Numerical alternations really are fascinating. I have written before on how numerical sequences can be interpreted to have special meaning. I recently discovered another special sequence, and that is 8+5. I have mentioned before that the number eight 8 and all permutations of the digit eight 8 (18, 28, 38 etc) are very significant in our Chinese culture, since eight 8 is homophonous with the Chinese word for prosperity, and ten 10 in Cantonese is homophonous with the Cantonese adverb meaning ‘definitely, certainly’, and so every eighth digit of each decade (18, 28, 38…) literally means ‘definitely prosper’. The halfway point between each digit 8, however, ends with the digit three 3 i.e. the number thirteen 13 lies halfway between eight 8 and eighteen 18, twenty-three 23 between eighteen 18 and twenty-eight 28, and so on. I have written before that in western/Christian culture the number thirteen 13 is dangerously ominous, presumably because there were thirteen disciples present at Jesus’ Last Supper. The numerical addition of eight 8 and five 5, therefore, involves a series of alternations between propitious numbers (eight 8 and all digits ending in eight 8) and negative numbers (thirteen 13, and, by extension, twenty-three 23, thirty-three 33 etc) lying in between, which beautifully demonstrates the cyclic relationship between prosperity and calamity. Between each prosperous turn lies a disaster, and one is constantly alternating between prosperity and calamity, which may be argued to symbolise the nature of human fortune as we seem to leap from success to failure and vice versa. I mentioned before a similar relationship between four 4 and eight 8 where two negatives flip into a positive one (4+4=8). Looks like there is something similar in this cyclic alternation between prosperity and calamity (8+5+5+5+5…). As always, numbers symbolise life, and in analysing them we get to learn so much about life. Numbers truly are the language of God.