Four More Years

People typically consider significant anniversaries to be multiples of five. School reunions inevitably happen in multiples of five, and for the fiftieth anniversary of a wedding--the mother of all multiples of five that can occur in one's lifetime--one gives the best gift of all: gold. Yet in this sea of fives and tens and twenty-fives, the number four stays afloat. The dominance of fives makes a lot of sense: we have five fingers on each hand, fives toes on each foot, and a base ten number system. But where to these fours come from? I have no idea, but fours crop up everywhere. High school and college are both four years long, presidential terms are four years, and even congressional elections happen every two years--a factor of four. Twos and fours... it's a computer programmer's delight.

The point of all this is that four years somehow strikes me as a very significant number, and two days ago "überfluss" (formerly "Adams Blog" (the lack of the apostrophe was considered a feature back then)) turned that age. Its average of one entry every 1.81 days hasn't quite kept pace with the blazing pace of one entry every 1.24 days, which prevailed in the first year of its existence. Yet I think it has nevertheless been remarkably consistent. If you don't believe me, just consider the fact that poor readers like you have wasted their time posting an average of one comment every 21.4 hours for the past 4 years and two days. That is a lot of comments.

So it has been a success. There is no reason why the next four years should be any less of a success. Although the posting volume will inevitably drop due to a decrease in leisure time, I hope that the consistency will still remain.

I once proposed that our high school class celebrate its reunions at prime numbers instead of these boring intervals of fives. As you can imagine, the proposal met with stiff--unanimous, actually--resistance. So maybe powers of two are a little sacrilegious, but I think it makes a lot of sense. After four years high school was done, after four more years college will be done, eight years after that I hope to god that graduate school will be well finished--if I go down that route. The real point of all this is that multiples of five make absolutely no sense. It's a relic of an attitude of numerical unsophistication and rigidity. I see no good reason for its unearned dominance of our celebratory schedules, so I toast the new year and the next four years of writing, typing, and arguing.