The Risks of Certainty

I have always had a difficult time with certainty. My mind doesn’t operate well in the mode of ‘black and white’ and I find myself enjoying the world of grey and rainbow colours. Nuance and patterns with a twist.

I wonder if that’s the one thing that AI cannot take from us - all the ways in which the patterns are not predictable and things don’t inevitably go only one way or another.

I understand the need for certainty. There is safety and predictability in having clear parameters for what is right and what is wrong. It feels clean, not messy.

Certainty holds some superior power, something akin to religious fervor. If that has been your life and your world, then anything vaguely uncertain or kind of confusing can feel understandably threatening. And if life has been unpredictable and challenging for a person, then a strong conviction of what is right and what is wrong can feel extremely soothing, albeit potentially moralizing.

But here’s the thing I think we don’t always understand: certainty is a risky business if we want a life with meaningful connections. When we have expectations of how the people we care about should behave and if we define certain things as bad and certain things as good, we risk losing the element of surprise in discovering the beautiful unexpected in others.

No, I am not talking about losing all semblance of moral compass or having no values. In fact, I am suggesting a deeper grounding in values that stand firmly in an orientation to life that is curious and open, looking for what is alive rather than standing defensively on guard, waiting for life to prove to us that we are right to be wary. Wariness will always find proof for its vigilance, because it never looks up to search for other possibilities.

What if everything we think we know for sure is blocking us from a surprising twist that will make us smile again? What if life wants to bring you so many gifts but you keep missing it because you are sure you don’t deserve it? What if everyone you love is far more wonderful than you thought but you couldn’t see it because you were evaluating them with the wrong measuring stick?

Life is inevitably difficult. There is no escaping the challenges that are inherent in being human. Bad things happen to good people all the time. But to know that about life and then close every door and window where the light could come in, that just doesn’t make sense to me. Certainty and defensive armoring makes life so much more difficult and all the good stuff that will make you say ‘life is difficult but it is also so beautiful’ will pass you by.

What are the things you think you know for sure? What happens when you put a question mark rather than a full stop at the end of those certain thoughts? Maybe you maintain your position but you have one degree of perspective shift that lightens things or offers you a glimpse into a slightly different story line.

My closest relationships benefit from curiosity rather than certainty. And a trust in beautiful things not yet known to me, all the gifts that life still has in store for me and everyone I know and care about, the roses amongs the thorns.

The beauty awaiting you is worth the discomfort of leaving the world of black and white and visiting the world of sunrise and sunset colours, mornings offering new and evenings that let go of the old.