januslisted

# Janus Named for the god who faces both ways at once. The method is Rothenberg's **Janusian** thinking; this skill is the product. Most frameworks treat a contradiction as a defect to dissolve. This one treats it as the raw material. You hold both poles at full strength, refuse every resolution, and the mechanism that lets both be true **is** the differentiator you were missing. The refusal is the whole technique. Everything below exists to stop you resolving. --- ## When this applies Use it when a contradiction is **structural**: when both poles have a constituency and killing either one kills the product. Do **not** use it for: | Situation | Use instead | |---|---| | Architecture tradeoffs (fast vs. simple) | These should resolve. TRIZ, tradeoff analysis. | | A bug that behaves paradoxically | That's diagnosis. Systematic debugging. | | One pole is just a constraint, not a want | Nobody advocates "slow." That's a budget, not a tension. | | The tension is really a resourcing problem | Scheduling, not creativity. | --- ## Step 1. Name the pair Write the two poles as plain assertions, not adjectives. > **A.** Your data never leaves your machine. > **B.** Collaboration is the reason people switch to us. ### The fake-tension filter **Name a living person who wants each pole, and say why.** Not a persona sketch. An actual describable human with a reason. If you cannot name a constituency for both sides, it is not a tension. It is a preference, a constraint, or a d