An evaluation of the stupidity of numbers, rank & class

[Doreen Peri]

It's so stupid, she said.

First there are tests
and so you get a number and
they judge you by that number.
You become the number and then
later when they add up all the numbers
from all the tests, there's a letter and
the letter is compared to the other three
letters because there are only four letters
and you become that letter and then
later after that all the letters you got become
numbers again, the number that you are
is what compares you with everyone else and
allows you to either proceed or stop and then
if you proceed the process continues for another
four years or eight years depending on how your
numbers and letters turn out and whether you decide
to proceed and the distance that you go with these
numbers which translate into letters and letters
which translate back into numbers determines your
entire future and how the world views you and where
you live and how much you can afford to buy because
the final number from the whole process shows how
you compared to the others who are working on their
numbers. If you don't have one of the highest numbers,
you can't get a higher number of dollars which is also a number
and that dollar number is the bottom line of what you will be and
how you will be able to survive because if you don't have a high
enough dollar number, you could have a hard time buying enough
food or clothing and being able to have enough dollar numbers to
pay to get your heat fixed or your roof repaired and it just goes on
and on and on and on, she said. It's a game and I don't like the
game and I don't want to play it but I have to play it because
if I don't, I won't have high enough numbers which translate into
letters which all add up and translate back into numbers again and
result in the ultimate number of what you can afford to be or do.

It's just so stupid.

[diesel dyke]

yes it is so stupid
but your poem is brilliant

thank you

[Sue Littleton]

You set my head spinning with this one! Sue

[joel]

"Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel."

[Doreen Peri]

Thanks you guys.

Wrote it off the cuff, straight from heart to pen because she really DID say this and it was indeed profound when she said it.

She thought she was going to get a debate from me, but no, no debate here. It's all so true. And when she said it, I nearly fell off my chair and my jaw dropped because she was so brilliant and her conclusions floored me. At such a young age to figure out that it's all a game. I said yes, yes, exactly! That's exactly what it is!

Sometimes I like writing the run-on-sentence style but not sure if it worked with this piece if it made someone's head spin and someone else wants to buy a vowel.

I think the concept of the numbers game is so important because it is the game that runs society, capitalist society anyway... and although stupid, it's a game you have to play. From the number & grade letters you get in school to the numbers you have to borrow to go to college to which college will let you in because of the numbers that you got and which college won't, to the number on your paycheck at the end of a pay period and the number on your income tax and the number on your house on the street where you live (because your paycheck determines where you can live) to the number on your retirement income which is probably going to be the number on a social security check.

Those who live in city ghettos historically have lower numbers than those who live in affluent neighborhoods. Their test scores are lower, the colleges they can go to are limited, the numbers on their paychecks are limited because they can't get the better jobs because of their school numbers, and the list goes on.

Matter of fact, those who get the lower numbers because they live in the lower class neighborhoods and don't have as much money numbers to start with are the first people to join the military because the military promises to help them with their education and then they end up to be one of the numbers with their toe tag numbered and in numbered body bags.

Thanks very much. I'm planning on a rewrite.

But I have to go back to work now and play the game because if I don't, I don't get my small number at the end of the pay period. And that number pays the number to my mortgage company because the mortgage company has a required specific number they want from me and if I don't give it to them, I'm out on the street and I may not even have a number on my street, I may roam from street to street living in a tent.

And there you have it.

[.Lucy.]

She's a number
he's a symbol
You're a she
I'm an it
We are things
They are words.
The equations
seem to get mixed up
in simple algebraic expressions
of bureaucratic silliness.

[joel]

Doreen--

I thought it was very powerful the way you wrote it...not so much a run-on sentence as an explosion of thought that doesn't waste time on periods and paragraphs. You really conveyed the proufound emotions of eureka and dismay all at the same time.

"Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel" was probably my unsuccesful tongue-in-cheek joke about how you need to have a certain number of dollars to buy that good vowel, the only one of the four acceptable numbers that's truly acceptable. money:A::more money:A+

[Doreen Peri]

Lucy... Yes! a numbers game... thanks for your poetic response.

Joel ... I've become a bit sensitive, I think, because I'm hanging out on a website where people critique each other's writings and sometimes I wonder whether I got my point across. Haven't been on a critique site since the old Scroll days, years ago. Sort of not used to it. Thanks for explaining your comment... I get it now! I'm Vana White and I'm turning over the letters! (Now that was sort of insulting to Vana White and I wonder why I would use her name as an analogy to someone stupid who finally gets it. Maybe because her position of turning over the letters for the past 30+ years seems like a not-too-bright position but judging by her numbers, I've no doubt she makes many multiples of more money numbers than I make). At any rate, I'm seriously happy that I my point across. Actually writing out the explanation in my last post about what the poem was about sure helped me to come up with instances and examples of how this numbers game works and I'll incorporate them in my revision. I'm feeling this may be an important poem for me. Thanks again!

[joel]

He read the rhymes of Mother Goose,
his morals tight and future loose—
he went to school and read a book,
of high mathematics he partook;
and scientific theories sought
to teach him how to best be taught
by universal colleges
where great degrees
of universities
collected to be his.

He counted years for Father Time
and penned for pennies decades’ dime—
he went to work for overpay
with numbers spelling CPA,
while GPAs obsessed his boys
and daughters took up cutting toys—
and all of it was adding up
to nothing good,
and all his problems stood
to overflow his cup.

He heard a cluck from Mother Hen,
a What The Fuck that struck him when
he wrote a letter in his strife
to grade himself on living life
and counted out each syllable
that pounded in the crucible
where all statistics melt away
till all that’s left
is something that was cleft
for what he felt that day.

[Steve Plonk]

"The nail that sticks up gets hammered back down" Old Oriental Proverb
Sometimes it causes a headache if you stick your neck out too much.
I've felt like that lately...There's "a spell that comes after".

[stilltrucking]

It was profound Doreen. An astute observation.




Did Pythagoras cross your mind when you wrote it? . I think he said that numbers is all there is.