[MD] Don Quixote?

[david buchanan]

 Marsha said to dmb:
When I was thinking of Percival a few days ago, I was thinking of an ancient chinese saying, 'If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.' 



dmb says:

I'd say exactly the opposite about the wise-fool. He's instinctual wisdom makes him the the right man, the one who finds the grail or some such epic deed, but he has a very weird method if he has a method at all. Percival literally stumbles onto the grail while he's busy doing something else, for example. 

The Chinese saying, it seems to me, refers to those who can follow instructions to perfection and yet have no real sense of what they're doing, refers to those who are - in a word - artless.