What is obsession? Or paranoia? Is it going back to your door repeatedly to check whether its locked? Is it thinking whether you left your gas turned on when you came to work this morning?Or is it believing that your boss or the man you met on the street for a split second to be the member of some secret cult order?
Or perhaps it is obsessing over something totally usual?
I am a movie buff;not the eat, sleep and drink variety, but I do have my share of cinematic bliss almost every other night. This thought provocation is the result of a movie which goes by the name of "The number 23". It has Jim Carrey as the protagonist who gets obsessed with the number 23. "What is so unique about the whole thing?", you might ask, except the fact that its a good plot for an out of the way movie. Incorrect. That is where the part about my obsession comes in.
I haven't written in a while now; Tons of ideas roaming around in my head, larks on a bright morning,but too lazy to perch and take root. What makes me write this piece is the strange series of personal similarities that I found between myself and the movie. Yes, I am a dark fiction writer and I would willingly buy it if you said that I was a little cuckoo in the head, but before jumping to any sort of conclusions, here is what I have to offer. The details that follow are personal and are totally true. They haven't been fabricated to add color to the bunch of words. Believe you me, I have different tools to perform tasks such as those.If you hate spoilers, then you would have to make an exception just this time. This is what came to light when I was halfway through the movie:
-Jim Carrey in the movie is born on the third of Feb, which means 2/3 as is written in the US format.My birth year is 1985. Add all the numbers. They equal 23. That's not all. if you took into consideration my total date of birth, it is 6.4.85 . Still adds up to 23 doesn't it?
Big coincidence, as I would want to believe too. But it does not stop here. My bike number plate reads 2529. Doesn't add up to 23 right? Even I heaved a sigh of relief. But I guess I was up for one helluva time. Incidentally, my bike number plate reads "XX05X 2529". Do I even need to ask you to add it up?
Still a play of my garbled mind. This is unreal. I added up all the digits of my cell phone. They add up to 41.I added them up.Which comes to 5. Which is 2+3. 23.
Mind Games eh? Indeed. I live at house number 592. Five added to nine times two.
While I am writing this, I fished out my office ID to check if my employee code has something to do with the befuddled number. Turns out it doesn't. But what does turn up is the permanent landline number which is there on the ID. Not only does it have a "23" appearing in the order,, but also the numbers,23567(not in that order though) turning up before a zero. Add them all up. If it still doesn't freak you out, I don't know what would.
I did not want to put in this last bit, but what the heck, this is my place, innit? I am an IDEA subscriber, so I get this entire bucketful of useless service messages. This is what the last screen of the message which came during the movie read:
ID-53131
NAME) to 53131.Eg- JOB ANKIT. Rs 3- SMS.
Add up the initial numbers and subtract the last "3" from it.If you were me,I bet you wouldn't be very happy.
Am I losing my mind? Is this all just a big coincidence?I sure wish it is. With that I rest my case.
I did not want to put in this last bit, but what the heck, this is my place, innit? I am an IDEA subscriber, so I get this entire bucketful of useless service messages. This is what the last screen of the message which came during the movie read:
ID-53131
NAME) to 53131.Eg- JOB ANKIT. Rs 3- SMS.
Add up the initial numbers and subtract the last "3" from it.If you were me,I bet you wouldn't be very happy.
Am I losing my mind? Is this all just a big coincidence?I sure wish it is. With that I rest my case.
Laters.
P.S.- Interestingly, there is an explanation which is offered in the movie about what makes the number so unique. It appears that if you divided 2 by 3, what you would get is .666 . Chilling, isnt it?
21 comments:
Can't believe..i mean i had written a post on similar lines not more than 10 days back.It was based on the real life incidents of one of my friends..only he was and still is plagued by the number 64.
spooky coincidences..
its all in ur head but i love the ida of coincidences soooo or maybe you are jus plagued by the number.
Interesting. I have never been haunted by a number...name yes!
"larks on a bright morning,but too lazy to perch and take root" lovely!
Now what would really be weird is if we all conspired to make sure you had 23 comments. *evil grin*
Scribbler,
you are right. it is a paranormal obsession and the series of misevents - these are not mere events, mind you... are evidence enough that it is highly unusual.
besides you with your, curiousity for the mysteries of this universe, might have totally gone over the top with this one.
and as all of us know the new mantra- 'when we want something, the entire universe conspires and gives it to us...'
you have basically got what you have wanted, but had no idea that you wanted it...
i hope i made sense. but i know you understand perfectly.
PS: The PS was the final nail on the coffin. and the proverb employed here has been chosen with a deliberate intent in mind!
PPS: very succinctly written. it was a beautiful read.
lol!!! pretty spooky though!! :P
take care. ciao .
really crazy...
the numebr 23..i have a friend who went thru the exact same thing..i guess life's mysteries perplex us to no end..like what coems after deatha dn all that jazz..
nice one.
vyo
This song in the background, who's it by?
it was a movie...that's it...a couple of my friends got obsessed after we saw it...had to slap em outta it...the real thing i think is, once you start looking for something, whatever it may be, you will find it, cause you definitely arent gonna stop till you do.
Ha ha dude, don't be paranoid!
(Except when cooking up posts for us. What would we read otherwise! ;))
I would have been really freaked if you had stuck to one standard way of getting at 23 (say add all numbers and then all of resultant numbers and so on, till you reach a 2 digit number, and holy-moly say it turns out 23 every time!)
But as I see in the post, you have taken all sorts of liberties to reach that effing number, no matter what.
Its like that book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. It has a passing reference to a (fictional) software. The software doesn't give you solution/conclusion to a problem or steps or reasoning to solve it. Instead you give it the problem AND you tell it what want the solution to be (what suits you well in the situation ;) ). The program will derive all necessary arguments and reasons and steps and justification why that particular solutions is the correct solution to your problem!
Why 23? I claim your life is jixed by number 21. And just like that software above, I am gonna prove it!
1) 2009 - Your current year! Which means, oh hell dude! You are so jinxed! Living in the the 21st century! :O
Now do not argue that living in the 21st century is not unique.
Cos neither is having a birth year totalling to 23 unique. People born within multiple of 9 years difference from you will be able to conveniently fit 23 in their year
.....,
1968,
1976,
--->1985<---,
1994,
2003, (comes to 5, which by your own logic for cellphone, is 2+3)
2012, (similar to 2003, if you are hell bent to fit in 23)
...
So 1 in 9 people have that kind of '23 jinx'
But take a look at chance of living in the 21st century. Considering life span of 100 years, in years till now, chance of a particular person having lived in 21st century is almost 1 in 20, which makes this 'jinx' lot more unique and hence eerie than the 23 jinx of birth year!
And as more centuries pass, the chance that a given person lived in 21st century will go on reducing! So this jinx will become more and more unique if we consider till eternity. The birth year 23 jinx will still hold for 1 in 9.
So you should definitely be more spooked about 21 rather than 23!
2) 6.4.85,
(6X4)-8 + 5 = Holy Cow! Its 21!
( You brought in all sorts of weird maths for house number didn't you? So can I :P)
3) 2529
(You conveniently took XX05X. I'll conveniently ignore it :P)
(-2+5) X (-2+9) = Dammitt! Its 21!
4) 592 (Your House number)
5 x (9+2) = 55 = 10 (add digits) = 1 (add digits ) = (2-1) -> 21 (Oh no!) or (-2+3) -> 23 (If you insist! ;) )
In fact if you would have given me things such as street number, pin code number , I am sure 21 is having more predominant presence in your life looking at the broder picture ;)
But since you have not, and considering how whackily varying different rules you have appied to different numbers in your life, here is my new strategy:
House number is 592.
The 2 fell in love with both 5 & 9. It could not decide who is the one! (there was no 1, otherwise it would have very simple to know who is the 1 :P)
So 5 & 9 were both '2 timed' ;)
But whenever 2 was with 5, 9 got very cross. Whenever 2 was with 9, 5 got very cross!
Ultimately, disgusted by 2's brazen, wanton behavior 5 removed 2 from its life (5-2). 9 also did the same (9-2)
Now even though 5 was without 2 (5-2) and 9 was without 2 too (9-2), they were still very cross (X) with each other.
So that basically sums up the story as (5-2) X (9-2) ..... = 21! Oh no! Mithun is screwed by 21!
5) your mobile number: Since you haven't provided it, I have no strong evidence to beleive you, nor any ammunition to prove my own 21 thingie!
6) ID-53131
NAME) to 53131.Eg- JOB ANKIT. Rs 3- SMS.
Great. So you are adding and subtracting as and when suits your convenience.
I too dont mind throwing in both + & -. But while we are at it, why not make it more systematic eh?
Lets say every alternate number has a -. Then:
+5-3+1-3+1-5+3-1+3-1+3
= 3
=2+1!
:|
7) Of course your employee number has nothing to do with 23 :P. Because actually, its tied to 21! Go check! Boo!
8) The landline. Is it the landline of your office central switchboard? (for outside people, whose call will be diverted to employees as needed) (the common no they put on id cards) In that case 23 is not after you personally! Chill!
And just in case its you personal landline office/home number, I salute you for conveniently picking only the 'freaky 5' numbers out of the lot of 7 to 10 digits that make up landline numbers of various operators :P
Try the complete number and I am sure 21 will emerge. If you can't figure out how, I'll be glad to be at your service!
------------------------------------------------
I guess that turns most of your pro-23 arguments into my pro-21 arguments, and at least neutralises the others (due to lack of sufficient data available to me to use for pro-21)
You see, my point is, if you define the rules very loosely (which is same as no rules at all :P), you can get almost any damn number from any set of damn numbers. In fact thats a standard kind of maths crossword puzzle. They give you a set of numbers, separated by blanks to be filled with arithmentic signs. You are asked to make the expression equivalent to some damn number. Standard fare of the aptitude test we engineers need to go through :P
And dont worry about 2/3 =0.666
0.666 is just a thousandth part of a devil. Which is basically you, or me, or your average next-door-neighbour ;).
Actually 2/3 = 0.66666666666666666666666666............................
Which is fair enough. I am definitely a little more that a thousandth of the devil ;)
Actually why dont we follow Indian dating (not the romantic one) system rather than US.
Then it is 3/2 = 1.5.
And both of us are definitely dedh-shaney samples ;)
------------------------------------------------
But just in case you are really freaked and a devoted believer of the 23 crap, let me have some more fun with you.
Did you say the number of landline had 23567?
(23)(567)
23 as you have proved beyond (your) doubt, is related to devil (or is the word satan? Whatever :P)
And 567 is actuall devil himself in disguise! How did he disguise himself? Very cleverly (:P). He threw off one unit from his first digit to his last digit:
666 = (5+1) + 6 + 6 = 5+1+6+6 = 5 + 6 +(6+1) = 567! Boooo! And you said 567 are not necessarily in order. Doesn't matter. Basically a unit was thrown from one 6 to another :P Whatever be the order, its still devil in disguise!
Ok. One more:
Mithun Mukherjee.
13 9 20 8 21 14 13 21 11 8 5 18 10 5 5
(alphabet numbers substituted)
+13 -9 + 20 -8 + 21 - 14 +13 - 21 + 11 -8 +5 -18 +10 -5 + 5
(alternate signs added)
= 23 (Go run!!!!23 is after you!)
Your life is doomed now! Either 23 is after you, or 21. Maybe both!
So run!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OR GROW UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
---------------------------------
P.S. : I really enjoyed wasting 2 hours writing this comment. Especially with your background music. What is the name of this song? How can I get it? Its really good!
Oh great! unintentionally my previous comment is #12.
But since it is taking reverse view than you, you shoud read it reverse. Damn again 21 has got you by the neck!
And this comment number is the ultimate in superstitions! #13 Ha!
Dude! I finally found out. Big thanks to you for introducing me to Advaita!
i like the movie too. i love carey. he just makes sense with everything :)
Okie... I know wat movie I wanna watch next.. NOT ONLY coz of ur post, but also thanx to Stupidosaur who managed to make me spend more time readin his comment.. Lol.. Cheers to u guys!!
Haven't seen the movie..but loved your description :)
stop making up 23's man srsly
thank you all...period.
scribblers inc.
Lol.. my practical, conservative outlook is that with numbers one can manipulate the hundreds of formulas to come to the same conclusion.
But taking into consideration that Im practically dyscalculic, I suppose there is definitely more to numbers than that.
You should read books on natural history and numbers in nature.Like the geometrics of a spider web or dynamics of honey combs or the no. of spirals in a sea shell. Everything has a fixed/linked answer.
Maybe that would help you a bit.
Hey u know what... i am really paranoid.. i keep checking if i have locked the door or no..
Make website india
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