Certainty v. Uncertainty

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Anyone following my blog

knows I have an age-old life struggle that I talk about frequently: the religious world v. the secular world, certainty v. uncertainty, knowing v. not knowing. I'd like to explore that in a more meta way today.

I was cloud-watching the other day. 

As I watched a cloud that looked like an owl, I felt happy. It felt nice to label it and watch it float across the sky. Then it morphed. The owl became a shapeless cloud as winds manipulated its form. For a moment I was upset. I was happy looking at that owl, calling it an owl, feeling certain it was an owl. I found happiness again by saying to myself, "oh well, that happens sometimes", and I went back to cloud-watching to see what would happen next. 

Nature teaches me everything I need to learn, and this story highlights my struggle with feelings of certainty and uncertainty.

The feeling of certainty is the space of control. It feels good to know. It feels powerful. I SAY THIS IS AN OWL AND I'M RIGHT. This feeling of certainty has paradigms of thought across many cultures rooted in different things for different people like "traffic laws", "God", "science", "social etiquette". These paradigms teach us correct from incorrect, good from evil, and give us a "path" to follow. We respect those who follow these paths and they're called heroes, saints, martyrs, people we look up to. 

The feeling of uncertainty is the space of freedom and creativity. Feelings of uncertainty can be liberating, a space devoid of paradigms of thought, limitless. Examples of times we feel this way are when we think about the future, ask a girl out, pursue an unexpected career opportunity, or... watch a cloud-owl morph into an unknown shape. 

Humans need to feel certain and uncertain. We need to feel in control, yet we also need space to feel free. 

So problems tend to arise when we cling to either feeling. 

When we become too attached to certainty, we tend to start feeling tense, stifled, suffocated. These folks need to feel "in control" at all times. Think of clean freaks who are always anxious if there's a spec of dust in the house, or a hardcore politically-minded person who can't listen to an opposing viewpoint. An over-attachment to certainty leads to stress, anxiety, and being uptight. 

On the uncertainty side, when we get too high on freedom, we feel chaotic, confused and disoriented. Think of those who say "fuck all rules", litter and shout in libraries. Oftentimes these folks cope with confusion by feeding their every vice and addiction. They can also suffer from the anxiety of having no direction in life. 

So while certainty and uncertainty are not good or bad feelings, we humans need to self-regulate. When we become too attached to certainty and feel suffocated, it's time to balance our lives out by exploring the unknown. When uncertainty morphs into confusion, it's time to find something that can ground us and give us a sense of control again. So the problem isn't really these feelings of certainty or uncertainty. Its the attachment to these feelings that gets in the way.

Maybe the Buddhists were right: "the root of all suffering is attachment". 





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