The magic number

It seems ridiculous now.

I can vividly recall several days before my 23rd birthday the panic as I felt that I was about to officially become old. I was genuinely worried and somewhat depressed at the thought. I now realise how stupid those feelings were but understand why I had them.

Birthdays are checkpoints in our life. A time when we look back and take stock of what we have achieved. Or haven’t. When we go through a mythical checklist of where we think our lives should be compared to our peers and society’s expectations and see how we measure up. I was living in a squat. I was still no nearer to finishing my degree and had little inclination to do so. And I was broke. That extra year seemed to signify the age where it was time to make some decisions and take some responsibility. Time to grow up.

I’d love to say that it was an epiphany. A turning point in my life where I suddenly found my way but I didn’t. Well, not in the way I was expecting.

Absent-mindedly flicking through NME or Melody Maker, I stumbled upon a short article on the number 23 and how many artists regard it as a powerful number. I can no longer recall which artists were interviewed or exactly what was said but it seemed to inspire me and make me rethink. Was it a coincidence that on the 23rd, while living at number 23, contemplating my 23rd birthday that I found this article?

I became almost evangelical in my belief. I converted others to my cause. Bizarrely, it seemed to work. Psychologically, it was probably because we believed in the power of that number that so many positive things happened to us. Research has shown that people who believe that they are lucky do tend to have more luck than those that think they are unlucky. Perhaps it was just the power of positive thought but I would always carry a 23, cut from a newspaper headline, in my wallet. The number would turn up everywhere and when it did, we would hold it with great significance.

I was having the time of my life and those that bought into the 23 theory seemed to benefit too. I ‘ordained’ one friend, presenting him with his own 23 to carry with him. I told him I would share some of the power with him and great things would happen. He went from being shy and geeky, useless with women (we all thought that he was still a virgin) into a confident, Casanova. He was with a different girl every week and loving it. Again, it may have all been in the mind but it worked.

I’d recently recounted my belief in the number 23 to several friends. Trying to exactly explain why it is so important or just how it has made things happen was difficult, the fogs of time obscuring the events and reasons, but the belief still continues. My friend, now happily married and with a child has 23 in roman numerals on his wrist and I’ve spotted one girl in Brighton with the same tattoo on her forearm, so I’m not alone.

The reason for explaining all this is that on Thursday, I was walking to the station to get to work. As I walked towards the footbridge, I noticed a trail of pages, seemingly ripped from a book. The trail led over the footbridge and down the other side. The last page had a heading. Chapter 23.

Maybe it’s time to get that tattoo.

The 23 Enigma is a belief that the number 23 is of particular or unusual significance, especially in relation to disasters.

Unusual circumstances being linked to 23 are mentioned by William S. Burroughs. He tells the story of meeting a ferry captain named Clark who claimed to have sailed the same route without an accident for 23 years. That very day, however, the ferry sank. Later that day, Burroughs writes, he was thinking about Clark's ferry accident when he heard that a Flight 23 on a New York-Miami route had crashed. According to Burroughs, the pilot's name for the flight had also been Clark. Burroughs began collecting incidences of the number 23 in a scrapbook and referred to them in his writings.