On Wiping the Table after Breakfast

The philosophical significance of a simple act, you know the scene well enough, perhaps there is an oilcloth on the table, perhaps you have had marmalade on your toast and it has stuck to the newspaper which has then lain on the table and made it a bit sticky, and there are small spills and drips of milk from the jug and coffee stains from the mug. You find a dishcloth and put it under the hot tap, squeeze it out and start to wipe the table ... and from a certain angle everything looks clear and clean and you take the dishcloth back to the kitchen satisfied with your virtue. But then as you return you see the table from a slightly different angle ... and stains glint in the light from the window, stains that had been invisible before because you were not well-placed to see the light fall upon the surface, but for all that the stains were there!

No, gentle reader, this is not the lowest point of my philosophical life, but a significant moment. It shows something important about perspectives, that they can conceal as well as reveal, that what is concealed by one is revealed by another, that simply by changing your position you can see what you might otherwise have missed ... And let us take it further: on the first occasion you yourself stood in the light and so did not have the advantage of it; on the second occasion, you had moved out of the light ... Something of spiritual significance then in the act of wiping the table. Yes, yes, but everything now turns on the kind of examples you are going to give ...