The Opposite

In season four of the classic sitcom “Seinfeld”, George Costanza has an epiphany while eating his usual lunch at Monk’s: Every action he has ever taken, every time he has done “the usual”, it has only brought him disappointment and failure. He decides from that point forward to do “the opposite” of everything that his conscience tells him to do.

What if every conscious action we made was the opposite of what we are typically inclined to do? If “the usual” is fish, we order steak instead (if landfood is the opposite of seafood). Instead of huffing gas we read a book (or vice versa?). If we usually SHOOT animals the animals we are hunting, we instead try to catch them to give them a big, friendly hug (if hugs are oppositional to slugs). It works for George, who in one moment of radical will changes from a reactionary, emotionally neurotic, lying bald guy living with his parents into a cool, calm and collected toupee-wearer (living with his parents), becoming at one (or rather, at complete odds) with himself and with the universe.

I recently read a book about creativity which examines the lives and working habits of people who are eminent in their fields for their accomplishments. The book surveys famous scientists, painters, inventors, writers, actors, businessmen, activists—all of whom go above and beyond the call of duty. Actually they go far above and beyond the 99.9% of us who don’t believe enough in our potential to do more than merely become successful consumers. It is they who are responsible for positing big theories and working new methods, setting trends and molding the future of art, science, and society.

How do they achieve this? How do they ostensibly create something from nothing? Well aside from the obvious answers of “hard work”, “genius”, “persistence”, “organization”, and “luck”, there are elements of character to consider. Whereas most people tend to be one kind of person or another—are either good at linear problem solving or at brainstorming; sociable or solitary; playful or serious; arrogant or humble—creative people exhibit traits from both ends of the spectrum of a given character set. In other words they are bi-polar, flexible, complex, self-contradictive, and in many ways superior. They inherently do the opposite all the time.

Of course, creative people can’t be truly capricious. If they were they wouldn’t even be able to feed themselves, let alone map the human genome, write a symphony or classify every species of ant known to man. But caprice is just what the author suggests we embrace (those of us whose eminence has yet to blossom). Although very few of us have the right combination of factors to become socially creative or change the world in a big way, we can aim for another target. We should “do the opposite” in order to gain a level of “personal creativity". I suppose “personal creativity” is the same kind of creativity that parents recognize in their semi-autistic children when they bring home paintings of vague scenarios of birds and houses and spaceships. I guess we all gotta start from somewhere.

The theory is that if we can surprise ourselves by changing our behavior, we can shift our orientation to the world. If I’ve been shy my whole life and a situation calls for public speaking, I can overcome that by becoming outgoing and maybe trying out a swagger (or donning a Hitler moustache, just for hyperbolic humor effect). If my aggressive demeanor is making it difficult to engage in interviews or research, I might want to listen more, sit back and play deaf-mute (again, hyperbole).

What does doing the opposite look like on a situational level? For example, if at a party you are the type that usually just sits in the corner and stares out with creepy Ted Kazinsky eyes at all the happy people socializing, you should do the opposite: Go and chat up the group of hipsters wearing neon spandex and standing ironically next to the keg. They might ignore you anyway, but it will add some cred to your otherwise pathetic social oeuvre.

Or if at cultured social gatherings you usually contribute by talking [loudly] like this:

“Oh, I just was not feeling good about my life and so I Skyped my mom and I felt waay better. I don’t usually like using Skype at my place because it’s got terrrrrible connection. Oh my god, guys, I had a crazy dream last night! I was on this ladder that went up really high to a bright light, and the bright light was God. Which is reaaally weird because I was JUST thinking about how I should be going to church and I was feeling bad about it, you know?! Whatevs. I was so hammered last night I felt like I was in a dream, too. I don’t usually have dreams. But I do really wanna fuck Brandon Foley! He’s sooo hot. Hey, where’s the toilet? Oh, there it is. Laters.”

If your modus operandi is to engage in non-sequitor soliloquies about base activities and inane personal views on life, then doing the opposite might involved just shutting the fuck up and listening.

Let’s look at another character trait: organization. If you plan everything so much to a T that you know how much butter and soap you will need to buy in March of 2033, you should do the opposite and rip up of all your shopping lists and just go to the grocery store hungry, stoned and with no idea what you have left in your fridge. The amount of useless, unhealthy trash-food you come home with will be liberating and could stoke the fires of creativity. Besides, most junk food has enough preservatives to last until at least March of 2033.

If you have the opposite organizational tendency and you don’t know whether you are supposed to work tomorrow morning or not, you forget your own birthday, and your apartment looks like it is being lived in by a family of raccoons, you might consider doing the opposite. First, find a memo pad and write down the following in list form: gasoline, matches. Then proceed to the nearest store that sells these provisions. Take your purchase home and immediate put them to use on all of your belongings. Fire will purify and thus simplify your life, making room for creative thoughts to take wing and grow into tall trees of ripened mixed metaphors.

The raging inferno burning up your misplaced garbage might spread to other apartments, some of which will undoubtedly be occupied by more organized individuals. But this shouldn’t be a cause for complaint; a life-altering event will only create for these people exciting new opportunities to make those plans for the future which they so crave, such as finding a new place to live, replacing vital documents, and setting aside pockets of time during which to grieve over irreplaceable mementos of life and family destroyed by desperate, disorganized strangers.

Here are a few more ideas to shake things up and get the creative juices flowin’; some are more specific than others:

-Instead of drinking coffee in the mornings, enjoy your java just before bedtime.
-Don’t take the elevator, take the airplane.
-If you are going to say something stupid, think about it first. Is it stupid? Then don’t say it.
-If you use a wheelchair, try walking to work once in awhile. The exercise will do you good,.
-Instead of black, white. Instead of day, night. Instead of wrong, right.
-If you are a cat person, try dog instead. It has less fat than beef or pork.
-Walk, don’t run.
-If you are anti-religion, start preaching Leviticus and Revelations on the street in the afternoons.
-Usually you pay for things you get from a shop. Try just taking them instead.
-If you are usually a goody two-shoes kind of person, spend a day barefoot or maybe in one shoe or in ski-boots. Don’t be pigeon-holed!
-Instead of giving the middle finger, give someone the middle toe. Reach for your potential!
-If you love your office-mates, put laxative in the canteen coffee and write them anonymous hate letters. A new perspective can give you the confidence to take on anything!
-If you usually give spare change to the homeless guy in the park, next time steal his shoes from him. You never know how someone feels unless...

George Costanza’s experiment with battling intuition leads him to sex with attractive women, a job with the New York Yankees, and finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk. I’m not sure if that it makes him any more creative or productive. But perhaps if he kept it up he would have revolutionized the architecture world and made a name for himself as the greatest of oppositional post-modernists: the great Art Vandalay.

If I had to do the opposite tomorrow, this would a brief glimpse into my anti-schedule:

1. Set my alarm for noon and wake up at 6:00
2. Say I will not go to my empty office at work and then actually go
3. Not shout obscenities in Korean out my window at passers-by
4. Eat a balanced diet at an appropriate time to maintain healthy metabolic activity
5. Clean my house
6. Get a bunch of work done and celebrate afterwards
7. Write a fantastic and tasteful blog post about an issue that people want to discuss
8. Not take over the world with my newly invented reverse-ion-ray canon

I have a lot of spare time to do things the RIGHT way in this alternate, creative, opposite universe.