Expert in his own shop

The man who runs the hardware shop in Port Said knows his trade completely. He can tell you which screw will hold in old plaster and which tap will last ten years. He knows his regulars, their buildings, their fathers. Nobody alive is a better expert on that shop, and on what it has been like to keep it open for a quarter of a century.

Lately he has been handed a set of things he does not know. His nephew made a page for the shop, and it shows numbers he cannot read. Customers ask whether he delivers, whether they can pay by phone, why the shop across the road comes up first when they search. A supplier talks about selling online as if it were obvious.

He has three ways to respond.

He can learn. Sit with the nephew, ask what the numbers mean, try one change and watch what happens. That takes attention, and it takes the humility of being a beginner again at an age when he is used to being the one who knows.

He can act as if he already knows. He has a lifetime of sound instincts, and it is tempting to treat them as expertise in this new thing as well. I know my customers, he says, and behind the counter that is true. On the page it is a feeling, not knowledge.

Or he can wave the whole thing away.

The second and third are easier, and they are what most of us choose when we meet a subject we never studied. Being certain, or not caring, both feel better than being new.

But learning what he needs has never been more within reach for him, and the shop across the road is not waiting until he feels ready.