Imagine a school trip, busloads of teenagers at a big art museum for a day. During the morning the students had to endure a presentation, but after lunch they got to wander around with their friends. Naturally, they splintered off into their usual little groups, walked around being sarcastic and making inside jokes, and maybe… once in a while… they might have glanced at something hanging on the wall.

One particular group of teenage boys eventually, after an hour or two of meandering, settled onto a bench in a particular gallery. They settled at that bench because there were three paintings hanging on the wall, by one artist, that they found to be outstandingly ugly and dumb. They caught sight of them and began an endless assault of criticism that offered them the most fun they had in a while.

Several decades later, a man who was once one of those boys sat in his office stressing an approaching deadline on a big project. He was stuck on an element that he knew should be better. Making it worse was the fact that he received an invitation to his high school reunion the night before, and since then random memories broke his concentration and forced him to smile.

One such memory was from a school trip to an art museum. He didn’t remember anything from that day other than the fun he and his friends had at the expense of three hideous paintings. He never forgot those paintings. As he sat over his project, smiling at the memory, an image in his mind, a piece of one of those paintings gave him just the right idea. He sprung into action and made the final corrections to his project, and was elated that it was indeed finished.