Card #22 – ”Be Led Astray”

Card #22 – ”Be Led Astray” from the Creative Whack Pack

Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

Heraclitus:

“Expect the unexpected, or you won’t find it.”

Late in his life, the spiritual explorer Carl Jung was asked by a young woman: “Herr Professor, you are so wise. What is the shortest distance to my life’s goal?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jung replied, “The detour.”

When we venture off the beaten path, sometimes we find things that are better or more exciting than what we were originally looking for.

For example, physicist Karl Jansky improvised a new antenna to study the effects of telephone static. Instead, he discovered radio waves from the Milky Way galaxy, and in the process helped create the science of radio-astronomy.

In 1856, chemist William Perkin searched for a synthetic quinine to combat malaria. Instead, he discovered a dyestuff (“mauve”) that was the first practical synthetic color, and in doing so launched the specialty chemicals industry.


In 1984, biologist Alex Jeffreys studied the gene for the muscle protein myoglobin, hoping to gain an understanding of how genes evolve. Instead, he stumbled on a stretch of DNA in the middle of that gene that varied greatly from one individual to another. This led to his pioneering work in the creation of “DNA fingerprinting,” which has revolutionized forensic science and also other disciplines such as anthropology and epidemiology.

Think of the times in your own life when one thing has led to something entirely different.

How did you get interested in your line of work? How about the times you’ve gone to the library in search of a particular book, and then found something even better on the shelf behind you? (Or gone looking for something on the web and then followed a few links that led you to something quite useful.)

As writer Franklin Adams put it,

“I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.”

How can we prepare ourselves for the unexpected? I suggest that we:

(1) loosen our preconceptions about what we expect to find in any given situation;

(2) pay special attention to the anomalous rather than ignore it; and,

(3) use what we discover as a stepping stone to something very different.

Why don’t we adopt this outlook more often? A major reason is that in order to get things done, we tend to filter out information that strikes us as irrelevant.

I find that I’m much less likely to find the unexpected when I’m in a hurry or narrowly focused on a specific task. When I’m relaxed or playful, there’s a greater probability that unexpected things will flow my way.

— In what new directions might your situation lead you?

— How can you loosen your preconceptions of what you think is important?

— What would open up if you abandoned your original objective?

— When can you take time to play?

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