How to think like Shakespeare

This is the summary version of the?Rethinking Negative Capability?newsletter edition.?I explain this idea in much more detail in the long-form version, which you can read by following this link.

John Keats, the great romantic poet, once wrote a letter that included a powerful concept: Something he called “negative capability,” meaning when someone “is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

The idea is about embracing the unknown and resisting explaining away things we don’t yet understand. It’s a 200-year-old idea that is remarkably relevant today.

In our culture of performance and immediate answers, there is a focus on “positive” capabilities. It leads to an almost unbearable pressure to be fast and decisive.

So how can we re-embrace the power of negative capability?

Subscribe on Substack to read the full version of this newsletter. Here, I will explain how William Shakespeare used negative capability in his work - and how you can use it in yours.