American Crow : The Power of Saying No

American Crow

This is an American Crow.  I saw a small murder, about eight birds, in front of me on the trail, and I knew immediately I faced a challenge.  Of course there’s the obvious photographic challenge of calibrating the camera to capture detail and structure in a basically black bird.  But there’s also the challenge that comes just from picking the right subject.  These crows were feeding, meaning that at any given moment, the “ideal” subject would hop out of the light and into deep shade.  And another, previously obscured behind a branch would pop up and pose perfectly.  In my (even more) rookie days, I would have shifted my focus from one bird to the next, constantly reacting rather than picking one and tracking it intently.  Choice can overwhelm.

At some level, the Ten Commandments are obvious.  Prohibiting murder, lying, and stealing are good social policy.  More intriguingly, we are given three positive Commandments and seven negative ones.  Why frame the Commandments this way?  Why, “Do not murder,” rather than “Respect others’ lives”?  Why “Do not covet,” rather than “Be satisfied with what you have”?  Would it not have made as much - or more - sense to phrase them all affirmatively, telling us what to do?  Perhaps there is a lesson in the negative structure itself, teaching us more than only the substantive prohibition of murder, lying, etc.  Could seeming constriction actually be a route to expansiveness, an invitation to opportunity?

The only truly finite resource in our lives is time.  Moreover, we don’t know ab initio how much we have.  At our discretion, we can waste it, spend it, or invest it.  In our lives, we are blessed with almost unlimited choices.  Do I spend time with this person or that one?  Do I build my company for this market or that one?  Perhaps the lesson we’re to learn from proscriptive phrasing is that narrowing choices, far from limiting our options, actually create space for us to meaningfully contribute.  Each time we say “no” to this, also allows us to say “yes” to something else.  I received this Crow’s photo only because I also said “no” to the others.  The negative Commandments equally remind us of the value - and power - of saying “no.”