Uncertainty: ally or foe?
Certainty and predictability, the dominant motifs of Newton’s worldview are deeply rooted in our culture and in our thinking. These deterministic features are sought after and prized. We base our lives upon such predictability and they provide for most people a sense of comfort and security. Ironically, this is not only a false security, but actually a self-limiting philosophy that impoverishes our lives. Certainty dulls our life experience, for not knowing the result in advance requires us to be present and mindful.
We immerse ourselves in spectator sports because of the thrill of not knowing the outcome. The uncertainty is what causes us to engage and at times feel spellbound. Similarly, reading an intriguing book or going to a suspenseful movie equally evokes the excitement of uncertainty. Perhaps we seek these experiences as a compensation for living dulled, non-present lives, choked by certainty. Living in a mechanistic mindset doesn’t provide much vitality
Uncertainty is the essence of romance
Falling in love is a remarkable experience of uncertainty, for the condition of not knowing inclines us to be extraordinarily present. This experience is rich in discovery and enhanced by a lack of determinism and predictability. The wonder and suspense that we encounter during such states of Eros is antithetical to certainty. In fact, predictability may well be the death knell of romance as suggested by Oscar Wilde.
Just consider the phrase—falling in love---which indicates a letting go. Falling is certainly rooted in uncertainty.
Predictability is rooted in the mechanistic approach of cause and effect. Naturally, we need to know what time to pick up the kids or when the train leaves. Certainty has its place in our lives. But when we make it a deity, we lose not only an important part of our humanity, but the ability to create meaningful change in our lives. We become the conductors of the train, making all the scheduled stops along the way, but stuck on the same rail. This is a far cry from embracing the creative potential of amy given moment and explains why we struggle so much with change.
Just consider the following:
Predictable = certain = already known in advance = no need to really be here = a non-participatory life
Uncertainty = not knowing in advance = fully engaged in creating the future event = participatory in our life’s creation
Uncertainty is necessary for both creativity and potentiality, for if the future is known in advance, there is little opportunity to be the masters of change. We all seem inclined to struggle with change, if not outright transformation. As such, we futilely try to access new states of potentiality. Embracing uncertainty invites these states of potential. In that potential we become the masters of change. Without uncertainty, we are characters in a book, the plot already written. Engage uncertainty and the next chapter is yet unwritten and the pen is back in your hand.
Picture standing by the bank of a river and imagine the river as the metaphorical flow of life. I am coaxing you to enter the river with me to engage this flow. Hesitantly, you agree. Yet, upon moving into the river you grab hold of a boulder and try to hold back the flow of the river. I ask you to let go and embrace the flow, to come along for the ride. You look ahead and see a bend in the river and you protest, “But I can’t see where the river will take me, I need to know before I let go.” And so you block your engagement in the fuller current of life.
This pictorial well illuminates our dependence upon certainty. As such, we miss the fuller and richer flow of life. Uncertainty restores our human potential. Determinism and predictability lead to many of our struggles and travails.
During Al Gore's recent endorsement of Barack Obama, I took note of a particular question he asked. He inquired, " Do we want predictability or creativity?" (Of our next president) This question beautifully illuminates the choice we have when we consider uncertainty or predictability.
The notion of predictability leaves us outside of the creative window. All we can do is analyze, measure and predict. And the greater limitation of this approach is that it leaves us as spectators outside of the events that unfold. Uncertainty brings us right into the fold of activity, co-creating the realities that emerge. From this vantage we are fully participatory in the process of reality making. From a political perspective, a candidate's predictability factor may comfort some and dismay others. On more personal levels, when our lives and actions become predictable, we have removed ourselves from the creative potential.
Our creative energy engages uncertainty and permits the unfolding of many forces. To predict, is to stand back and for see a future, which ironically may not have the opportunity to emerge differently, as the script has already been written.
A fully present and participatory engagement with life embraces creativity. Life rooted in control and fear seeks seek predictability.
What if?
Chaos meant unfolding?
And predictable implied stagnant
If uncertainty implored potential
If chance were golden,
What if mind were the straitjacket?
The lack of flux imprisoning
Life would emerge
Discovery cherished
Mistakes a forgotten value
