Excerpt from Species Analysis 451

Excerpt from species Analysis 451 was extremely difficult to write. I was attempting to describe something intimately familiar to everyone from the view point of an alien observer. Since this observer has never counted what I am describing before, his or her approach would be completely different to what we are used to. The goal was to describe this aspect of our species in such a way that readers do not immediately know what I am writing about. But by the end, everyone should be able to grasp the concept.