A study in conviction After Jackson Pollock
Have strong
opinions,
weakly held.
Throw yourself into it.
Then have the nerve to let go.
Drag across the linen. Slow for a pool, fast for a thread.
Enter throw · E evidence · hold Space to resist
Strong opinions, weakly held
The mark is strong.
The hand stays open.
A clear position gives you something to test. Holding it loosely means letting good evidence change the next decision. Your earlier reasoning still belongs to the story.
The same idea, in engineering
Choose an architecture. Name the observation that would make you reconsider it. Run the load test, trace the bottleneck, reproduce the failure. Revise the smallest decision the evidence actually challenges.
A senior engineer’s preference can start an investigation. A measurement can change its direction. Give each the weight it earns.
After Jackson Pollock. Paint accumulates in gestures; each one changes the whole. Black is conviction, rust is evidence, and teal is the direction you discover when you let go.
Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950 ↗