peculiar............

 

     Back in 1975 the musician Brian Eno and the artist Peter Schmidt created a curious artifact, a set of cards containing peculiar instructions: "Honour thy error as a hidden intention." "Ask your body."  "Work at a different speed."  These were meant to help artists, especially musicians, who had come to an impasse in their work.  Eno and Schmidt call the card deck Oblique Strategies because they knew that when an artist is blocked, direct approaches meant to fix the problem invariably make it worse.  In a similar way, sometimes you can get better at thinking only by turning your attention to matters other than thinking.

-Alan Jacobs, How To Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds