THE QUEST FOR UNCERTAINTY – Why Wondering Is More Powerful than Being Right

Don’t get me wrong; I truly envy some people for their clarity of thought. I often wish I were more decisive, that I could be sure enough about a decision or an issue, right away, to be willing to go to bat for or against it.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought of my reticence as a handicap. But in the past decade or so, at last, I’ve found a way to free myself of that burden; I’ve decided it’s actually one of my greatest strengths.

          Isn’t the brew of consequence richer, 
          more robust, when one lets facts and 
          feelings percolate for a while?

After all, I’m thinking, isn’t the world a more interesting place when the conversation doesn’t necessarily end at one person’s version of the truth? Isn’t the brew of consequence richer, more robust, when one lets facts and feelings percolate for a while? Isn’t genuine understanding better served when for every ideologue there’s a skeptic; for every answer, a question; for every teacher, a student?

I guess I can’t stop being the student. And I'm pretty sure that’s okay.

          The more I learn, the more certain I am 
          that I don’t know everything.

Learning’s a funny thing. For many people, it seems it’s just the means to an end. You learn so you can know; you know so you don’t have to listen to anyone any more. Not me. The more I learn, the more certain I am that I don’t know everything…and the harder I listen. For me, asking questions, keeping open the door to curiosity and wonder, is more powerful than being right.

Of course, I understand that much of modern life revolves around having answers. Sometimes one must act on those answers—the best ones possible given constraints of time and resources. But I keep thinking how much of the human experience, spanning nearly every culture, hinges not so much on whether or not those answers are the right ones, as on some clever person’s ability to make you think they are. There must be a better way.

       Isn’t there a kind of abundance in knowing 
       that all the possible conclusions are still 
       out there for you?

Giving myself permission to be ambivalent has been liberating. Ironically, it seems to have actually emboldened my thinking in a way. Not that I make decisions any more easily; but I’m coming more and more to not just tolerate, but actually celebrate the knowledge that absolutely nothing—including this statement—is absolute. It all depends on how I look at it—the lens of my experience; the filter of my judgement; the lightings and shadings of my emotions.

Besides that sense of liberation, isn’t there a kind of abundance in being slow to judge, in knowing that all the possible conclusions are still out there for you? Come on, isn't there at least a small part of you that pities those who so quickly limit their prospects to just one outcome, one reality?

                                         ~         ~         ~

I’m interested in your take on this. How certain are you, at your core, of decisions you make? Does having to know something for sure ever feel like a constraint on your intelligence and creativity? Do you catch yourself turning off your curiosity in order to protect your certainty?

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and wrong.  ~  H.L. MENCKEN

THE STUFF OF STARS – What Every Human Wants

The other day one of my Facebook friends shared a video that’s got me thinking like very few social media posts do. It is astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s response to this question from a TIME Magazine reader: What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the universe?*

EVERY SINGLE ATOM
In brief, what astounds Tyson most about the universe is that every single atom of everything that comprises life on earth—or anywhere else for that matter—originated in certain high-mass stars that exploded some fourteen billion years ago and blasted gas clouds through the galaxy. Every ingredient necessary for life was in those gas clouds, which eventually condensed, collapsed and formed the next generation of planets.

       We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more 
       important… the universe is in us. Many people feel small, because they’re 
       small and the universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from 
       those stars. ~ DR. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON

At our very core, isn’t this what every human being wants most? To know where we came from; that we’re part of something bigger and more enduring than ourselves or our self-devised institutions; that, in fact, we’re connected—to each other, to all life, to the earth, to all of creation?

             At our very core, isn’t this what  
             every human being wants most?

I suggest that this is why we experience such profound joy, such awe, beholding the Grand Canyon, the birth of our child, or perhaps the rescue of a person or animal from grave harm. This is why I felt my spirit deepen and soar at the same time when a 50-foot Pacific gray whale cow, just twenty feet away from my dinghy, swam under her calf, lifted it gently and pushed it to my outstretched hand.

These wondrous moments are, necessarily, rare. But there are countless smaller, everyday wonders that surround us every day. We knew how to see them and let ourselves be affected by them when we were children, but too many of us have lost that ability. Too much other stuff competing for our attention—distractions, pressures, expectations.

LIGHT YEARS OFF THE MARK
It’s sad enough to see how many of us have lost that innate, childlike sense of wonder, that feeling of belonging, in its deepest, truest sense—to Nature, to each other, to life. But what’s sadder still is seeing how seldom we seem to realize it, or, if we do, how little that bothers us.

Still, the loss must hit home at some level, judging from how desperately we struggle to compensate.

      I’m afraid...we’ve come to actually think 
      that virtual reality is the best we can do.

I’m not about to say that this age of instant gratification, of crowd-sourced truths, of virtual connections, is entirely without redeeming value; that would make me a hypocrite. But the degree and the sheer amount of time consumed by these illusions of “reality” and “connectedness” is nothing short of astounding.

According to Nielsen's annual Social Media Report, in just one month, Americans spend 121 billion minutes on social media sites. That’s more than 230,000 person-years we spend “staring into the glaring screen of so-called sharing”—and remember, that’s just in the United States, and in just one month!

I’m a great believer in the notion that if something looks bizarre or over the top, it’s quite likely more than a fluke; there’s often a good reason for it. In this case, I’m afraid that reason may be that somehow we’ve come to actually think that virtual reality is the best we can do.

It isn’t.

This brings me back to Tyson’s inspiring words. When we hunger for something to inspire us, for a sense of belonging, for a purpose, there will never be a shortage of answers flying up at us from the ten-diagonal-inch screen sitting in our lap.

If all you want is an answer, that’s fine. But for those of us seeking THE answer, that can only be found by turning that thing off and looking up at the stars.
* MOST ASTOUNDING FACT - Neil DeGrasse Tyson