![\"numbers_slide\"](\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/numbers_slide-300x195.jpg\")
I used to be great at remembering numbers.<\/p>\nI used to be great at remembering numbers.<\/p>\n
Numbers of old childhood friends are still implanted in my head, stored in the random, useless trivia section of my brain.<\/p>\n
My friend says we don\u2019t need to remember them anymore.
\n\u201cOur phones store them for us, freeing up space for other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
But we forget what those numbers meant to us. <\/p>\n
See, each number represented a person.<\/p>\n
A face that would materialize in our mind just thinking of it,
\nas our digits excitedly dialed with anticipation of friendly conversation.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d have those awkward twenty seconds of small-talk when a parent answered.
\nNaturally, you\u2019d be terrible at the chit-chat because you didn’t know how to talk to adults. <\/p>\n
We don’t have that anymore. <\/p>\n
We’re constantly connected but hardly connected to each other.
\nConversations have morphed into a string of “lol’s” and “k’s.”<\/p>\n
When we lose our phones, we curse and lament.
\nWithout them we are lost, meandering, barely able to remember a few numbers.
\nWe wonder and hope that the world has indeed missed us in our phone\u2019s absence.
\nWhen we find them again, we’re relieved when we can revert back to our disconnection. <\/p>\n
Some people have numbers that they can never forget, even if they wish they could. <\/p>\n
See, each number represented a person.<\/p>\n
Numbers were etched into their flesh and their souls,
\na permanent testimony to a time when the world had forgotten its humanity. <\/p>\n
They serve as a lasting record of unimaginable cruelty, intended to transform victims into a number and eliminate their identities. <\/p>\n
It’s as if the perpetrators knew that only 70 years later, our memories would already fade and
\nwe would need as many reminders as possible of the horror that most of us couldn’t conceive in our worst nightmares. <\/p>\n
As each year goes by, the stories become fainter. The witnesses soon won\u2019t be able to testify.
\nAnd the tragedy will transform into numerical data, a sentence in a textbook with a beginning and end date, nothing more. <\/p>\n
Some people will dare to contest that the stories are exaggerated and even fabricated.
\nSix-million is too large a number after all. <\/p>\n
For it’s far easier to forget a number than a person. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I used to be great at remembering numbers. Numbers of old childhood friends are still implanted in my head, stored in the random, useless trivia section of my brain. My friend says we don\u2019t need to remember them anymore. \u201cOur phones store them for us, freeing up space for other things.\u201d But we forget what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133017,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\n