100!
Like, wow! That's something! I guess. I mean, yeah, I know it's arbitrary, and has no more real significance than the numbers 98 or 99, but as a symbol it does evoke something. There's a sense of completion, I suppose, at least when you think about percentage, per cent meaning per hundred, so that 100% means das is alles, you've got it all, a clean sweep, dead solid perfect.
Using our common form of numerical notation (we call them Arabic numerals but they originated in India, where the zero was invented after they adopted the alphabet which they received from the Semites) the number 100 is the first 3 digit number, so it represents a quantum leap of sorts. It's like watching the odometer move up to the next level.
Thinking back on early childhood, when we're first learning about numbers, one hundred is the first really big number we learn about. That makes it the smallest of the big numbers, doesn't it?
The Latin word for 100 is centum, from which we get words such as centennial, centenary, centimeter, and of course the monetary denomination of one cent (one one hundredth of a dollar), and the Roman numeral C is derived from centum.
The Hebrew word for 100 is מֵאָה (May-ah) and the Hebrew letter ק (koph) is also used as the Hebrew numeral for 100. But neither the number nor the numeral have any special significance in Jewish numerology nor in the Kabbalah, to my knowledge. Instead, multiples of 6, and 60 provide a more organic resonance, in contrast to the sheer rationalism of 100.
So, maybe one hundred is a symbol without much of a referent. Maybe it's just an excuse to stop and say, 100 posts, wow, I think I've accomplished something with this blogging thing, I'm not sure what, but something I think, an accumulation. Maybe this makes me less of a novice and more of a seasoned blogist. Maybe it's too self-reflexive, though, for the topic of my 100th post to be that this post is my 100th post, maybe it's not really blogworthy, just a blogging publicity stunt, a pseudoevent or pseudopost.
Maybe it's time to stop obsessing about the number 100, move on to 101 (a silly millimeter longer?).
But, hey, come on, like, 100, all right!
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1 comment:
Congratulations, Lance. But beware: I recently published my 1,001st post (to mark the 1,000th seemed so pedestrian) on IN THE DARK since November of 2004. This is the rough equivalent of a 1,000-1,500 page book.
At the same time, I am struggling to finish an actual book, and have made little real progress of late.
I know, I know...it's not the medium. But it's not just me, either. It's me with the medium...
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