A Rule of Five

Yesterday, we had a visitor home for dinner. As my daughter and I were walking back home from our dance lessons, she skipped along side and asked

"Why have you invited him home for dinner? do we know him?"
-" We dont know him personally, but since we are hosting his visit to IISc., we thought it would be nice to have him home".

"What exactly do we know about him? Lets see...His name is Mark Edwards...so he must be a foreigner"
-"Not really...there might be Indian people with that name"

"We heard of him through Supi, so he must be connected with Wynad (Gurukul Botanical Sanctuary that is actively working to preserve and safe guard the fragile ecosystems there)"
-"Hmmm.."

"He is going to visit Centre for Learning ( a non formal school outside Bangalore) and so must be into Krishnamurthi kind of stuff"
-"Hmmm.."

"He is going to give a slide presentation...so he must be a photographer"
-"Seems like that..."

"He is going to talk about environment, climate change...so he must be a nice person"
-"Atleast he cares about important things"

"Thats just five things that we know about him..is that enough(to invite him)?"
-"Well...knowing three things about a human might be too less, knowing seven might subject it to additonal errors..so, to know five things might be just the right number"

"Do you know five things about me...?"
-"Well...lets see,you were born from me....."

Since then I have been wondering,do we usually care to really know five things about another human being, even amongst those close to us?? Isnt it high time we tried?