Maybe the Squirrel Knows Something We Don't

Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a thought that does not leave me all day. This particular thought has come back to me more than once: Why is the human species so obsessed with numbers?

Numbers become important before we are even born. How far along is the mother? 

How big is the baby? 

Is the baby growing properly? 

The belly gets measured. 

The heartbeat gets counted. 

An ultrasound measures the baby’s body and checks whether everything is the size it should be and in the right place. Before anyone knows what kind of person we will become, they know how many weeks we have been growing.

Then we are born, and the numbers are recorded: the date, the time, our weight and our length. For the next couple of years, people even measure our age in months. 

Is the baby four months old, six months old or sixteen months old? 

At some point we stop using months and start using years, but the measuring never stops.

How tall are we? What grade are we in? 

How many years of education did we complete? 

How much money do we earn? How many hours did we work?

Even the most ordinary parts of a day depend on numbers. Do we have enough apples in the refrigerator to make a pie? How many miles do we have to drive? What time do we need to leave? How many steps did we walk?

We divide time into minutes, days, months and years so we can tell where we are in life and what we think we should be doing.

That made me wonder whether other species are as obsessed with numbers as we are. My very first thought was a squirrel. I watch the squirrels outside the window gathering all the nuts that have fallen off the tree. Does a squirrel recognize when his pile is big enough?

Suppose he lives inside a hollow tree. He knows he has to gather nuts for the winter, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a quota for the day, or another squirrel keeping track of his productivity. Maybe he looks at the pile and thinks that if the nuts reach the little knot inside the tree trunk, he will have enough. It is a measurement, but it is not arithmetic. It is simply his own visible sign of enough.

Then again, maybe the squirrel keeps collecting as long as there are nuts to collect. Maybe he even steals a few from his neighbor. He is not trying to have the biggest retirement account in the forest. He is following an instinct that tells him to prepare for the long winter ahead.

Humans may not be so different. We have turned the pile into a bank balance, a house, cars, possessions and investments. The difference is that we keep moving the knot higher. We reach the place we once thought would be enough and immediately decide that we need more.

Yes I absolutely pay attention to numbers. I count money, cruise nights, points, count the days until we travel again, and all sorts of other things. The numbers help me make decisions, but I do not want them making the decisions for me.

Maybe that is what I have chosen to do differently. I base my life on what is enough for me, and I feel comfortable with that number without always seeking more.

It truly is all in the knowing. 

Knowing what matters. 

Knowing what you need. 

Knowing when something has served its purpose. 

Knowing when to keep going and when to let go.

Most of all, knowing when the pile has reached the knot in your own tree, even if the rest of the world keeps telling you to gather more nuts.