Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Blog Number 92

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

If your head starts to hurt anytime during this blog feel free to move onto CNN's Offbeat News section for some lighter fare.  Yesterday's blog was my 100th entry.  Now I did not make a big deal about it (for reasons that will soon become apparent).

In my (humble) opinion, our society makes too big of a deal about anything ending in a 0.  We think that turning 30, 40, 50, etc., is a big deal.  This also works for anniversaries  The anniversary / birthday industry really pushes this idea as well.  We are also this way about anything ending in 5.  I have a hypothesis on why this is so.  Now I have no proof of this but I am sure if you ask Mr. Google you would find some people that agree with me.  I think it is because we have 5 fingers on each hand (or 10 total).  Our whole society is base 10 "based" on this fact.

As a kid, I remember reading Ripley's Believe It Or Not.  One article stated that certain tribes (in Africa I think) averaged 6 fingers per hand.  Even then I wondered if 10 meant anything special to them (like our 8 or 9 did).  I mean who really celebrates their 27th (the 3rd 9) of anything?  So, would they celebrate the 30th of anything since 36 would be 3 twelve's and hence be their "30"?  I spend a lot of time pondering these things and always have.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

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