Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c635IR // #c635Synthesis

The one word works in both directions at once: 'with this word you are to beat on the cloud and the darkness above you. With this word you are to hammer down every kind of thought beneath.' When a thought asks to be entertained, 'answer it with no more than this one word'; and if it offers to explain itself, 'say that you wish to have it quite whole, and not analysed or explained.' The word is a refusal-to-engage that keeps your attention whole.

— In our words · Source: The Cloud of Unknowing (Anonymous (14th-century English contemplative))

[Use when]

When a clever idea or a worry keeps interrupting and you keep getting drawn into explaining it to yourself. When you need to hold one thing against a flood of alternatives — answer them all with the same single word.

[Why it matters]

The moment you begin to explain a thought you are inside it and out of the work; the word is a door you don't open, and it holds the whole of attention in one piece.

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