Coping with Uncertainty

I was recently having a conversation with someone about certainty/uncertainty. The person with whom I was speaking was a medical professional who has spent her career in mental health care and thus was interested in different notions of how one finds certainty. Regular readers will know that I define certainty as the ignorance of ignorance- one thinks one is certain as one does not realise that one cannot have knowledge (true certainty).

The conversation we were having suggested that what we call certainty is the foundation on which we can build our lives. As uncertainty is usually a negative emotion (or perceived that way) one seeks certainty as that can promote the growth of a ‘foundation’. However, as I pointed out (rather irritatingly) the biblical parable of the man who built his house on the sand which washed away once the tide came in compared to his neighbour who built his house on rock that did not wash away, rock is, essentially, millions of grains of sand and over time even the rock will be worn away. This, we suggested, supported a hypothesis that all ‘foundations’ were illusional.

We discussed the things that people do to create a form of certainty- relationships with the first person who will take them, drinking, casual sex, religion, sport, family, work, friends, education and so on and so forth to create a foundation and we pointed out that if these were really the silver bullet to end uncertainty then they would not have to be repeated by the said individual ad nauseum.  The very fact that these actions have to be repeated would suggest that they, themselves, are not certain and thusly cannot give a secure foundation- whether they look like they are made of rock or smaller rocks (sand).

 

From this we concluded that one cannot have certainty and that all foundations are illusional. After all the biggest problems we have in life is when something we take for granted stops working (from a jet plane to a single cell).

 

The next question- which we could not answer, is, if all foundations are illusional- how can one cope with uncertainty. The answer, we hypothesise, would come from the study of the Stoic philosophers who spoke of the transient nature of life- don’t get attached- we are all going to die, anyway yet, as with religions such as Buddhism, the unattachment is also illusional as one gets attached to one’s concept of unattachment. Franz Kafka wrote:

 

‘You can withdraw from the sufferings of the world — that possibility is open to you and accords with your nature — but perhaps that withdrawal is the only suffering you might be able to avoid’    

 

So maybe the certainty we need is that there is no certainty and to cope with it one must embrace it as one would a lover or a child- without holding back and become not separate from it but part of it (remove the otherness of it). Yes, this is easier to write (and that as pretty hard) than do and may not work, but I know with almost complete certainty, the question of how to cope (in a healthy, genuine, way) is something that few, if any have been able to answer although the answer may come by first shedding your certainties (the religion, the sex, the family etc.) and try to shed the biggest lie we have of all, the most false certainty that we have, that of ‘You’.

 

‘till next time