Via Negativa: The Power of Knowing What Not to Do

One useful mental model for thinking about this is the principle of inversion, popularized by German mathematician Carl Jacobi. He told his students to “invert, always invert,” encouraging them to approach difficult problems by inverting the equation to gain a new perspective.⁠1 We can also apply this principle to our lives. For example, instead of

Strategy is scarcity’s child and to have a strategy, rather than vague aspirations, is to choose one path and eschew others. There is difficult psychological, political, and organizational work in saying “no” to whole worlds of hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

only try ideas that you have reason to think will work,