Expand your repertoire

To change, reach past what comes naturally. Avoid your defaults. Get guidance outside of yourself. Use a different tool.

“Oblique Strategies” is the name of a deck of cards where each card has one creative suggestion. When making music or anything, if you get stuck, you shuffle the cards, randomly pick one, and apply what it says. Some examples:

• Not building a wall; making a brick.
• Use an unacceptable color.
• Honour thy error as a hidden intention.

I had a poster on my wall of twenty different circles painted by twenty different artists. Each circle had a very different style, color, filling, and texture. When I didn’t know what to do, I’d think how each artistic approach could be metaphorically applied to my life.

Now I learn about foreign cultures, and try to really understand the different worldviews. Instead of judging, I try to see the benefits of their perspective. I travel to inhabit philosophies.

In the spirit of all this, I wrote a book called “How to Live” that presents twenty-seven vastly different approaches to life, each taken to an extreme. It’s meant to be used like the oblique strategies or the paintings of circles. I consider this book (“Useful Not True”) to be like a prequel for that, so consider reading it next, in the mindset of reframing and finding other perspectives.