“160-161-162 — oh, hi,” said the page counter.
“What am I doing?” I asked. That is to say, what are you doing?”
“Numbering the next few pages,” said the page counter. “165-166-167 —”
“Why?”
“168 — what do you mean, why?” said the page counter. “Don’t you want to know what page you’re on? Don’t you want to find a page you’ve passed already?”
“What would be the purpose of that?”
“Well, say you remember having a remarkable insight on page 47. Now all you have to do is go back and look at page 47 and go, ‘Eureka!’ And you can relearn the lesson, or avoid that goof next time, or expand on the insight, or otherwise move forward with the knowledge.”
“Don’t you think I’m just going to do whatever I want in the moment next time, just like everyone else?” I asked.
“Well, that’s a pessimistic comment from Mr. Optimistic Guy,” scoffed the page counter.
“Just looking around at what I see.”
“Look, do you want to learn from your mistakes or not?” said the page counter. “Don’t you want to be able to go back and find what you wrote before?”
“I haven’t done that in a long time,” I admitted.
“Maybe it’s time,” said the page counter. “171-172 —”
I watch the page counter wander away through pages still blank in the morning sun. Just out of curiosity, I peeked back at page 53, and what do you know?
