What a Famous Producer’s Deck of Cards Teaches Us About Being Stuck

In 1975, the musician Brian Eno and the painter Peter Schmidt made a deck of cards for artists who were stuck. They called it Oblique Strategies.

Each card has a short, strange instruction. “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” “What would your closest friend do?” “Emphasise the flaws.” You pull one at random and then you try to apply it to the problem you’re facing.

Eno used it in the studio, working with bands like Talking Heads and U2. Musicians didn’t always love it. Some found it silly. But it stayed in use for fifty years, which tells us something.

Think about why it works. When you’re stuck, the problem is rarely a lack of ideas. It’s that you keep looking at the problem from the same angle. Your thinking has worn a groove, and you keep sliding back into it.

A random card is a cheap way to leave the groove. It’s not clever. It doesn’t know your project. But it forces you to look at the situation from a direction you wouldn’t have chosen.

And this raises an interesting question. If a random prompt can help a famous producer make an album, why do we feel it’s silly when it’s used for personal decisions?

Maybe because of the pictures. A tarot card isn’t an instruction like “Emphasise the flaws.” It’s an image of a person, a place, a moment, and you have to supply the meaning. That makes it more personal and, I’d argue, harder to ignore.

The Tarot Engine works along those lines. You draw a card, read a short interpretation, and answer a few questions about what it stirs up in you. The first reading is free at tarotengine.com.

Do you think a random prompt helps you think more freely, or does it just give you permission to stop thinking?