the omnipresent obliquity

by Pablo Picasso

The green is slowly spreading over the trees again. The grass is slowly growing again. Our piece of land is slowly turning into a steppe again, which reminds me that I should mow. Tiredness is my companion these days, and the lack of time and energy, but I don’t want to complain. I remember reading somewhere about the Japanese craftsman telling his interviewer that he is the happiest when he is in the flow, even though he is not smiling. I feel like that these days. Happy. But not smiling.

Which reminds me of something that I’ve been consumed by these past few weeks. And that is “obliquity”, which describes that often the direct pursuit of our goals is the wrong approach. Since learning about it, I keep seeing it everywhere.

“The pursuit of happiness”, for example, is a great way to be really unhappy. Instead, happiness is better achieved by not thinking about happiness and just doing things that I want to be doing, which then might or might not make me happy indirectly. I became happier when I focused more on doing things that were interesting to me, when I tried to be more useful, when I helped in one way or another. I never became happier in any way by studying the secrets of people who declare themselves happy, which is why I’m suspicious of anyone who is trying to sell me these secrets.

I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep last night had I not applied some obliquity. As I’m reminded every time I set the alarm too early in the morning because I have to be somewhere important, focusing on falling asleep as soon as possible makes me fall asleep very late or not at all. I fall asleep when I stop giving a damn if and when I’ll fall asleep.

I’m also sure I wouldn’t have found my wife had I been pursuing the goal of getting married directly. Not only do I think that a lot of people would be more successful in finding the right partner if they weren’t so focused on looking for a partner, but I also think that a lot of these very popular dating apps encourage categorization which is then used to eliminate a lot of very fitting partners because of surface level differences masked as major incompatibilities.

Writing is another example where obliquity is useful. I’ll share with you the secret of writing not very good essays — focus on writing the absolute best one. In my case that can even stop me from writing anything at all, because I become extremely dissatisfied with anything that’s not the absolute best one (every essay). Instead, I try to follow Murakami’s delightful advice and try to write “without hope and without despair”.

The oblique approach has helped me professionally as well. I was a pretty average student. But, in the end, I managed to get an above average first job. What helped me was exploring things on the side and learning things that looked interesting. I wasn’t explicitly focused on getting the above average job because I didn’t know what an average job even is. But, following my curiosity outside of the default path paid off in the end.

The oblique often helps with the psyche as well. Path out of the anxiety, fear, or depression is often an oblique one. Trying to force oneself to be less anxious or afraid often produces the opposite effect. As I’m sure you know, the sure way to make somebody think of a pink elephant is by telling them “do not think about the pink elephant”.

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As always, dear reader, thank you for reading this essay. I’m always grateful.

I wish you a Happy Easter.

Yours,
SH