Born ignorant, we start off by pursuing knowledge with the false promise that it leads to certainty. We grow into adulthood with the illusion of knowledge, but midway we settle for an unsettling state of doubt. Further down the road, we mature into a humbling recognition of our ignorance, and finally while stepping into senility, we face yet another tsunami of unpleasant unknown unknowns awaiting us as mortal beings.
But, should we pity the human race for his inescapable haplessness in his uncertain journey? Or should we stop worrying about uncertainty and learn to love it?
Looking back at 33 years of my life, I have realized that whenever I was at the height of my uncertainty curve, I experienced an extraordinary flow in my life. Whenever I wanted to change jobs, places of residence, or fields of study, I was most stressed, but at the same time, most productive, excited, and hopeful. In contrast, when I felt even an infinitesimal grain of certainty in my life, though for brief moments, those days were replaced with unproductive and agonizingly depressing moments.
Though it seems unsettling to be in a state of limbo, the alternative (i.e., certainty) is at best an illusion, on average a depressing melancholy, and at worst a perilous state of mind ripe for intolerance.
The latter property of certainty comes from an illusion of certainty embedded not in the dynamics of the outside world, but of our inside beliefs. Who can deny the fact that the worst atrocities in human history have been committed by staunch followers of ideas promising certainty in the veracity of ideologies and infallibility of leaders?
Inquietude of uncertainty and doubt, though disagreeable, is to be preferred to the dullness and quietude of certainty. Let’s stop pursuing certainty, for it is degenerating.
Inquietude of uncertainty and doubt, though disagreeable, is to be preferred to the dullness and quietude of certainty. Let’s stop pursuing certainty, for it is degenerating.
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