What we certainly don't want at all

Regardless of what we may think we want, I'm pretty sure that one thing is certain: we don't necessarily want others telling us what we want. I can understand that. I'm on your side. What most of us don't realize, though, is that sometimes the slightest change of perspective can open up previously unsuspected possibilities. That's the real value in the via negativa.

Let's be clear on one thing: you're not off the hook for thinking, and sometimes I think deciding what you don't want can be more challenging than deciding what you do. The disadvantage to having to make such a decision is that you have to do it all on your own. Deciding what you don't want is almost by definition a communal obligation. You need others to decide what to leave out. Anyone can say what should be put in. This is what may be most challenging when getting used to taking this new course of action. You've got to do it with others.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that you don't have to do a lot of persuading. You don't have to convince the others you know what you are talking about, you only have to explain why you don't like something, why you don't think that something should be included. The pressure, in a certain sense, is off. It's like our idea of "home" that we talked about a week or so ago: we all know when we don't have it, even if we can't say what it is we should have. In other words, the way is open for exploration, experimentation, open-endedness, tentative solutions, and more. The pressure isn't on to get it right the first time, but to find out what works and what doesn't, what we can live with and what we can't. But, the comfort in it all is in knowing you don't have to do it alone.

If our little excursion into the notion of "home" brought us anything, it should have been the recognition that if you're home alone, it's really not home. It may be the place you live (or the circumstance in which you find yourself), but it's not home. You can't be home alone, regardless of what Hollywood may think.

One side effect of all of this is that if we're not alone, we will, inevitably and unavoidably, not feel so lonely. We will recognize there's more than one of us wrestling with the issue, that it's not up to us to save the world all by ourselves. We can start developing a feeling of togetherness. The next thing you know, you could find yourself in a community. Who knows what might happen? The possibilities are endless.