Negative Capability for Turbulent Times

For the past several years I’ve secretly thought of December as Negative Capability Month. This is partly my cranky introvert response to the over-commercialized “Holiday Spirit” and partly because the poet Keats first coined the term Negative Capability on December 21, 1818. For me, it’s a helpful reminder to be patient and attentive as I write and revise—especially if I am writing in response to current events. It reminds me that there is a difference between tuning into creative intuition and slamming down a hot take.

Keats (in a letter to his brothers) described Negative Capability as “being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”. My own understanding of it keeps evolving over time. I first encountered Negative Capability as a teenager reading Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (if you are a fan of the series, Negative Capability is the mindset Lyra uses to read the Golden Compass). At the time, the most important word seemed to me to be “Mysteries” and I thought it sounded cool, but I wasn’t sure how one actually accessed Negative Capability or what one used it for (certainly not for passing standardized tests!).

Only later, when I read Keats in college and grad school, did I start to recognize Negative Capability as the frame of mind I needed to write a poem, or to revise one. At that time, “doubts” was the part that resonated most for me. I had so many doubts about whether I’d be able to finish projects I started, about how my work would turn out, whether any of it would ever be published. But I kept writing through/into/out of my doubts.

In 2020, I latched onto the “uncertainties” part. Every day was full of Covid-related uncertainties and political uncertainties. Creative work felt like my best way of navigating those uncertainties.

And in 2021, for me, the most important word was “irritable”.

My Negative Capability word for 2022 was “being”.

And in 2024, I am back to doubts in a big way. This time my doubts are more external than internal. They come in the form of post-election despair. Or they come from walking across a semi-apocalyptic campus into a classroom full of students and trying to peel their attention away from their phones (I could fill a whole separate post with thoughts about screens inducing Numbed Capability rather than Negative Capability). We are all up to our eyebrows in doubts—and worries, concerns, fears— that add up to a general sense of doom.

This is not an easy atmosphere in which to make art. It’s hard not to fall into apathy, and hard not to feel that I should be doing something “more useful” with my time. And yet, if I can write in/with/amid/despite/through these doubts, I find myself in a place of greater clarity and calm—capable of responding rather than reacting. When I’m writing, I’m not doomscrolling or raging or panicking. I might be anxious or enraged, but I’m also deeply engaged. Doubts don’t go away, but they drift into the periphery. Sometimes I can reread a draft and find that I’ve articulated a way forward through the day, or named an action I can take, or stumbled on a metaphor that helps me understand the situation around (and within) me more clearly. Almost always it feels like a step forward.

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