Why 7?

Any one who knows me well also most certainly is aware of my deep affections to author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have read his books again and again to re-discover the world of Macondo. In this list is included a short story collection 'Strange pilgrims'. On one such expeditions of re-discoveries I eventually found myself pondering over the issue of 'Number seven'. Let me make myself clear. To quote from 'strange pilgrims':

"choose a number" she told me: "three, four or seven"
"four"
Her smile flashed in triumph.
"In the past fifteen years that I worked here" she said "you are the first person who hasn't chosen seven"
-Sleeping beauty and the Airplane




I would have chosen seven! There was no second thought about it. And the majority of us would have certainly chosen seven.
Seven-the mystery number.
Seven- magical number.
Seven- the mystical number.
Seven - the sexy number? (!)

Some more interesting facts about the number seven:

1 Seven is the optimum number of hours of sleep for humans, according to a US scientific study.

2 Seven is seen as a lucky number in many cultures. Japanese mythology talks of Shichifukujin (The Seven Gods of Fortune).

3 The seven deadly sins, or cardinal sins, were refined by Pope Gregory I in the 6th century. They are pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.

4 The seven virtues are humility, liberality, chastity, kindness, abstinence, patience, and diligence.

5 In Vedic Hindu tradition, the human body features seven basic chakras, or "wheels of energy".

6. The seventh and final book in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

7. Seven is "neutral" on the pH scale. Pure water has a pH of seven.

8. The phrase "seven-year itch" was first recorded in 1899. It characterises a man's urge to roam after seven years of marriage, the theme of Marilyn Monroe's 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, right.

9. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey has sold over 5 million copies in 38 languages since 1989. The seven habits are: be proactive; begin with the end; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergise and; sharpen the saw.

10. From the Seven days of Creation to the Seven Seals of Revelation, Scripture is saturated with the Number Seven.

11. The root of the name of the Number Seven means Perfect, Complete, or Satisfied.

12. Thammim means perfect, and its numeric weight is 70 x 7, which is the number the Lord used to describe the perfection of forgiveness.

13. There are seven visible planets and luminaries (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Each one rules a day of the week (Sun=Sunday, Saturn= Saturday, Moon=Monday, etc.) and that is where the seven day week came from. Each one is supposed to have a particular virtue or power.

Yes, I have just given you 13 more reasons to choose number 'seven'.