November 2, 2010
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Count me in
Have you ever wanted to see the stats for your life? This has personally always been one of my hidden desires, as I think about things. I’m not sure which stats I would want to see first, I just know that having them all on record would make me feel a lot happier.
If you had all your stats on hand, you could compare you are and your friends on all sorts of things. “Dude, I have sneezed 567 more times than you have in life.” “I am 32.7% more likely to come to a full and complete stop while driving.” “If it’s between three and four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, I am twice as likely to use the word ‘capsize’ in a sentence.”
This would revolutionize everything. We would no longer have to worry about how many steps it takes on average to get from the bakery to the laundromat, how many run-on sentences we’ve ever spoken, the total weight of all the pizzas we’ve ever eaten, how long in total we’ve waited in front of the microwave, the average horespower of our high-fives (perhaps depending on the person!), and so much more! And of course, none of this is just the average of all the people that there are: this is for your life specifically. Averages are fake numbers; they include all of the people, and thus indicate none of the people.
I want to know all those things. Although maybe it is just me who is obsessed with stats. When I got my first box of baseball cards, I went through each card and memorized every player’s entire statistical history as a baseball player. As a cross country runner I was the same way, always memorizing all the race and split times of all my teammates and our competition. The idea that something has a very precise value, and you can think about what that value means, is fascinating. And it doesn’t matter what the thing is to me; the littlest things are interesting—or as Chesterton would say, there are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
How much fun would it be to bet on who stepped on the least sidewalk cracks in the last month? Or who (among guy friends) has made eye contact with a girl they didn’t know the most times in the last week? Or whose life, of someone you have always lived around, has had the higher average elevation?
I think that would be simply wonderful, because, after all, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about this. And that’s the problem.
Comments (7)
ooo That sounds like a very interesting idea. I would want to know how many miles I have walked. The down side is that everyone would become obsessed over their stats. You would constantly be trying to regulate them, just like we regulate everything in our lives now: clothes, money, popularity.
Wow what a clever post! Imagine all of the laughs– and groans– that might come from viewing all those stats, from how many times you’ve missed the bus to how many times you’ve gotten drunk and how much you’ve shitted in the bathroom over our lifetime. And all of those stats would be unique.
Imagine what that would do to the Guinness Book of Records!
Actually, that would be very interesting. How many hours have I spent at the piano? How many times have I played this one song? On average, how long does it take me to read a book? How many books have I read? How many times have I kisse dmy husband on the nose? How often do I make people laugh?
Some things I think cannot have a precise value put on them, at least not that we can count.
Good post. I loved it, and even recommended it on my site.
This is the most rec-worthy post I’ve read in awhile. The irony that the button would malfunction at this hour of the day is huge.
WOW! This is such an amazing concept. I would really like to know these things. Great post.
@christykim -
Actually, crapping is one of the stats I’ve always wanted to have the most. I think it would be cool if every bathroom had an electronic leaderboard for the weightiest/long dumps of all time for that bathroom. I think it would make it that much more interesting when you are in there, and would at least give you something to hope for as you crap. To think: you could be the new leader. What an honor that would be.
@StrokeofThought -
hahahhahahaha