Numerologists seem to be in the news a fair amount more than the relevance of their magic should dictate. Anyone who knows how many flags were on the dais at the departure ceremony of the recent former president will understand what I’m talking about. Still the enchantment of numerals falling in a pleasurable order or pattern never fails to catch my notice.

If you hadn’t noticed, today is 12321. I see this palindromic date as an an eye-opening augury, one that gybes all too readily with my state of mind these days.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

The statement can evoke any number of feelings. Counting the days to death is one way to think about it, but it’s not what I see at all.

Another concept that comes to mind on this date in particular is that of the struggle. I’m reminded of Mercerism as portrayed in Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where adherents tie into the endless uphill climb of everyman Wilbur Mercer. That striving is key. To think of the arc of one’s life as still climbing upward:

1 2 3 2 1

So if today is that first one, then the time any of us have left is contained in the arc, if we picture it on a graph.

The question I end up asking myself, what does it mean. How do we get to the 3, that peak where we feel the achievement?

Easy answer, do what you’re meant to do. Stop just thinking, start acting on it. Even if you end up being wrong you still get the satisfaction of saying to yourself, “At the time, it made sense.” It made sense to Mercer, after all.

And that’s something after all.

And if you live outside of the United States, and happen to be reading this, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on March 12, 2021.