Organized Chaos

Does anyone else find it peculiar that we all are assigned a name and a number? Quite a few numbers at that. Starting the second we arrive on this planet, the government catalogues our existence with a number. "United States Citizen Number 795-xxx-xxxx." When taking into account the miracle (or complex scientific coincidence, however you may choose to look at it) that is life, it seems rather neanderthal to attempt to file it as just another occurrence. Then we get a bit older, and we get a drivers license, earn a degree, accumulate medical records, bank statements, credit histories, etc - all of which are carefully documented. So much paperwork is involved in being a functioning human, its exhausting to think about, and makes vagrancy almost sound appealing... And yet, we have all accepted this as "the way things are," because of what? Fear? That people would run wild in the streets if a piece of cardboard with a number on it didn't hold them to a certain standard of conduct? What would happen if people were just people, and not a stack of paperwork, telling them who they were? I think there would be more creativity, for one. Chaos: maybe. Things would certainly be a lot more interesting.