What Is It about
The Number THREE?
Well, dear blog readers and Facebook friends, I find myself hung up on the number THREE these past couple of weeks. Why is THREE such a provocative number?
According to Pythagoras (580 -500 BCE), the numbers one through ten had mystical meanings attached to one’s soul. The highest (best) number was ten. But Pythagoras considered three as the “fortune number” connected with good endings. (OKAY, I am waiting for the good endings!) I should go buy a lottery ticket!
Here is a very brief, watered-down version of number mysticism: Three is the first prime number. The triangle is the most stable shape as it is composed of three sides and three angles.
Think of the old three-legged stool versus the four-legged table with the matchbook under one leg to keep it balanced. In our Base 10 system, the fraction 1/3 is .3333333333….. Recapping this tiny bit of history, three has had a long, long history in all parts of life.
Next, three is an integral part of religion. In Hinduism, there are three steps in karma. In Judaism, three is the connecting number between two things. Some scholars say if a thing is done three times it is permanent. The Trinity in Christianity is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Three, Three, Three!
In my mind the most compelling reason we continue to think in threes in this modern age may be gleaned from the psychology of how our brains operate. We are taught at a young age to make connections. We learn to see patterns.
We find sequences in stories and in how to perform tasks. Three is also at the root of literature: the beginning, the middle, and the end. Many scholars and authors speak of the three ages of man.
Here is what I have learned. We are the ones who are keeping THREE alive. We look for patterns and clusters we learned in childhood, both in church and in school. We all have anecdotes to support the “3 Cluster” of either good things or bad things. For example, in February of 2014, Sid Caesar, Shirley Temple, and Philip Seymour Hoffman all died very near to each other.
This week, the painter came to scrape the shutters after all the pretty mulch was laid. My so-called clean mulch is dotted with white paint!! (The painter was to have come in June.) My car battery died, and our front porch door (house 1808) will not unlock. This lock business in a real mess as the knob and lock is older than I am!! Okay, I see three bad – not terrible – but three irritating things all happening at one. This clustering of events happens often enough I hear myself saying: “Well, A just happened and then B just happened; what is going to happen next?” I am waiting for the third thing!
One psychologist suggested a very simple way to prove our brains are clustering. Dump a bag of M&Ms on the table. Do not touch them. Just look at them for a few seconds and notice your mind sees clusters (maybe five orange in a group) or patterns (green, red, green and in another place there is also green, red, green).
The theory is that we tend to see patterns in random events. The coin-flip test is also a common one. Rarely does one believe it, but in 100 coin flips, a streak of six heads or six tails in a row is statistically a near certainty. When we see streaks or clusters, we forget the other 94 random events.
My brain is struck with three even though I know that seeing the pattern and making the 1-2-3 connection is a learned behavior. YET – I am sitting here wondering what the next three things will be! I hope they have good endings!
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