Forget the Rules

And sometimes it’s okay to break the rules.

I know. That sentence shouldn’t exist. Not if you believe every red correction you ever got in school. But here we are. Sometimes a rule is a handrail. Useful on the stairs. Useless in an open field.

In writing, I like the rhythm that rule-breaking gives me. A sentence that starts with and. A fragment that lands where a full clause would have softened the hit. Repetition that builds like footsteps on a wooden floor. When I listen closely, the language tells me what it needs. The rulebook can’t always hear that.

Photography taught me this first. The rule of thirds is a wonderful teacher until it flattens what you felt. I’ve centered subjects when the energy lived in the middle. Tilted horizons when the tilt carried the wind. Let highlights burn because the glare was the point. Shot into the sun and let the lens flare bloom, not as an error, but as a record of being there, eyes narrowed, hand raised, squinting into the day. Chosen a slow shutter for the blur of a skater because motion said more than sharpness ever could. Let high ISO noise stand because it told the truth about a dim bar better than any careful cleanup ever would.

When people say, “Know the rules before you break them,” they’re right, but only halfway. The deeper thing is to know what you’re trying to say. Then the rules become tools. You pick up what helps, set down what doesn’t, and stop asking permission.

This folds into life too. Many rules are just habits with good PR. Buy this, scroll that, keep pace, don’t stray. If your aim is autonomy, you start measuring choices by whether they serve the work you’re here to make. You move from consumer to producer. You stop arranging your days around what the feed rewards and start arranging them around what your craft requires. Sometimes that means taking the longer way home, because the longer way lets you notice the thing that becomes the next paragraph, the next photograph, the next through-line in the life you’re building.

I think about a photo I almost didn’t take because the light was harsh and the composition looked “wrong.” The subject was low, nearly cut off. The sky filled most of the frame. Every lesson I’d learned told me to recompose. But the scene wasn’t about balance. It was about scale, how small we feel under all that blue. The picture worked because it kept the “mistake.” It kept the feeling.

Writing is the same. A clean sentence is a gift, but sometimes it needs to stumble and recover. Sometimes it needs to sprint after an idea before breath catches up. Sometimes it needs a pivot you feel in your chest. That’s not sloppiness. That’s intention. You shape the page to carry meaning, not to pass inspection.

Breaking rules doesn’t mean ignoring craft. It means choosing craft over compliance. Being responsible to the work, not to the rubric. If the rule carries your meaning, use it. If it cages your meaning, open the door.

What rule have you been following that no longer serves the thing you’re trying to make, and what would happen if you set it down this week?

Thank you for reading. If you would like to explore more in-depth content, I invite you to check out my book, "Wander Light: Notes on Carrying Less and Seeing More." It helps support this web page and enables me to continue providing you with more content. Get your copy here.