The Certainty of Uncertainty (the Security of Insecurity)…
[ Reading time ~ 4 minutes. ]
INTRODUCTION
Are you scared of the unknown? Do you dislike uncertainty? Do you crave for security, too?
If so, you are not alone. Human beings spend their whole lives striving to turn the unknown into the known, the uncertain into the certain and the insecure into the secure.
It’s tiring work. Especially when you consider that we literally live in the unfolding unknown. That anything certain only appears that way. That security is similarly illusory and transient…
Uncertainty, Insecurity, and You
Okay, let’s focus on uncertainty, for now. No one could argue that there’s an awful lot of uncertainty around. Could they?
- What’s going to happen today? In your world? In the world at large? In the world you know nothing about? (Are you CERTAIN of ALL of it?)
- What thoughts will you have in two hours time? (I bet you it surprises you.)
- What feelings will you get to experience once you’ve stopped reading this post?
- Give me the name of a single person on the planet who predicted at the end of 2019 that the world would still be reeling from the turmoil caused by the spread of the Coronavirus they call Covid-19 at the start of 2021?
Etc.
The thing is, no matter how familiar each and every day of your life starts to feel, something unexpected IS going to happen, DOES happen – whether you notice it or not.
This is called uncertainty.
This is called the real-life present moment.
And this is called noticing.
Now you could say that some parts of the day are uncertain, but most of what happens is pretty certain. What you think about, what others are going to say, and how things work. And you could even pretend to not notice that in each and every second you, yourself, change in small, imperceptible ways (it’s called growing old).
Or you could see for yourself that there really is NO certainty, it just seems that there is.
- So you usually choose to notice what looks familiar, and choose to ignore the freshness of the moment.
- So you look out for the faults of “the other” rather than see what else is there
- So you only see what you’re looking to see
So then you could pretend that Monday is Monday is Monday – and you hate Mondays! – and Mondays are all the same.
And Saturdays are all the same, too.
But they’re not.
Fact is, Monday (and Saturday) is just what we get to call the daylight time every 7 days. For some historical reason. That we rarely question.
There really is just NOW. And YOU. And awareness.
And… uncertainty.
And thus… insecurity.
But why is any of this important, anyway?
Well, off the top of my head…
- When nothing is certain, anything is possible
- When anything is possible, there are no problems
- And when there are no problems, well…
That’s what you call “getting out of your own way”.
That’s what you call having preferences but not being attached to your preferences.
That’s what you call LETTING LIFE LIVE YOU.
That’s what you call uncertainty?
Again, why is any of this important?
I don’t know, dear reader, I’ll leave that up to you to decide for yourself.
(Here’s some space for you to to ponder…)
My main aim, here, is to just get you to see for yourself how life REALLY works – the FACTS of life, when it comes to uncertainty.
And as for insecurity, well I’ll leave that for another post. Maybe. But it’s kinda the same thing, really.
For now, let me remind you what Maya Angelou once said. And let’s pretend she was talking about Mondays and/or Saturdays, shall we, when she said it…
“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.”
Maya Angelou
CONCLUSION
Insecurity, uncertainty, and the unknown – these are the origins of the far more popular security, the comforting certainty and the familiar known.
We are able to live our lives via the familiar, but it’s important to understand that the familiar ALWAYS originates from the unfamiliar first. The next moment is never known, and understanding this is – to say the least – liberating.
How About You?
I’d love to know what you think about this idea of the formless turning into form, so to speak. Either general feedback, or… maybe this feels quite specific for you right now?
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