Retrace your steps. When you’re missing something, or feeling lost, stuck, or blocked. The other day I misplaced my favorite hat, then found it by retracing my steps.
Today I wasn’t sure what to write about, so I pulled a card from Oblique Strategies, and the card said, “Retrace your steps.” Oblique Strategies is a deck of cards with short encouragements, non-sequiturs, and pseudo-aphorisms, meant to clear creative blocks and promote lateral thinking. When you’re stuck, you pull a card, and try to do exactly what it says. Or, do the opposite. Or, do nothing, and just see what happens. Some other cards, pulled at random:
- Breathe more deeply
- Emphasize differences
- Work at a different speed
- Infinitesimal gradations
- Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
- Turn it upside down
- Do something boring
- Tape your mouth
- Honor thy error as a hidden intention
I’ve been carrying my Oblique Strategies deck with me the past few days. This morning my dad and I were reminiscing about a trip we took together 18 years ago to see the Steelers in the Super Bowl. Reliving it as an adult, specific memories felt entirely new to me, not in content but in context. So for the rest of today, I’m going to try to retrace my steps both physically and metaphorically, to see what seems new, what seems familiar, and what surprises me.
PS–if you’re interested, you can buy a deck here, or use this free online version.
sabbatiblog 