No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” —Edmund Burke, 1756.

So let us begin the adventure of living with the chapter’s heuristic: “Destroy judgment, create curiosity.” The first step is to recognise the power of your own thoughts by exploring your inner terrain.

In our sense of unity with a masterpiece, we lose our heads, forget all the trivial mind chatter, meet our own Maker. As the Sufis say, “Painting and Painter are one.

Consequently, the loss of information and understanding that every act of representation involves is the effect of an act of destruction that serves a need.

Create-Destroy

… The creation of new higher-quality alternatives requires that one try hard to “destroy” any existing alternatives, exposing their fault lines and internal contradictions. I call this discipline create-destroy.

Trying to destroy your own ideas is not easy or pleasant. It takes mental toughness to pick apart one’s own insights. In my own case, I rely on outside help—I invoke a virtual panel of experts that I carry around in my mind.