Brain Food #859: Saying yes to yes

The demands of modern living put a large focus on the act of refusal. Saying no is a shield—a means to save time, energy, or the identity one has painstakingly crafted for oneself. No becomes an act of self-preservation, its enclosure keeping one safe. But nothing ever started with a no.

In The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector presents yes as the absolute act of creation, the novel itself beginning with the following sentence:

“All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.”

In November 1966, the artist Yoko Ono, long before she became known as ‘the woman who broke up The Beatles,’ was about to open her exhibition Unfinished Paintings and Objects at Indica Gallery in London.

John Lennon was invited to visit the gallery by its owner, John Dunbar. He met Ono for the first time while interacting with her art. One piece in particular caught his attention, and perhaps it was the piece that brought them together. It was called Ceiling Piece, and it consisted of a ladder that visitors had to climb in order to reach a magnifying glass attached to the ceiling. Through the magnifying glass, a small word written on the ceiling would become visible. That word was ‘Yes.’

Lennon liked it because he had found most avant-garde art at the time to be anti-something and too negative: “I felt relieved. It’s a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn’t say ‘no’ or ‘fuck you’ or something, it said ‘yes.’”

Like climbing a wobbly ladder, it takes some effort and courage to get to the yes. On the way up, one might slip and fall, getting hurt or embarrassing oneself. No is the rational. It comes from a place of control, resistance to change, even fear. As Thomas Merton said, “What you fear is an indication of what you seek.”

Lennon said yes to an invitation. Ono said yes to herself: “I was not happy with my life so I wanted to say ‘yes’ to me. Yes, Yoko, don’t worry. I wasn’t expecting anything. But it worked, didn’t it?!”

As Tina Fey wrote in Bossypants, saying yes is fundamental to improvisation. This is called ‘Yes, and…’ thinking. The idea is to accept what your partner has