A Lesson in Uncertainty

not just un-learning, we also have to re-learn, no such thing as certainty

Here I am at the end of what has been a fraught few days relaxing by checking out emails and articles I like and am caught by the latest from Elif Shafak: The Tyranny of Certainty in Uncertain Times.

It is only a few weeks since I myself was writing something about omniscience - a cousin of ‘omnipotence’ that gets fewer mentions than that egotistical wish to be ‘king of the castle’. What I said was: Using words like ‘certainty’, ‘knowledge’ brings the thought of omniscience to mind. What is omniscience? Most would say it is a fallacy, an illusion, even a delusion, but nevertheless, contradictorily, we often find ourselves thinking that we know, or that we could know if we make the effort needed. We allow omniscience and act as if it were so, forgetting that the dynamics of not-knowing are ever-present. 

I feel like changing that ‘most of us’, as most of us don’t use those kinds of words much, and also, like Shafak describes, maybe the culture the modern world encourages, is Be Certain, Look Strong.

I would also have said that I do know to say I don’t know, and also that I believe admitting to vulnerability and to having limits is enabling, better than the brittleness of false strength. In fact in a recent conversation I was asked something about architecture as we happened to pass a building where a particular something was visible on its wall. The actual architecture is irrelevant, I knew what it was, still think that I knew correctly, but nevertheless when answering said: take this as what I call 80% knowledge. I might know, but then its a bit of information that I have gathered along lifes way, so it could well be that it is right, but there is a probability that I have managed to add a bit, or forget a bit, or confuse or conflate with some other bit… Luckily nowadays, one of the other cultures we also live in is the one where we can look it up and check very easily.

Isn’t it interesting that often many would rather say they know, than stay curious, or stay with the genuineness of feeling limited? To me that feeling how I really am is worth any kind of attempt to hold a self-image that isn’t actually there.

I suspect the psychology is about safety and avoiding pain, sadness, grief etc. as when these hit us a bit of certainty feels like a good thing. And maybe that gets carried into being a habit when so much of history, especially the history in the one or two generations of people we still know, is just plain horrible and traumatic. All those twentieth century wars and disasters were bad enough, but the destruction around now, and the desperate prognosis for collapses of many kinds, make one switch off the news, turn on the news, start conversations stop conversations, …

Start and stop this attempt to write sensibly. The fraught few days I mentioned above? Real uncertainty following the shock of a loved sister suffering a severe stroke. I am grateful to the consultant who did not offer comfort, had the courage and sense to express his don’t know. Every person is individual, we can see from scan the severity of loss in her left brain, and as you can see, she has lost movement in her right side and incapacity to make speech. Recovery is uncertain. Further trauma is uncertain. we care for her as we can and we wait.

The plus side is being with the family who are near enough to gather, and the texts and face-time from others in far away places, and many friends. Like many families now we are geographically distant, and at the same time, caringly close.

No matter how omnisicent any of us might be, or want to be, the nature of life will show us the true certainty; life itself is uncertain, wellness is uncertain, we can be thrust into witnessing this any time at all.

Lets find ‘not-knowing’. It brings riches unthought as we share the loving that is here and the losing (capacities? life?) that also comes.

I find myself laughing and quite happy just now, we humans are very contradictory. We can be sad and happy at the same time, and also feel quite ridiculous.

Hurray! Stop striving, and be kind. (Like the consultant and the staff doing their jobs, even though outcomes are uncertain).