Symmetry connotes predictability, lack of imagination, routine, boredom. How can creative, entrepreneurial people tap into the productive power of symmetry, while resisting its tendency to the mundane?
Like rules, patterns are made to be broken. Sometimes a pattern can become more remarkable, and more powerful, when we disrupt it. In real-life terms, we notice and value our work-life balance more when it’s out of whack and we have to focus our energy to restore or rejigger it. Many of us seek symmetry between our rational and creative sides. Running a profitable business usually requires a lot of level-headed decision making, while our creative efforts call for abandonment of form and constraint. Using symmetry as a guiding principle encourages us to apply our creative energy to build coherent business structures, while leavening our creative outbursts with an equal measure of cold calculation. In this way, symmetry promotes contrast and tension, while allowing us to apply ourselves in an integrated way across all our endeavors, rather than segregating our aptitudes, ambitions and efforts.