Via Negativa: Eliminating Practices That No Longer Serve You
Channel: Robert's Theory
Date: 2020-05-12

Eliminating routines where you are not making any progress. Or cleaning up that small pile of dust sitting under your desk for a few months?

Via negativa is mostly about learning what not to do.

The idea comes from a Latin phrase that was first used in Christian theology to explain what God is by talking about what he isn't.

If God is bigger than everything, we can't give him qualities and traits that are true (God is light, God is love, etc.). Instead, via negativa makes God seem like a mystery that words can't explain.

Via negativa is a way of defining something in theology and philosophy by focusing on what it is not. In practice, it tells you what to avoid and what not to do—for example, in medicine, subtraction, not addition.

Via negativa can also be used to describe a similarly “negative” way of improving one’s life; instead of concentrating on what you do, the focus turns to what you don’t do. This path has two main thrusts: stripping bad habits and situations out of your life, and avoiding bad habits/situations in the first place.


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