The flow of people from the station I see every day is unknowable and chaotic; I call it the stream. It ebbs and flows and pulses with time, and at some point in its strength you can only attack the problem with statistics. The mathematics can represent the total of the crowd, the vector of its travel and intent, but that becomes zero-sum as the stream moves on, disseminating into Westminster, and later - back. Unless, of course, you see something that you recognise; maybe the cut of a coat, a specific pair of boots or a primary display of hair. Then, the eye is caught and greater analysis can be performed.
The stream changes morning to morning, day to day before reversing later in the day like the tidal Thames, and I think about how it could be used to tell a fortune. Fluomancy; seeing the future in the whorls, eddies and tides of moving water as the particles flow out from the station and into the city, passing around obstacles both structural and human, with those that fight the stream doomed to drown unless they are the strongest of swimmers.
The motion is framed by contra-flows and whirlpools like the jet streams of Jupiter, and this is where the commerce occurs, giving freedom for those trying to beat the flow and direction. And that commerce is life and choice and exchange and freedom.
Let the maths yield the shape of the future, as the fluid flows. Trust the numbers. Trust in the stream.
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