Occam’s Razor: This “little-known” philosophical principle states that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. In a room of five people where one is playing a two-player game, the most logical use of the fifth person is as a partner.
5. Nana’s Wisdom: “You Can’t Clap with One Hand, and You Can’t Checkmate Yourself”
Nana loved a good parlor game, and she had a “little-known” talent for cutting through nonsense. She always said that people overthink things because they’re afraid of being “too simple.”
She used to tell us, “You’re all scratching your heads like you’re trying to find gold in a mud puddle! In my day, we knew that you can’t clap with one hand, and you certainly can’t checkmate yourself without feeling a bit silly. If Joe is sitting at that board and there’s a man left over, he’s sitting right across from him! You stop your ‘what-ifs’ and your ‘maybes.’ A room is a small place—if a man is playing a game for two, he’s found his second. You don’t need to be a ‘genius’ to see what’s staring you in the face; you just need to stop looking at the ceiling and start looking at the table.” She believed that “common sense” was the rarest thing in the world.
