Friday, February 17, 2012

Musings On The Paradox of Certainty

I like certainty but it bores me when its not making me feel secure. 


I like uncertainty because it excites me when its not scaring me and making me anxious. 


What of this paradox and the pendulum swing back and forth between its extremes?


Like so many things in life, how you perceive the extremes is more important than the extremes’ realities I suppose. The more we need certainty, the more we are its slave and lorded it over by its absence. The more we accept uncertainty, the less we are its slave, and more free we can be. Hmmm.

I continue to work at cultivating my comfort with the discomfort of uncertainty understanding that most perception of certainty lies in one's confidence that they can influence certainty for themselves more than in the idea that anyone is going to make things certain for them. It occurs to me that this is one of the hallmarks of maturity and true adulthood.

May we all attain to this, and on the way not overestimate the degree to which we have arrived, nor underestimate the distance we have come toward that arrival. May we all be certain in the face of uncertainty.

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