I went to the gym this morning and, as often happens, the front desk receptionist was reading a book. She is always reading. Sometimes it is Jung, sometimes Pasolini, and today it was the biography of Brian Eno. I looked at the cover and told her that she had chosen a good one. I asked whether she knew the story of the Oblique Strategies. She said no and asked me to explain. I said, why not. After the convo, I realised the tale deserved to be written down. Some stories ask to travel further.
To understand the Oblique Strategies, you have to step back to Berlin in the early 1990s, when U2 were standing at a delicate crossroads. They had already released The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, and after Rattle and Hum they had completed a triumphant American tour that confirmed their global status. They were one of the biggest bands in the world, yet internally they were strained. Fame, expectations, and years of working together had amplified tensions. Achtung Baby, the album they were recording in Berlin’s Hansa Studios, was not simply another step forward. It was a radical shift in sound, tone, and identity. The city itself, still marked by the recent fall of the Wall, mirrored their condition. Fragmented, uncertain, charged with possibility. Not surprisingly, the sessions were difficult, and at times the band seemed close to collapse (by the way, out of that instability emerged “One,” a song they would later describe as the piece that held them together and allowed them to rediscover a shared direction).
Brian Eno played a crucial role in that process, not only through his distinctive ambient textures and production choices but also through a conceptual tool he had developed years earlier with the artist Peter Schmidt. In 1975 they created a deck of cards called Oblique Strategies. Each card contained a short sentence, often enigmatic, sometimes paradoxical. Phrases such as “Honor thy error as a hidden intention,” “Change instrument roles” or “Emphasize the flaws” were not technical instructions. They were designed to interrupt routine thinking, especially in moments of creative stagnation. When a project became stuck and discussion circled endlessly around the same solutions, a card could introduce a different angle. The goal was not to provide answers but to destabilize assumptions.
The logic behind the Oblique Strategies is both simple and profound. When expertise becomes habit, and habit becomes rigidity, progress slows down. Instead of pushing harder in the same direction, Eno suggested introducing an oblique move, something lateral that reframes the problem. If you are overthinking the arrangement, simplify it. If you are refining details obsessively, amplify the imperfections. If you are relying on your strongest skill, deliberately switch to another. In this sense, the cards remind me Langerian’s concept of mindfulness as active openness to novelty. They create a structured way to disrupt automatic behavior and to remain cognitively flexible.
It is not difficult to see how this mindset supported U2 at that fragile stage of their career. A band at risk of repeating its own formula needed more than technical competence. It needed permission to experiment and to question its identity. Achtung Baby became the turning point that led to the Zoo TV tour and to a new, ironic and self-aware version of the band. The Oblique Strategies did not magically resolve conflicts, but they contributed to an environment in which reinvention was possible.
Today you can buy the latest version of the deck or you can download one of the many apps that replicate the experience with a simple tap on a screen. The format has evolved, but the intention remains unchanged. A brief sentence appears, slightly cryptic, sometimes uncomfortable, and you are invited to take it seriously. The real question is whether you are willing to let it unsettle you. Because that is the point. At the end of the day, we all need reminders that creativity rarely emerges from the comfortable repetition of what we already master. It often requires a deliberate step back from our own expertise, a temporary suspension of control, a readiness to see our competence not as a fortress but as a starting point.
