**In this Salon, veteran host and philosophical life coach [Pamela J. Hobart](https://interintellect.com/pamela/) invites participants to consider the concept of “clarity” in one’s life – What is it? Why do we want “clarity?” _Should_ we want it?** In over 2 years of philosophical life coaching work with over one hundred clients, virtually everyone has shown up to Pamela’s practice at least implicitly (but often explicitly!) seeking “clarity.” She’s not sure about this “clarity” thing. In this Salon, we’ll try to see it both ways: On the one hand, “clarity” seems intuitive, appealing, and often achievable. On the other hand, “clarity” seems confused, not useful, and impossible anyways. Whether you have a view on what “clarity” is and how to get it or you’re equally as confused or uncertain as Pamela, come on out to clarify “clarity,” the unclear ideal. PH thoughts: - Agnes Callard - What story should I tell about my situation - One thought too many - Aspiration - Cleese on open vs closed mode: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/creativity-in-management-by-john-cleese - Clarity through habit - storytelling - Maxim - Telling people - and myself - - and myself - what I am doing - Nietzsche - PHB has heard advice for young job seekers: maximise either learning or money. Peter London Clarity implies understanding. "Moment of clarity" Seeking a reference narrative, a story. Clarity definition: 1. The quality of being coherent and intelligibile (alt: certain and definite) 2. The quality of transparency or purity (alt: easy to see or hear; sharpness of image or sound) One time clarity: - Second time break up with Sophie - I want to marry X - I'm thinking of clarity as an emotion—decisiveness, convinction, confidence. Clear sight. - Talking to Jess about whether she should take her job. Mysterious: crucial considerations. Animal spirits. Expected value calculations. Value of information. Consequentialist cluelessness. Crucial considerations. When we face a decision, we have a choice: decide now, or seek more information or reflect, and decide later. Clarity as an emotion that says—it's time to act, it's time to decide. One time didn't have clarity: Confidence to make a decisiveness. **Suggested pre-reading:** _[Negative capability (Keats)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability)_ Keats understood Coleridge as searching for a single, higher-order truth or solution to the mysteries of the natural world. He went on to find the same fault in Dilke and Wordsworth. All these poets, he claimed, lacked objectivity and universality in their view of the human condition and the natural world. In each case, Keats found a mind which was a narrow private path, not a "thoroughfare for all thoughts". Lacking for Keats were the central and indispensable qualities requisite for flexibility and openness to the world, or what he referred to as negative capability.[[7]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability#cite_note-7) This concept of Negative Capability is precisely a rejection of set philosophies and preconceived systems of nature.[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability#cite_note-8) He demanded that the poet be receptive rather than searching for fact or reason, and to not seek absolute knowledge of every truth, mystery, or doubt.[[9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability#cite_note-:2-9) Keats might be seen as saying 'Only _**disconnect**_...' from our reassuring certainties, from our hyperconnected world, from our executive control, and from our prefrontal cortex.[[15]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability#cite_note-:0-15)[[16]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability#cite_note-16) 'O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!’ The sections below show that negative capability is not the exclusive preserve of poets, but can describe the pre-creative mood of any artist, scientist, or religious person. So negative capability is important as a wellspring of our humanity and an explanation of how periods of indolence give rise to periods of creativity.[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability#cite_note-:1-14): 18 Negative capability is a phrase first used by Romantic poet John Keats in 1817 to explain the capacity of the greatest writers (particularly Shakespeare) to pursue a **vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty**, as opposed to a preference for philosophical certainty over artistic beauty. The term has been used by poets and philosophers to describe the ability to perceive and recognise truths beyond the reach of consecutive reasoning.[1][2] I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that **with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration**.[4] Against Coleridge's obsession with philosophical truth, Keats sets up the model of Shakespeare, whose poetry articulated various points of view and never advocated a particular vision of truth. _[The Power of Getting Clarity](https://zenhabits.net/clarity/)_ _[Tuning Out The Noise: How To Get Clarity In Life](https://dariusforoux.com/clarity/)_ Elimination strategy. _[From Hazy to Clear: How to Gain Clarity About Your Life](https://chopra.com/articles/from-hazy-to-clear-how-to-gain-clarity-about-your-life)_ _[Why Figuring Out What You Want Is Overrated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptWmTPvtAQc)_ _[Don’t “Clarify” Your Values](https://www.pamelajhobart.com/dont-clarify-your-values/)_ "Values clarification" implies dubious things about value, then enshrines them. In reality it's just you, your shifting preferences, pre-existing knowledge, social factors, and all-things-considered situation. Course corrections are one thing - but don't commit a high modernist atrocity against yourself. Values necessarily emerge from the bottom up, in an illegible patchwork that exceeds anything we could ever design. _[Meaning in Life is Not Propositional](https://www.pamelajhobart.com/meaning-in-life-is-not-propositional/)_