Card #46 – ”Use Your Forgettery” from the Creative Whack Pack

Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

A creativity teacher invited a student to his home for tea.

After talking for a while, the teacher poured some tea into the student’s cup. Even after the cup was full, he continued to pour, and soon tea flowed onto the floor.

The student exclaimed, “Stop pouring! The tea isn’t going into my cup.”

The teacher replied, “The same is true with you. If you’re to receive any of my teachings, you must first empty out your mental cup.”

Moral: without the ability to unlearn what we know, our minds remain filled with ready-made answers, and we never have the opportunity to ask the questions that lead us new directions.

Novelist Henry Miller: “My ‘forgettery’ has been just as important to my success as my memory.”

— What solutions and answers can you temporarily forget?