Born on a Blue Day

“I was born on January 31, 1979—a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number 9 or the sound of loud voices arguing.” 

These are the opening two sentences of the book and immediately provide a descriptor of the way of thinking and knowing that is unique to author Daniel Tammet. His associations between days, words, numbers, and colors represents his individual merging of autism spectrum disorder, savant syndrome, and synesthesia. We also see an incredible ability to deduce patterns, like deriving the day of the week of a particular date from patterns of perception and memory. The book expounds on these mental experiences and abilities while also serving as a hopeful autobiography that recounts the life of the author.

“Numbers are my first language, one I often think and feel in. Emotions can be hard for me to understand or know how to react to, so I often use numbers to help me.” 

Numbers occupy a very special and critical place in Tammet’s mind and life. He uses them to navigate the world around him and to keep himself grounded and comfortable. In this passage, he explains how he can utilize his understanding of numbers to relate to others. He follows up this statement with an example of how he can understand a friend’s sadness by imagining his own saddening experience with certain numbers. Conversely, he might relate to a friend recounting a happy memory by recalling the way certain number combinations make him feel.