Throw a soul bomb

Leonardo da Vinci threw paint at walls.

Not in frustration. As a method. When a piece stalled, he'd soak a sponge, hurl it at the wall, and stand there studying the splatter. In the random drips he'd find faces, horses, battles, whole landscapes: shapes his deliberate mind would never have drawn.

He even wrote it into his notebooks as advice, telling students to stare at stained walls and mottled stones until figures emerged.

The most controlled draughtsman in history, deliberately injecting chaos.

Throw a soul bomb

Logic is a loop. When you're stuck, your brain keeps running the same five roads to the same dead end. Randomness is the crowbar. It forces the brain to improvise, and improvisation reaches places deliberation can't.

David Bowie and Brian Eno used a deck of cards for the same purpose. Eno's Oblique Strategies: when a Berlin session stalled, draw a card. "Honour thy error as a hidden intention." "Use an old idea." The card made no logical sense, which was the point. Low, Heroes and Lodger came out of those sessions.

"Look at walls splashed with stains... you will see in them battles, figures, landscapes." — Leonardo da Vinci

Stuck this week? Introduce one random element on purpose. Open a dictionary to any page and force the word into your problem. Shuffle your deck's slides. Write the ending first.

Order got you stuck. Chaos gets you out.

— Dan

P.S. Weirdest thing that ever unstuck you? Mine involved a lawnmower.