Although I didn’t invent this correlation, I am highly amused with the idea that the number of keys someone carries is a function on his or her power. People who lack power own few or no keys. Extremely powerful people have no keys as well. Those somewhere in the middle, like myself, lug key chains brimming with keys.
How many keys do Michael Bloomberg or Bill Gates have? Can you imagine Queen Elizabeth barreling down on the M3 going to Windsor Castle saying, “Cripes! I left the house keys next to my DS Lite. I guess I’ll have to use the spare, hidden in the flower pot round back of the garden.”
Graphing the Power Key Curve is an interesting exercise. As you can see in Figure 1, the function looks quadratic. (Of course, this is only a rough approximation. The actual curve is unlikely to be symmetric, but I couldn’t intuitively guess at how each side would taper different. Please leave a comment, if you have any ideas.) Looking at the graph, we see that an increase of key ownership reflects an increase in power. However, at a certain point, a continual increase in power reduces the number of keys in one’s possession.
One feature of quadratics is that each value on the y-axis has two values, as show in A and B on the graph. Of course, it’s easy to know how many keys you own, just count them. The tricky and fun part is figuring out which side of the graph do you reside, especially as the number of keys your own change.
Here’s my current key situation. The dip last fall was the least amount of keys I carried in a long time. As I stared freelancing full time and moved into a new housing situation, I was down to a mere three keys, which was a good thing… I think. Regardless, that didn’t last long, as the number of keys for various work spaces crept up. My storage space is showing up as the Misc. key. Looking at this chart might motivate me to get rid of it.
But the real question is… how many keys do you have on you?
That graph is pretty accurate, as indeed I am quite powerful. I carry just 4 (2 for transportation – car & bike – 2 for home). This doesn’t take into account the fact that 2 places I frequent reqularly don’t require the old-fashioned key of yesteryear. At work I have a cardkey and for ‘play’ (a boathouse to which I belong), I have a 4-digit code that I punch into a security panel.
I’m surprised you carry so many keys around, considering you don’t drive a car (nay, I don’t think you’ve EVER had a vehicle key on your keychain).
Yeah, I didn’t address card keys or security keypads, of which I currently use neither.
Bare minimum possible! 3 office, 3 home and I wish it were less. We’re seeing a trend in people wanting security panel punch codes so they don’t have to carry keys around.