Ullrich, you are a connector, and so you should know well the distinction between a Count and a counting. A Count was a person made high through the art of social connection, deriving from the Latin concept of comity, the power that comes from joining with others.

A count of numbers, on the other hand, is a mere reckoning, a numbering of a seized goods, as if each item in the collection could be considered to be a commodity, of equal and equivalent value, rather than of worth beyond counting. To count is to compute, to cut away, and stamp with a common identity, to make indviduals into mere units in a larger collection.

To practice comity, we encounter others, a term with yet another Latin root, placing ourselves contre to them, recognizing them as something different, something other than ourselves, recognizing their unique identities. We meet them rather than just tallying them up like pawns in a line, or “friends” in a social media account.

The wisdom is to be a hub, not an account.