Heinz 57 - Keeping Score

I suppose it is natural to count - we are taught to do so from an early age. However, I wonder if counting sometimes gets in the way of things. For many, myself included, counting sometimes is a way of keeping score and the score is not what always counts. [Use of "count" was intended:)] For example, I now am experimenting with Facebook. I actually signed up about six months ago, but never even signed on after that for three months and then not again until recently. In the interim, I used to tell people that I was on Facebook, but that I only had one friend. The number was "fun". Now, as I beginning to look around Facebook and talk with people about it, I find that the number of friends seems to be of great importance - sometimes a status symbol. In fact, one of the first questions people will ask you about your Facebook account is "How many friends do you have". I was pleased that during a recent conversation someone said that "so and so" had some obscenely large number of friends and therefore, he wouldn't friend her because she was "just a Facebook whore".

But counting seems to come into so many other aspects of life and in many it is necessary. I suppose that the question is how we use or misuse the numbers. (Related only because it deals with numbers: "Figures don't lie, but liars figure".) It is too easy to count friends, money, possessions, activities, accounts, employees and more, and it is too easy to keep track of your weight and count the number of years of your life. However, in the end, those numbers are not the ones that "count" - not the ones that matter. For example, it is not the number of friends, but the quality of the friendships, not the amount of money, but how you spend it, not the possessions, but what you do with them, not the number of activities, but the purposes of those activities, not the number of accounts, but the quality of service that you give to those accounts, not the number of employees, but how you work with them and treat them, not your weight in pounds, but your weight in personality and caring terms, and not your number of years, but the way you spend those years.

I never truly know what will come out when I sit down to write this journal. Hence, sometimes the title is wrong and I have to go back and edit it. Today, I was going back to my garden focus and note that, in today's count (I do it twice a day), I found that I have 35 "full-size" tomatoes growing and 22 "cherry" tomatoes. My reaction is that I now have a Heinz 57 garden in terms of the numbers (but not the varieties). However, when I started typing, I ended up thinking about numbers, counting and keeping score (so the title of this entry had to be revised).

I guess I can "count" on the fact that as the "number" of entries increases, I will surprise myself time and time again about what will come out. That is one of the wonders of "forcing" myself to write each (or almost each) day even if I don't have a topic in hand. Of course, I should remember my thoughts set forth above and try not to keep track of the number of entries, but the "quality" of the entries (once I figure out what gives entries "quality" and like beauty, the "quality" of the entry probably is in the eyes of the reader (and I am the first reader).