Do you remember how, as a child, you tried to find out how the world surrounding you functioned? You pushed a handle to open a door, you flipped a switch to turn on the light, you pushed the pedals on your tricycle to make it move forward.
Sometimes, however, you would not get it all right at once. In our toilet there was a string you had to pull, when you had finished your business. This released the water in the cistern above and made quite an impressive sound. My mother would always remind us children never to forget to pull that string, when we were finished. Maybe because we were a large family in a small house with only one toilet, I had come to understand that the reason for doing that was to let the others hear that now you were finished and the toilet was free.
You grow older and wiser, and then suddenly one day, embarrassingly late in life, I realised that the reason for pulling the string was quite a different one.
The other day I was overhearing my two nephews taking about a concert their parents had taken them to. Classical music with an enormous orchestra and you had to sit still, because it was very solemn and people were dressed in their best clothes.
There had, of course, also been a conductor waving his baton in the air, while the music played. The youngest one wanted to know what the purpose of the conductor and his baton was, since he was not making any music.
Fortunately his older - and wiser - brother knew the answer. "He's there so that when he stops waving his baton about, the deaf people at the concert will know it's time to clap their hands."
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