So the month ended and I exceeded my wildest CNPS expectations and got to 530. I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed.
I feel sick at the prospect of trying to finish the game by the beginning of August and concerned that it will either drive me mad by then or that I have already gone mad.
I had a walk this evening to pick up three or four numbers that I knew were in the locality, and though I find it quite a peaceful and therapeutic exercise (and one that allows me to think about the show and what other more useful things I can get up to), today I started feeling like it was a stupid waste of my valuable life. I think it is almost forgiveable to play the game casually - to just move onwards when you happen to see a number-plate you need - but I know that if I am going to complete my task I have to employ almost military precision now. It involves making notes, using maps and probably, as the time gets nearer, travelling to car-parks and spending my days there.
This isn't like the boat race or the Marathon: I'm not pushing myself physically to see what I can achieve. This is a childish and pointless exercise of little to no worth. I feel ashamed of what I'm doing. What if someone saw me? And asked me what I was doing? How could I justify it to them? I could be helping starving children or building a hospital. But no, I am walking around West London with a notebook in my hands, occasionally stopping to write down an address and occasionally punching the air in joy when the number I need unexpectedly appears.
And the Gods continue to shine upon me. This morning on my run I was looking for a 521 and I'd seen one a few days ago in an obscure back alley. But when I got there it had moved on (why can't people just leave their cars where they are). I carried on running and turned the corner. I went by a garage and there was a car that had been in an accident on the forecourt. The driver's door had been ripped off. It was a 521. I literally jumped for joy. One person's misfortune was my salvation. CNPS is a cruel game, with no place for empathy.
What wandering fool have I become? And what an albatross is around my neck.
And yet I feel that maybe when I get to the end of this I will have learned something. I don't know what that is yet. It just feels that there must be some kind of purpose to this exercise. There has to be. Or I am an idiot.
If nothing else it makes me appreciate how faith is self-justifying. The CNPS gods must be true or I have spent a significant portion of my life doing something of no worth. That would be terrible. So my faith is strengthened.
Perhaps by forcing myself to do something pointless and annoying I will be more reluctant to do pointless and annoying things in the future. I think I started all this mainly so that I could say I had defeated the child version of me that didn't have the staying power to run the distance.
Maybe I will conclude at the end of this that it is time to finally put aside childish things.
Or maybe it will just make me realise that everything we do in this life is as futile as looking at numberplates. Perhaps it will crush the last few ounces of optimism and joy that reside in my soul. Possibly it will convince me that it is time to get a proper job, settle down and get married and have kids and await my inevitable death.
I won't know until I've finished.
But the CNPS gods must have some purpose for me. They wouldn't just be messing me around to see how far I'll go to honour them.
No god is as petty as that Hebrew one who did all that stupid stuff to Job. Thank Gods that I'm not dim enough to waste hours a day doing stuff for him.
