Before we can find the answer — before we can even know the question — we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. ~Maria Popova
Before we can find the answer — before we can even know the question — we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. ~Maria Popova
Creativity Prompt #2: Defining by Negation … or Discovering What Something Is Through What It Is Not | 30-Day Creativity Challenge
Day two! I’ve got a doozie for you. And if you want to get right to it, just scroll down to the bolded header that says Creativity Prompt #2.
Meanwhile, as some of you know from the chat or social media, I had a hell of a day yesterday. A freak April blizzard tore a giant branch from a 200-year-old majestic bur oak on the corner of our porch. We lost power and heat for sixteen hours. It was scary and unsettling and sad and cold. But your comments and notes about working with yesterday’s prompt buoyed me through an unexpectedly hard Saturday. Thank you!
Our power and heat are back—though I’m still sad about the storybook branch. I loved the way it V-ed out from the main trunk and swept across our stairs and yard like an embrace. I will miss it terribly.
But … silver linings. First, that giant branch didn’t come down on our house. Also, I think the main tree will survive. It’s a clean break that didn’t damage the trunk. We'll have our tree people examine the tree and wound and seal it against oak wilt (I think they'll recommend that, anyway), but there's good reason to think it’ll survive. (Fingers crossed.)
Finally, this loss creates room for a tree on the other side of our sidewalk. A big piece of sky is now wide open. I look forward to putting in the largest, most beautiful tree we can afford come spring. What else can we do? Oh, I know. Plant a couple more trees while we're at it.
Also in the vein of silver linings, here’s a poem by Maggie Smith that I thought of today as I let the sadness wash over and through me.
This leads us straight to today’s prompt, which is about defining by negation, which simply means to explain something not by showing us what it is, but by showing us what it is not. Philosophers say this tactic can be used to shatter a stereotype or undercut conventional wisdom, but what we’re most interested in is the way it might help us to think about something in a brand new way. The way it might help us see a deeper or newer truth or truer truth.
Below is today’s prompt along with a bonus activity (as promised) for those top five fragments you starred from yesterday’s paying attention prompt. I hope to see you in the comments or the chat sharing your breakthroughs and frustrations. Both are valuable when stretching creatively. Perhaps especially frustration, which Maria Popova writes about here, in The Importance of Frustration in the Creative Process, Animated.
So, here we go! Defining by negation … or discovering what something is through what it is not.