Dumb Discoveries

Think Tank #27

Sometimes, obvious truths are so obvious that you never realize them at all.

For example, I only recently learned the purpose of a sponge.

Really.

I was doing the dishes using one of these sponges, as I always do:

You know the ones. Regular soft sponge on one side, rough scrubber on the other side.

My whole life, whenever I’ve used these things, I’ve exclusively used the scrubby side. Every. Single. Time. The soft sponge side was just there. I’d even thought to myself that I might as well just buy a scrubber, because the sponge is so useless, and wondered why anyone buys sponges anyway.

Then came my revelation.

I’d spilled some sauce on the stove. And I don’t know what made me do it—it must’ve been some type of divine revelation—but I actually used the sponge side to wipe it.

Needless to say, my mind was blown.

The point of a sponge is to soak things up! Obviously, right? Well, yeah. It seems obvious now. But a slightly-younger me would’ve used the scrubby side on autopilot thinking it was the only side with any utility, and then cursed myself for being so messy and yet so bad at cleaning, all the while holding the perfect tool to clean up the spill right in my hand.

In 2005, David Foster Wallace delivered a commencement speech for the graduating class of Kenyon College. The speech is brilliant. I suggest you listen to it in full.

He begins the speech with (to quote Wallace) a “didactic little parable-ish story,” which reminded me of my sponge situation.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

Brilliant, right?

It’s ironic, how blind we are to the things that are most obvious.

It makes sense. No one talks about them!

No one ever told me how to use a sponge, because my mom or grandma or whoever else might’ve told me probably assumed that I had to know already.

They say wisdom can’t be taught. Maybe wisdom is simply seeing what’s in front of you.