The rug seller is not a sage

In Khan el-Khalili there is a man who can look at a rug for three seconds and tell you where it was woven, roughly how old it is, and what he will accept for it. He has been doing exactly this for most of his life. Nobody in the lane comes close.

That is how outsized rewards usually arrive. Not from being decent at many things, but from picking one skill, or one way of seeing, and repeating it until it becomes instinct. It takes something close to obsession. It also takes luck, because you have to stumble on the right thing to be obsessed with. Plenty of people have given decades to a craft the world stopped wanting.

Then there is the second lesson, the one we keep forgetting.

Being brilliant at one narrow game does not make someone wise. The rug seller's judgement on wool is close to perfect. His views on how the country should be run, how your son should study, or where prices are heading next year are just views, held as loudly as anyone else's.

We blur these all the time. The founder whose product took off becomes an oracle on everything. The trader with a lucky run is asked about politics. The celebrated coach writes a book on marriage. Mastery in one lane gets mistaken for character, or general good sense, or a reliable compass.

Sometimes they do arrive together. Often they do not.

Admire the skill. Learn from it if you can. Just notice where it stops.