When I was kid, one of the fun things that might happen when the family was stuck in the house on a snowy day was a "theatrical production." These were usually a one-act play dreamed up by the kids who planned it all out, gathered the props and put on a show for Mom and Dad.

The snow had brought life's big show to a grind-ing halt, so it fell to the kids to put on a little show.

It may have been Plato, some 2,400 years ago, who first articulated that big, show-stopper problems often demanded truly creative solutions. With all the insight of a child, he wrote something like, "Necessity is th...