They say there are 8 billion people in the world, give or take. Sometimes, it feels a little arbitrary. Like a child guessing how many beads are in a glass jar at a birthday party.

Does it account for when the world suddenly shrinks?
When a child locks eyes with her parents in a packed school auditorium. When the thousands of fans in a cricket stadium live through 11 on the field. How on a good date, the number of people on the busiest street is only two. And how when a new mother meets her baby, the population of the whole world is instantly reduced to one.

Somedays, the world feels impossibly small. When you hear your mother tongue on the train of an obscure city, remember how a modest deck of playing cards is a universal language for all ages, or ponder how we have  all sung Gangnam Style, chased after Pokemon, and spread a virus across the globe in a matter of days, I am convinced the world could never be 8 billion people – but just a small, intimate group of friends.

Does it account for when the world suddenly expands?
At weddings, graduations and birthdays – where the number of attendees in the room is a mere fraction of those who are there in spirit. Or the frenzied crowd at election ballots and protests, echoing the voices of all the generations yet to speak. Or the few in classrooms, newsrooms and courtrooms that hold enough power to count as millions.
On some days, 8 billion is barely the tip of the iceberg.

Does it account for fractions?
For those who didn’t live full lives so their loved ones could. For empty nesters whose hearts are only partly at home, and partly in a university dorm across the sea. For the bonus years of life a grandchild gives a lonely grandparent. And sometimes how when you are reunited with your sibling, it can only count as two halves becoming one.

8 billion must be arbitrary.
I suspect that the world expands and shrinks through the day, like our breathing – sometimes short and shallow, sometimes deep and mighty – and maybe the actual population of the world is anywhere between one to infinite. And it just depends on who you ask.