The Art of Subtraction

Jan Schmuckal

The Art of Subtraction

In the afternoon, in summer,
sitting by the pond, I did the math.
Subtraction was
the next best thing to insight I could manage.
Take away the house, the tree, the bird. Get rid of walls, real or imagined.
Look for less in everything around you.
I became a snail with nothing but my shell
to carry forward. It was not
as bad as maybe you might think.
I pared the dictionary down as well,
saved only nouns like stones along a path,
saved verbs that moved in one direction.
Ancillary parts of speech
seemed pointless and could go to hell.
I'm back this afternoon, in autumn,
sitting where I used to,
trying, once again, to clear my head,
subtract the last things I don't need,
get down to only
what cannot be shaken loose or said.

Jay Parini


"The next best thing to insight." Subtraction as a way to clarify. This is such a paradox, I love it. Sometime in my early twenties I realized that I had been told a lot of lies. For instance: that I could be anything I wanted in life if I put my mind to it and worked hard, that I could “have it all”, that I was full of potential.  All these sounded good, but in truth were ridiculous and unhelpful. For one thing, no, I could not be anything I wanted to be. I couldn’t be a professional basketball player, I didn’t have the skills or ability, and even if I practiced my butt off, it was not going to happen. Some things, no matter how much I wished them or worked for them, were not going to happen. I’m sure there are people who will disagree with me, but the fact is, we cannot be anything we want to be. We are ourselves, we are limited creatures, and to talk as if we’re not is an insult to intelligence. Nor can I have it all. That’s such a vague phrase anyway, it begs for clarification. In my world it is used primarily for women – can they have a career and raise a family – well, many women have and do, but that doesn’t add up to them “having it all” anymore than having a car and a bicycle does. Nobody, woman or man, can have it all. “All” isn’t to be had in that sense. As for the “full of potential” appellation, ha! Potential for what? It means nothing.

Now if someone I knew well and respected had come up to me and said, “Listen, with your personality, skills and resources, you are not going to be able to do such and such, but here’s what’s left on the table, what are you going to make of it?” It would have saved me a lot of time and confusion. If I could have gone down to the pond and sat beside Jay and done my own subtracting earlier on, my way would have been much clearer. It’s the power of negative thinking (like Sandburg wrote about in "Losers"). Take away the illusions, the impossibilities, the things that don’t matter (how much matters? I came up hard against that question several years ago, and let me tell you, it’s a short list.), and what is left?

What “cannot be shaken loose or said”? In the strangest way, our limitations are our very best guides. And having great limitations can be the most profound charge of all, the deepest calling. I don’t say that lightly. It’s not that I need to limit myself; it’s that I am limited. What’s left? And that’s where I begin. Again. Like Jay, I return pondside at different seasons, and subtractsubtractsubtractsubtract, and find that the math broadens and lengthens and multipies within me. How beautiful! Maybe Less is what leads to Only, and then to Yes, and even to All. 
 

Maybe!