Surface Thinking

By Walt Carvalho

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it”.
Thomas Alva Edison

A great analogy you’ve probably heard of is the story of the duck on water. It goes like this: When you see a duck gliding on the surface of a pond, you think of the calm and tranquil way in which they move. If you were to see the same duck from under the surface you would see it’s webbed feet kicking like there is no tomorrow! Oh, the different ways of looking at things.

Now, there is no doubt that we are subjected to surface thoughts daily. It’s in the newspaper. It’s on the radio. It’s on the internet. It’s definitely on television. They come to us as little bits of information, delivered in tidy neat packages, which are labeled “This is all you need to know. There is no need to learn more”. Wow, how comforting is that? Since they just gave me “all I need to know” I guess I can now move on to the next item on their list!

Let’s take a look at some surface talk in action.

“That noisy, smelly contraption well never replace my reliable horse and buggy”- the automobile

“If man was meant to fly, he would have been born with wings”. – the airplane

“No one will pay to go to a professional football game when we have college games already”. – the launch of Pro Football

“All they do on it is tell each other what they had for lunch” – Twitter

Get the Picture?

Photo Brock Davis