Holiday GESTALT

"All this Lichtenbergianism stuff may be fine for artists, but I don't have a creative bone in mybody," I can hear your inner voice whine.  Don't bother denying it.

But you are wrong.  You use the 9 Precepts all the time.  Here's an example:

You see what's wrong here, don't you? 

No?

Of course not.  You are not my Lovely First Wife, standing there with a green ornament in your hand, wondering aloud, "Where is missing this?"

And there is the essence of GESTALT: you step back from your work and look at it.  What's not there?  What needs more?  What needs less?  What needs to stay?  What needs to go?  "Where is missing this?"

Eventually, you will either decide that the thing is fine as is.  You can put the green ornament back in the box and save it for next year.

Or:

Of course, if you go back and look at the first photo, you will notice there was a larger green ornament there already.  It suddenly "didn't go there," and my LFW started her GESTALT all over again.