The Careful Application of Common Sense

A joy of travel is meeting people: in this case, a taxi driver in London. “So what do you do?” he asked. I gave some rambling answer about ‘writing‘, and ‘learning‘, ‘social knowledge‘ etc and he nodded politely.

Then he said this: “I used to be a Drayman, delivering beer to pubs, all around the UK. Every morning i’d turn up and pick up my lorry. They’d load it up with the kegs of beer on the right hand side and the soft drinks on the left. Then i’d drive around the country and, at every pub, i’d pull up on the left hand side of the road. I’d unload the soft drinks, that were light, then have to drag the kegs across the lorry before unloading them. Every keg, every time. So some guy at head office in a suit who’d never lifted a keg built a system that loads every lorry with the beer on the right. And every Drayman knows that it should be on the left. Is that what you mean?”

Yes.

Formal knowledge, tribal wisdom: if we can unite them, we’re winning.