there, that amazing psychedelic bard of the late 20th century, had it right, IMHO: Life is stranger than we can imagine.
I believe another bard, this time Perry Ferrell of Los Angeles art rockers Jane’s Addiction, was also right when he sang, “I am certain/I have no doubt/that life is for playing.”
Even more, I feel the Universe is conscious and is, at its heart, very playful and fun and thus rewards us when we play with it. And one way it likes to do this is through numbers.
That’s probably a lot deeper water than I meant to throw you in, but hey, sometimes being playful means we get in over our heads, so here’s a life preserver and let’s reel you in and return to reality. Dry yourself off, grab yourself a tall or a fat one and allow me to take the bard’s robes from Perry and share an experience I had today.
Perhaps you’ll see how it suggests that this approach — play with the Universe and it plays back — works. And by “works,” I mean “makes life a lot more fun.”
“The Day the 2’s Became Tyrants of the World”
A few weeks ago, a friend and I scheduled an afternoon get-together for Saturday, February 29th, but I realized I had a previous appointment scheduled so when I asked her for a different date, she suggested today, Saturday 2/22 at our usual 2:30 p.m.
When I realized that would be 2/22/2020 at 2:30 p.m., I started to get excited. You see, I’ve been focusing on numbers a lot in the past year and the number two in particular recently. Why?
First and foremost because it is 2020, but also because of the meaning of two and how it ties into a theory I have which, well, which I’ll explain in a future post.
All you need to know for this article is that, well, actually not that much. Just understand that, in short, two has to do with relationships. And that makes this anecdote cool because it was an experience I shared with the first Japanese person who I worked with and also, besides my wife, the first Japanese person I became good friends with.
So, umm, what happened …
Oh yeah, sorry.
When I realized that the date of the meeting would be 2/22/2020, I mentioned it to my friend, who then had the bright idea to move the meeting time up eight minutes to 2:22 p.m. at 2/22/2020. If you’re keeping score, that’s eight two’s.
Big deal. But wait, it gets better.
You see, here in Japan, we are in Year 2 of the Japanese calendar year, which is based on the term of the emperor. So the new bloke started last May and then, to make the calendar match the calendar that civilization uses, year two started on January first. Thus, this is Reiwa 2 ( 令和2年).
So now we are up to 9 two’s.
But no, that’s not the punchline. Here it comes:
I was browsing my phone as I waited for my friend and saw it was 2:21 and just as I saw the clock flip to 2:22 I looked up and my friend had arrived, exactly at 2:22!
Again, sorry, that’s not the cool thing. (It was merely impressive as it’s hard to time something almost down to the second like that. At least it is for me!).
No — and I promise the real dope is in the photo after this paragraph — when she arrived, she told me she’d just come from a meeting of a club for people making English speeches and she showed me the paper in the picture below. Would you take a look at THAT!
Can you believe that? Meeting #222!
What are the odds? The group started over 10 years ago which led to the 222nd meeting falling on 2/22/2020! Amazing! (I know that rational-obsessed folks might dismiss such an experience — “Just pattern recognition, man!” or something — but here’s how I deflate that logic: “Party Pooper!” Ha ha.)
But there’s one last bit to the two numerology. That is, we now have 12 twos. (2/22/2020 2:22 p.m., Year 2 and Meeting #222) Another two.
Unfortunately, in numerology, this means the numbers don’t quite add up. You see, when you add numbers to get a base number, if your addition creates a number over 10, you then add those two numbers together. Thus, 12 is 1+2=3.
But wait a minute! We can work around this, can’t we? Do you see how? That’s right, let’s ignore Japan’s silly calendar and subtract that “Reiwa 2” (because really, who has emperors anymore? It’s the 21st freakin’ century, maaaaan! Then again, because Japan has that emperor, this coming Monday is a much-needed February holiday to celebrate his birthday. It used to be on 12/23, which I liked as it sort of made up for the total bummer of Christmas not being a holiday in Japan but since we get several days off around the New Year, I’ll trade that 12/23 for a break in mid-February!).
So keep the emperor so we can keep the holiday, just forget using his existence for the sake of making a goofy numerology blog post add up. Fair enough? Good! (Hopefully I won’t be have my arm ripped off and eaten by a emperor-loving kappa … phew, I’m still here. Looks like I’m okay ... for now!)
So now we have 11 2’s. 2:22 pm 2/22/2020 and Meeting #222. And thus 11, is 1+1 and there it is: another 2!
Well, that took a lot more work than it had any write to … er, that’s right to! Man, I’m all puckered out. But hopefully reading this wasn’t as tiring as creating it was.
To close this out and reference my political blog posts in a way that proves how into the two spirit I am this year, since last spring I’ve been donating to Bernie Sanders campaign since last year and sometime last fall, I realized that every two months, I’d just give him $20.20.
Hey Bernie Sanders! Let’s Inspire the American Spirit of the Practical Dreamer!
By most measures, these are dark times. Most people recognize this, either in their own lives, in their observations of…medium.com
So go ahead, I dare ya, start getting more playful with the numbers in your life. You just never know what might happen. If nothing else, you might get a blog post out of it!
Thanks for reading! I’m in the process of getting my independent media career up and running, so this will be updated as I go, but for now you can support me simply by sharing my stuff, by linking to me on Twitter, by checking out my old blog which has lots of good stuff, including a series on climate change (part 1, part 2 and part 3), or by checking out my new podcast, The B&P Realm Podcast. (This podcast is still in the process of being put up on all podcast sites. By February 1st it will be good to go! Each episode of the podcast contains a reading of my 2015 novel, “The Teacher and the Tree Man.” You can also find that book in full here, or you can find it broken down into four shorter books (book 1, book 2, book 3 and book 4). And if all that doesn’t get enough BW into your life, well, all I can say is stick around! Plenty more coming in 2020 and beyond!