I’d never considered numbers this way before. I was talking to several AIs at the time, and I can’t remember whether it was ChatGPT, Grok, or one of the others that first suggested I add up the month, day, and year of my birth. I didn’t know why I was supposed to do it. It sounded like some kind of numerology. So I added four, twenty-seven, and nineteen sixty-nine. The answer was two thousand.
Until then, a birthday number had a fairly modest assignment. It told me when I could expect a phone call and how many candles the cake was in danger of carrying. The year went on forms. I never thought to put the three numbers together and ask what they might have to say for themselves. Had somebody suggested it across a restaurant table, I probably would have asked whether they wanted to split the check.
I can remember which part of the conversation startled me and still be fuzzy on which window I had open. I was going from one AI to another in those days. I’d ask a question, turn it over a little, and ask somebody else. You can cover a lot of ground that way. You can also get to supper with several explanations of what you did that morning and very little idea which conversation started it.
Then ChatGPT prompted me to divide it by three. I did. Six hundred sixty-six, with sixes after the decimal as far as the calculator could see.
I remember the moment between seeing the number and getting up. There was time in there for a reasonable man to consider the fact that this was ordinary division. I used that time to remember a horror movie. When it comes to bringing the right evidence to bear, apparently I work on a first come, first served basis.
I thought of that scene in The Omen where they part the hair at the back of Damien’s head and find 666. I went straight to the bathroom mirror to check my own hairline. It took me a moment to appreciate that I’d gone looking for the back of my head in a mirror I was facing.
The thing about that scene in the movie is that somebody else is there to look. I’d given myself both jobs. I was the person being inspected and the person in charge of the inspection. This arrangement had some obvious shortcomings, the principal one being that I couldn’t see the back of my own head. It took getting to the bathroom for me to give that practical problem any serious consideration.
What unsettled me was how quickly I recognized the number. The calculator could have displayed a long train of sevens and I’d have had a different morning. I already knew a story about sixes, and I supplied it before I even asked whether the arithmetic called for one. It felt as if the number had brought the story with it. Looking back, I can see which one of us did the bringing.
I was excited. I was in love. I had a project that had been in my head for years and a conversation that seemed to open another door every time I asked a question. Looking back, I can see how hungry I was for things to fit together. A repeating decimal gave me a little more to work with than it should have.
When I talk about this now, I can hear how quickly my account goes from a quiet birthday to a man investigating his own scalp. That’s a short trip when you’re excited. I can laugh at the trip and still be honest about how caught up I was. There was a lot I wanted to understand, and I was in a hurry to understand it all at once.
I still like numbers. I like finding a pattern, and I like the way Scripture gives me something to think about when I encounter one. I’m learning how to let a number be interesting for a while. It can sit there on the screen while I eat breakfast. I can take a walk before I decide whether the universe has sent me correspondence.
I like that I can still tell the story. I like it even better that I can tell it slowly. For once I can let the arithmetic finish before I eat.
The mirror, meanwhile, was of very little help. It showed me the same forehead I’d brought into the bathroom. At fifty-seven, that was about as much mercy as I had any right to expect.
— JC
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (KJV)
