My new neighborhood is my old neighborhood. I don't remember the first time I lived here; I wasn't even a year old then. The second time was exactly four years ago, but I didn't stay. If there's any charm to the idea of the treble cycle, this ought to be the one that matters, because I've never heard interesting stories about four repetitions of anything.
This may be due to the principle of diminishing returns, which predicts the increasing futility of revisiting past circumstances — and the people, places, and things that characterize them — more times than is reasonable to achieve insight, and wisdom.
If the third time isn't the charm, what luck might a fourth iteration bring?
If three isn't a charm, four certainly symbolizes completion, wholeness, fullness, and one's place in the world. I suppose four isn't technically "lucky" because the whims (and perils) of Lady Luck aren't at play.
ReplyDeleteI began to rethink my position after publishing the post. Four is a perfectly good number, maybe better than three. Why not? Five and six . . . maybe better yet. I guess we already know about seven.
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