Obtuse Strategies Deck
I’m sure most people know about Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies - a deck of cards with gnomic suggestions to consult at random during creative work.
I propose my own, new deck, informed by my jaundiced world view, and in no small part, my own failings as a human being.
- Cultivate the disreputable
- Lie gratuitously
- Argue extravagantly over minutiae
- Blame the innocent
- Solve the wrong problem
- Construct the trivial sturdy, the crucial shoddy
- Give misleading directions
- Damn with faint praise
- Make a virtue of waste, a vice of thrift
- Play dumb
- Make incorrect change
- Celebrate incompetence
- Value syntax over meaning
- Imagine things to complain about
- Leave out the important part
- Flatter the deluded
- Argue with those who agree with you
- Subvert while appearing to cooperate
- Niggle, always
- Curse the virtuous
- Speak authoritatively when ignorant
- Say the opposite
- Laugh hardest at the unfunny
- Meet sincerity with sarcasm
- Hold grudges
- Complain operatically
- Suspect every kindness
- Swamp any reasonable motive with ulterior ones
- Purport falsely
- Implacably oppose the reasonable
- Deliver less than you promise
- Ridicule caution
- Value yourself negatively, others less
- No such thing as excessively literal
- Prevaricate, Obfuscate, Denigrate
- Puncture the good moods of other
- Purse empty ambitions relentlessly
- Exasperated sighs, sour grimaces
- Let others try to drag you with them
- Disappoint others
- Deny the problem
- Smirk at the misfortunes of others
- Boast without justification
- Give up early
- Assign others sinister motives
- Squander the irreplaceable
- Disturb the tranquil
- Afflict the unfortunate
- Cut in line
- Waste the time of others
- Take no stand
- No pity, ever
- Profit from misfortune
Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.