timepiececlock: (Origin of Love)
timepiececlock ([personal profile] timepiececlock) wrote2008-04-30 12:57 am

Numbers, nature, power, art, and other mysteries

I've been fascinated by the number three for a long time. It's not my favorite number (that'd be 12), but it's always held a bit of a mystique for me. I learned the rule of 3 and 5 when I first took art class, and it has lasted in my mind longer than most of the other things I learned in high school.

I love phrases that come in three words, I love lists of three, I note that the first essays they make you write in school have three body paragraphs, and there's three primary colors, and all great stories have three characters, even if the third character is just a place or an idea. The three main characters for ATLA, for example, are Aang, the Avatar, and Zuko. The three main characters of The X Files are Mulder, Scully, and the FBI. The three main characters of The Little Mermaid are Ariel, Ursula, and Eric.

Three nights of moonlight for werewolves to transform, three promises to seal it, 1-2-3-GO!, rock-paper-scissors, getting your steak done to well, medium, or rare.

Clovers have three leaves, I'll give you three guesses, three sirens, three fates, three warnings, three colors on the stop light, three medals to win at the Olympics, and the linguistic conjugation of good, better, best.

It's a great number to play with, and it holds a unique place in our culture, structurally and linguistically. After all, nobody ever wrote a song called called "Bizzare Love Square."

[identity profile] littleduchess.livejournal.com 2008-04-30 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
Three is the magic number...

Hadn't really thought of that in the way you havr. That's extremely interesting.

[identity profile] jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com 2008-04-30 02:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I love random musings like this. And I do like the number three...probably for many of the reasons you enumerated here.

I have funny feelings about numbers. I like small prime numbers, and then even numbers with lots and lots of multiples (24. I like 24 a lot). But then I tend to factor things in my head a lot.
ext_10182: Anzo-Berrega Desert (Default)

:snerk:

[identity profile] rashaka.livejournal.com 2008-05-05 07:11 am (UTC)(link)
I like small prime numbers, and then even numbers with lots and lots of multiples (24. I like 24 a lot). But then I tend to factor things in my head a lot.

That's something we have in common.
anna_luna: (Default)

[personal profile] anna_luna 2008-05-01 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
This is a really awesome analysis! I love 3!