26th February 2026
In the 19th century, a German mathematician named Carl Jacobi developed an interesting insight:
Many hard math problems become easier to solve when you flip them around and work backwards.
He famously preached to his students, “Man muss immer umkehren.”
Translation: Invert, always invert.
As it turns out, this idea echoes across history, showing up in a variety of places before and after Jacobi:
In medicine, the first rule drilled into every young doctor is an inversion: First, do no harm.
In art, Michelangelo was once asked how he carved the statue of David. He’s rumored to have replied that he simply removed everything that wasn’t David.
In investing, Warren Buffett said that he built his incredible track record on two simple rules: (1) Don’t lose money, and (2) Don’t forget Rule 1.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s late business partner, distilled it even further:
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
Different fields. Different centuries. Same insight.
There’s a name for this principle:
Via Negativa – The negative path -The path of removal.
It finds its origins in ancient theological and philosophical practices, as a way of describing God by describing what God is not.
But the application is universal:
To get closer to your truth, remove what doesn’t belong. To achieve your goals and create your vision for the future, avoid what holds you back.
The primary learning is to study failures rather than successes.
A good practice is to do rigorous postmortems.
Study why a plan didn’t work, why a business went bust, and why a relationship didn’t work out.
There’s hardcore empirical knowledge in failure, because success can often happen at random.
Remember, as light means the absence of darkness and knowledge means the absence of ignorance, good should be defined as the absence of bad. Similarly, success means the absence of failure; keeping one’s distance from the ignorant is equivalent to keeping company with the wise; and as Steve Jobs has said, focus is about ignoring a thousand good ideas.
Adopt the ‘Via Negativa’ path – add to your life by subtracting the unnecessary & stay blessed forever.