Prompt: “If you have a garden in your library you have all you need.”

Prompt: “If you have a pool in your library, you have all you need”.

I fed Cicero's famous quote into AI: "If you have a garden in your library, you have all you need." (Noting that it is usually mistranslated as ‘if you have a garden AND a library, you have all you need’, which is a bit more logical).

The result was exactly what you'd expect. A library filled with greenery, plants growing between the books, vines crawling up the shelves.

Most people would call this a failure. The AI took the metaphor literally, missing the poetic meaning entirely.

I saw something different.

The visualization revealed the beautiful impracticality of the idea. It forced me to confront what Cicero actually meant, stripped of centuries of romantic interpretation.

This is why I always start with the most obvious, "dumb" prompts possible.

The Power of Stating the Obvious

When I interview designers, I make them start the same way: "Tell me what you have done in your own words."

This busts through jargon and cuts away complexity. When ideas are stated plainly, without embellishment, they must be confronted baldly.

It's a moment of nakedness.

AI amplifies this process. It externalizes your assumptions, making visible what was hidden behind familiar phrases.

I tested this with a variation: "If you have a pool in your library, you have all you need."

The result made the impracticality even more obvious. Water and books are fundamentally incompatible.

Each "obvious" interpretation revealed something valuable about the original idea.

The Art of Creative Nimbleness

Working with AI requires what I call nimbleness. You alternate between directing and discovering.

A prompt is just the beginning. You make it as specific as possible to shape the outcome you want.

But the result will always have something unexpected embedded in it.

Being nimble means being ready to strike off in a new direction based on what is discovered.

Research confirms this intuition. Cognitive switching between creative tasks reduces fixation and enhances performance.

The key is oscillating between direction and discovery. You need to quietly observe and act when action is needed, react when reaction is needed.

It's an intuitive and reactive process. You can't do it wrong.

Unhooking the Ego

Most people resist starting with obvious prompts. There's skepticism about the value of being so artless.

The creative ego fights against beginning with something so basic.

But as Arthur Ashe said: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

This mindfulness approach is liberating. The situation is entirely as it should be already.

This connects to what mindfulness meditation teaches us about creativity. It reduces habitual patterns and opens space for genuine insight.

When you adopt this "can't do it wrong" mindset, creative anxiety dissolves.

You stop seeing mistakes and start seeing elements of value. Some have more value, some less, but all contribute.

Magic From the Departure Point

The phrase "start anywhere and just get on with it" is an appeal to unhook the ego from the process.

Never mind how dumb it seems. Just begin at the beginning.

Magic can emerge from that departure point.

From the obvious beginning, subtleties emerge naturally. The overall outcome becomes much more than the sum of its parts.

But you need to start with the dumbest statement of those parts. Complexity follows on.

Harvard research supports this approach. The most promising ideas emerge when humans and AI develop together, combining human novelty with AI practicality.

The secret is treating AI as a philosophical testing ground. It takes abstract ideas and forces you to confront their physical reality.

When you see that library filled with greenery, you're not seeing a failed prompt.

You're seeing your assumptions made visible.

And that's where real creativity begins.