Numbers
I wonder if humans are uniquely concerned with numbers. We are obsessed with counting and measuring time. We add numbers, but more often subtract. We take stock of numbers, yet we all too often divide numbers.
Like many creatives, numbers are not something that I find very exciting. There is the most important number of income because I need to make enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the table, oh yeah, and pay bills and taxes.
But the world and social media fills my days with numbers to the point of overflowing. Now we have numbers for followers, subscribers, email opens, clicks, and likes. Which numbers are important, if any? It is easy to be overwhelmed by it all.
Last week I sent out the newsletter on a Saturday, which was a day late for me. I worried that it being a weekend and Easter weekend, it would get overlooked. To my surprise, the newsletter was the best performing email in months. The funny part about sending out the email on Saturday was that was the day I wanted to send it out from the start. Why, you may ask? Because Saturdays were the day that cartoons were on television when I was a kid in the prehistoric days before Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. I looked forward to Saturday mornings all week, eager to soak in the images and then try to draw them. Saturday just seems like a day for cartoons and comics to me. Time and numbers will say whether I am right or wrong.
“Murder by Numbers” is a song by the band The Police on their album Synchronicity. If you are not paying attention, it would seem like a song in praise of a serial killer. The song is however a clever song about how governments and world leaders are mass murderers. Sting said that it is the “cynical manipulation of large numbers of people.”
“But you can reach the top of your profession
If you become the leader of the land
For murder is the sport of the elected
And you don't need to lift a finger of your hand”
- Sting (Gordon Sumner)
Me being me, I had a vision that the numbers were trying to kill the singer. I feel this way about creativity in the age of social media. The algorithms(aka the numbers) don’t want your art. The algorithm wants your time and attention. The numbers will take care of everything.
Make you art on your own terms. Don’t let the algorithm and numbers kill your art.
On a more positive note, I did like the Count from Sesame Street. He does make counting and numbers fun.
Be kind to yourself on your creative journey.
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You have reached the end of the newsletter. Here is an official version of the Police performing Murder By Numbers live with Sting briefly introducing the song.
Bonus video 😊, the Count counting.