Doing the Math

It started with the four adversities of surfski paddling: wind, cold, rain, dark, all nasty little four-letter words. Ostensibly two together were not enough to keep a paddler from going out, but you throw in a third and the coffee shop begins to look real cozy.

Zero of the four adversities exist over most of November in San Diego, so out we go, no excuses. Dawn patrol is especially spectacular under coastal clouds.

On a planet with more than seven billion humans, 2.2 million of whom live in this city, I am often alone out here. Or a half dozen of us on SUPs, surfskis, OC-1s or OC-2s, on the ocean, two or three or four miles offshore, while a mile inland, the 71,295 seat Qualcomm Stadium is overflowing with fans for the Chargers game.

We live by the numbers.

The evening news programs tell us two window washers dangled for one hour from the 69^th floor of One World Trade Center. And though they say there is no “I” in team, one man from Seal Team 6 can claim he was the guy who shot Public Enemy #1, Osama bin Laden. There are 8,500 homeless individuals in San Diego.

America has 80 million people age 55 and older. And there are three times more chickens on the planet than there are humans.

A 220-lb landing craft spent 10 years in flight to land 316 million miles away on Comet 67P, a 2.5-mile wide ball of rock and ice moving more than 40,000 mph, to look for clues about the creation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

Really? I would have put it at 6.5 billion. But what do I know? Does anyone really know enough to dispute that 4.5 billion figure? Let's try the age of Kennewick Man, the most complete ancient skeleton ever found, supposedly from 7,300 to 7,600 BC. To me he doesn't look a day over 4,000.

 Most of us can’t do the math, so it's a blind trust. Time and space, unfathomable fathoms, the data continually updates the intangible universe of the tangible environment that has a primal impact on our well-being.

The Nature Conservancy tells us that between years 2000 and 2012, some 2.3 million square kilometers of the world’s forests, appx. the area of all U.S. states east of the Mississippi, were cut down. Unfortunately for organizations looking to rally support for opposition (is that an oxymoron?) maybe only farmers can grasp the size ratio here. And they’re too busy trying to keep Monsanto seeds out of their fields to do much protesting.

Consider that a four-square-mile patch of rainforest contains 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of trees, 400 species of birds and 150 species of butterflies. Imagine telling those butterflies to just hold still a moment while you finish counting that swath of tangled vines, snakes and loamy soil. Glad someone else got that job. I'll take their word for it.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 tropical forest plants have been identified to have cancer-fighting properties. Less than one percent of the plants in that shrinking forest have been analyzed for their medical values. So while these forests represent limitless healing potential, we continue at  breakneck speed in their destruction. Of six million square miles of tropical rainforest originally on the planet, only 2.4 million square miles remain. When the collective hum of bulldozers leveling trees in the forest go silent because there is no longer a forest, will anyone hear it?

Most people agree that three is three and five is five, so this helps humans communicate important tenets like the amount of fat or carbohydrate calories we need in our diets. Now if only those scientists could agree on the number. It's still a moving target.

Academics are kind of like nutritionists this way. They've devised tests to monitor the learning accomplishments of our children each year, not so we can devise better ways to allow teachers to teach, necessarily, but so we can better categorize students. Because that's important.

These tests supply voracious data crunchers plenty of raw material to play with, while serving up stress cocktails to children who aren't of drinking age yet. Beyond the critical analysis of whether it’s one fish or two fish that are either red or blue fish, we seem to have veered off the path of mighty adventure in the classroom.

Don't get me wrong, numbers matter. Indeed, my age (big number) came in handy yesterday for a senior discount at a thrift store.

And it helps when the numbers are relevant. Like how many 8-oz blocks of cream cheese you need to make a cheesecake (3) and how many hours it takes to make one (4). I know the effect of two degrees increase in temperature of D-76 at 7.5 minutes with minimal agitation and a looming deadline on a microscopic sheet of silver alloy. Ok, that's not really relevant since we've gone digital. I know. I know. But some numbers just stick. I remember the phone number our family had when I was six. And the address. And the license plate of our mud brown Chevy Nova station wagon.

I studied works by the f/64 gang of Edward Weston, Consuelo Kanaga, Imogen Cunningham and eight others, and memorized Ansel Adams’ Zone System which made it relevant to assign numbers to shades of grey from black to white.

Socially we attach great importance to implied numbers like first or last: the first state in the nation, first woman to swim the English Channel, first athlete to admit to doping, implying that, for a while at least, there is only one.

Clearly we use numbers to pass judgment: She’s one of a kind, more is better, it doesn’t count, the evidence doesn’t add up.

If your lucky number is three, then is nine three times as lucky? Are there still buildings without a 13th floor, and do people really believe going from 12 to 14 means there's no 13? If an Oreo is awewsome, then shouldn’t double-stuffed be more better?

Some numbers define entire generations like those who lived through WWI and WWII.  Millenials wonder if we are looking down the throat of a WWIII in the Middle East. Will it be the last one? Can wars ever face extinction, like so many butterflies or First Nation Peoples? Am I a better person if I have more followers on Twitter? Even though Taylor Swift's new song about pretending to not care she was dumped has been number one on the pop charts for three weeks, I still can't listen to more than three seconds of it.

Aside from those senior discounts, age represents nothing important. This summer when my 84-year-old mother visited, she helped a 75-year-old man with a cane get on the plane. Some of my friends are five or ten years older than I am, some are five years younger.

They're all twice as fast as I am. Ok, it's a personal problem. I admit that. Some have two dozen triathlons, Molokai and Ironman races to their credit as well as three more decades of intense fun on the ocean. I'm loving trying to catch up.

It was the young 49-year-old who had a heart attack while we were paddling, revealing a 90% blockage in one artery, quickly repaired with a stent. Two weeks later he won his age division in the La Jolla Shores 9.2 mile surfski race.

From South Africa and Spain, to California and Maine, two weeks later, the paddling community came together as one body holding its collective breath, then letting it out again in a frozen sigh as one of six paddlers missing during the Pete Marlin Surf-ski Race was missing too long. With winds at 47-its, swells at 6.5 meters, the six went unaccounted for. Five were found safe on the beach, but as winds increased to 60 kts in the afternoon, the search intensified on land, sea and by air. The race from Orient Beach to Yellowsands, East London was supposed to take appx three hours. For his family and friends and those who searched it was an eternity until he was found 40 km north of the race finish site, sadly, two days later, having succumbed to the conditions.

Symbolically, when a great athlete leaves the field for good, we retire their number.

We hope in numbers, as though a definitive numerical response will close a chapter when we reach that number. Like, how many more Black youths will be shot by White police officers before it stops? How many more patriotic, dedicated soldiers, sailors and Marines will be raped by fellow military personnel before it ends?

If campaign finance reform were to actually eliminate PAC money would politicians be forced to answer to the will of the people who voted for them?  Is there a limit to the carnage one wildman on PCP can inflict in one alley at 3 a.m.? (you should have seen it).

But we wonder most deliciously without numbers. We use the unfathomable as permission to enter the ether of Wonder itself: stars in the sky, times we can fall in love, masterpieces Michelangelo created in one lifetime, how long a Twinkie can sit outside the package before it shows signs of aging. We are better off not trying to do the math on some things. I could be wrong, but I’m not.