The Creative Contrarian

Wise Fool Strategy # 10See the Obvious

“You wander from room to room searching for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck.”

— Jalai ad-Din Rumi, Persian Poet and Mystic

A young army cadet was being grilled at an officer candidate screening. “Well,” said a ribbon-bedecked general, “what must an officer be before he can have a funeral with full military honors?” The cadet pondered this question for several moments, and then replied, “Dead.”

In a 2005 commencement address at Kenyon, Infinite Jest novelist David Foster Wallace shared a parable about two young fish swimming along who encounter an older fish going the other way. The older fish nods to them and says: “Morning boys, how's the water?” The young fish swim on for a while, and then one of them says to the other, “What the hell is water?” Wallace made the point that a real education isn't so much about gaining knowledge, but rather about gaining an awareness of what is real and essential — and these things are often hidden in plain sight all around us. Wallace said that we need to keep reminding ourselves over and over: “This is water, this is water.”

Many Wise Fools would agree: they believe that sometimes the most helpful ideas are right in front of us — hidden in plain sight — but we fail to see them. They recommend that a useful problem-solving approach is to identify our obvious resources, but they ...