Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Eerie Reoccurrence of the Number 143

Have you ever seen the Jim Carrey movie “Number 23”? If you haven’t, don’t bother. It’s a tedious journey into a dark, bleak place that nobody with any common sense would choose to travel, let alone watch for any length of time (including the hour and thirty-five minute running time of this film). Nevertheless, the premise of the film is rather interesting. A man finds a strange connection between the number 23 and his entire life. He can add, subtract, multiply and divide the number into a plethora of combinations until he finds his birth date, the day he met his wife, the day they married, the number of letters in his name, the address of the house he first lived in, the phone number for the local Chinese Restaurant, etc. Every time he thought of something, he was somehow able to connect it to the number 23. Preposterous, yes?

Well, maybe not. It seems I have my own number that keeps popping up in my life on a rather frequent, if not freakish, basis. But my number is 143, which as many people might know is a code for the phrase “I Love You.” Why? Because there’s one letter in “I,” four letters in “love” and three letters in “you.” A girlfriend of mine in high school taught me this phrase and used it on a rather frequent basis on all our note-passing correspondence during class. Then she eventually dumped me right before prom to go out with some mindless football player, which may account for my turbulent freshman year in college as I tried to move past such a painful and public humiliation. (But that, as they say, is a completely different story.)

The point is, I have always had the number 143 in my life since then, and have often used it myself whenever I needed to express my affection in code. (Though, with this blog posting, I have obviously made this code irrelevant.) Nevertheless, lately I have noticed the number on a much more frequent basis. In the last few months, it seems like every time I glance at a clock, the time is 1:43. Or if I happen to put a DVD on pause to go get a drink, the time it stops on is 1:43. Recently, I even went on a trip and the room I was placed in was 143. (I kid you not.) Or I buy a product at the supermarket, and the price is $1.43. Or even stranger, several of my recent Cat Clip videos have timed out at exactly one minute and 43 seconds long. Without my trying or having any kind of timeframe in mind, the final edited version clocks in at 1 minute and forty three seconds.

Weird, yes? But still this could all be a coincidence, right? Well, then I decided (like Jim Carrey’s character in “Number 23”) to investigate a little further. I tried to apply the number 143 to my birth date, which is November 8th. Right away, you will notice that if you add all the numbers up individually (1+4+3), you get 8. And if you multiply 4 times 3 and then subtract 1, you get 11. November is the eleventh month of the year. Now I realize this is sort of pushing the issue, trying to see all the relationships between the number and my life. But what if it did mean something? What if it was some kind of message? Or a communication from someone from the great beyond?

I don’t really follow Numerology, or Astrology, or even basic Biology, so I don’t know if this number is significant in any way. But I thought I’d broach the topic to see if anyone else has a reoccurring number in their lives that defies explanation. If so, please elaborate in the comments section below. If not, just chalk this up to another weird blog posting that you can’t identify with. There must be millions of those, right? Or at least 143 of them. (Cue loud dramatic music here.)

17 comments:

Metallman said...

Hey there. I think we all have a "number". What it is, who knows. Maybe yours is 143. Number has absolutely no significance to me or anyone else but it's your number. lol As for the movie, they fucked it up. Great idea, poorly executed.

Anonymous said...

Hey, the stars might lie but the numbers never do, I feel lucky...play the Mega Millions!

Roxy

Anonymous said...

Yes, by all means, go pick up some lottery tickets. ;) I've had a huge number of 8s in my life, often but not always paired with 2s. I've never tried to do any math with them to try to connect them with other things. Hmmm, don't think I really want to. Really, what would I do with that info?

Matthew S. Urdan said...

There are exactly 143 different ABBA songs.

Kathy said...

My number is 118. Like you, I see it everywhere, and yes, it's probably just me focusing in on it whenever it presents itself. But it's special to me, as it's the month/day that my husband and I met and also his former house address. That first connection is how it became our number and stuck. We even chose it as the day to get married. A little obsessive? Maybe. We're not into numerology or anything. Just something cool to notice.

Henson Ray said...

metallman, glad to hear I'm not the only one who was disappointed with the film.

Roxy, Not sure this is a lottery thing, but the next time I'm at a drugstore, I'll buy one just to see.

luckygirl, I know what you mean. Even if the number means something, I'm not sure it would necessarily be a good thing. But since 143 has always been a positive acronym for me, I don't see it as some kind of bad omen. More like a nice little reminder of how lucky I am.

Matt--You're kidding, right? That can't really be true.

Kathy--Glad to know someone else has something like this. And I'm not even trying to see these connections...they just sort of present themselves.

Matthew S. Urdan said...

Actually, ABBA had an even 150...I thought it was close enough to get a rise out of ya!

Cosmic ૐ Oneness said...

Aha ! Synchronicity yet again ... It's always there and as soon as we realize that these numbers may have something to say ... a hidden meaning ... or a simple message which reads, "Your thoughts are fundamental to your reality" ... The observer is not separate from the physical experience or what he perceives ! In fact, he creates every reality !

Nice Number 143 ! Love !
For me it's lately been 217 which i first noticed with the recurrence of the number 17 earlier in life ! Everything was 17 !

:D

HawgWyld said...

11:11 -- as in the time. Follows me around constantly and has for years. Creepy!

The Natural State Hawg

Crusader said...

Hi there. Just seen the comments about 143. I too have experienced many, many 143 'coincidences' covering time, places, people, TV programmes, objects I own etc., and wondered if anyone out there is still having them. Also forget the bit about 143 and 'I love you', it has far more significance as a number. For example: 143 = 11x13, now consider a possible link here to the last supper...

Soukha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Soukha said...

I just came across your story about 143 and I thought I might share a bit of my 143 stories.

I see 143 often and similar to how you're describing it. I also the numbers 711 almost appear just as frequent to me. It's been going on for about a year now.

It's funny how my numbers connect specifically to me because 1 4 3 is code for I love you and 7-11 is a birthday of the only girlfriend I can honestly say I loved. Then the sum of 143 is 8 and the sum of 7 1 1 is 9. Just, "hmmm", you know?

I won't get into to much detail about how I see the numbers but I'll share a couple of recurrences of 143 in movies I recently watch.

-Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure:
When Napoleon cheats on the bowling scores he writes 143 for his score.

-Road to Perdition:
Daniel Craig is in hotel room 1432 when Tom Hanks kills him.

A tangent of 711...
I read the Watchmen graphic novel recently and on a side story/Watchmen-World advertisement or whatever it is. (If you read it, you know what I mean.) It uses the words along the lines of, "seven million eleven hundred." I know the words don't make sense but it's something similar to that which makes it all the more strange.

It's all just plain eerie...

Henson Ray said...

Souk---Wow, it sounds like you've done your research. I continue to see 143 all the time...it is a little eerie, I agree.

Unknown said...

I was browsing through google and i decided to look up the number 143 to see what i get. I see this number atleast 3x's on a daily basis. I ran into this article and was very interested to see what you thought about this wierd..message? whatever. Everything you mentioned in this article is exactly what happens to me and hw I feel everytime it happens, which freak me out a bit. But when freaked me out the most is that my birthday is also November 8th. It kinda scares me to even post this because i can be very supersticious at times. I dont know im at a loss for words. Wierd... =/

Unknown said...

Well i see the numbers 143 all the way around . Each time i look at the clock i either see 3:41, 4:13, 1:43, 4:31 there's something special about the number and i also see 4:12 alot which is my b-day. I'll see 143 on doors too.

Hunny said...

i dunno if ill sound similar to the first post...but lately i have started observing this number usepoiv"143" everywhere i see..i go to a chemist to buy a drug..i give him $200 and he returns me $143...3 hours im listening to music on my phone..suddenly i pull out my phone to change the track and it changes on 1.43m..i switch on my television to watch a cricket match and the score is 143-0,my birth date is 12/11/1987..if i multiply 1*4 it is 4 and then multiply it with 3..its 12,then i multiply 4*3 it is 12 and subtract 1 from it i get 11..so i get may birthday 12/11..is it a mere coincidence or some myth involving my past..like some reincarnation shit..can any1 comment?

Anonymous said...

PLEASE E-MAIL ME @ SHARINADELOACH@YAHOO.COM. MY EXPERIENCES ARE AMAZING, THIS IS NO WAY A COINCIDENCE. EVERYONE SAYS IT IS BUT ITS NOT. I SEE IT ALL DAY EVERYDAY, IM PRETTY SURE SOMEONE IS TRYING TO GIVE US A MESSAGE, PLEASE E-MAIL ME SO WE CAN TALK, HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU.