In a large aviary with birds and butterflies flying free there is a room.
A prisoner is locked in this room.
There is a potential rescuer outside the room.
The door to the room is secured with a combination lock that has a simple combination.
The prisoner knows the combination, but the lock can only be unlocked from the outside.
The rescuer can hear the prisoner inside the room if the prisoner shouts.
However, if the prisoner shouts any of the numbers of the combination to the rescuer outside the door the combination changes.
The prisoner has scribbled clues and messages all over the walls of the locked room to help the rescuer know the combination.
The messages are simple and easy to interpret.
The rescuer can look through the keyhole and see the scribbling.
If the rescuer can, or wants to, or can be bothered to, or cares enough to interpret the scribbling on the walls he could discover the combination. The combination could then be put in, the door to the room could be unlocked, and the prisoner could be released.
Every time the rescuer puts his eye to the keyhole a bird flies past, or a butterfly, and he is distracted. He never has his eye to the keyhole for long enough to read the simple clues.
The prisoner remains locked in the room.
——
There is a question that needs to be asked about the clues.
The clues are obvious and easy, so why doesn’t the rescuer guess them?
It may be that the rescuer doesn’t want to guess them because he isn’t interested in releasing the prisoner? Or maybe, even though the clues are easy and should be guessable they are still beyond the rescuer’s ability to guess?
It may be that the rescuer doesn’t want to guess them? In that case the prisoner might as well find another way out—a window or a tunnel perhaps?
If that isn’t the case, the clues cannot be made easier because they would then become (almost) given and therefore could not be considered ‘guessed’.
——
So why is the guessing so important?
Because successful guessing would be sincere, genuine, and un-prompted. In these ways it has ‘complete’ meaning—it would unlock the door. It says a special thing (the combination), comes only from the rescuer (entirely his guessing), and would be exactly what the prisoner wanted (escape). It could not be more the correct answer—it is completely correct. It would be truthful, right, and perfect and would enable the prisoner’s escape who would remain innocent of the guessing. It therefore inhabits that narrow interface between want and fulfilment that to be meaningful can only be given in this way.
