Age: 19
Date of Performance: 2/24/2025
Language: English
Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: United States
- Text
The informant is a sophomore student at USC, who is studying Public Relations & Advertising. He quoted a proverb that says, “Water doesn’t boil when you watch it.”
2. Context
“I heard this, I think, from my friend’s mom. It’s just like a saying.”
“It’s about how obsessing over something just makes it more difficult to do it because when you watch water boil, it takes forever. But when you step away and do something else, time flies and it feels almost immediate.”
“When I was really young, I think I was 8 or 9, is when my neighbor’s mom told me this. Or maybe it was my own mom?”
3. Analysis
The informant’s uncertainty about who taught him this proverb represents how the family influence wasn’t necessarily the important factor in this phrase. It is again, another metaphor involving water and tied to human behavior. It is a teaching of patience, and letting things happen without obsessing over them. It teaches a larger lesson through a metaphor about a rather mundane action.