Certainty

I'm uncertain about it.

Certainty hasn't always come easy to me. It’s one of the reasons I didn't start writing until very recently in my life.

I actually found out that I was the same age as French philosopher, Montaigne, when he first started. We were both 39. Coincidence? I'll leave that to you to decide.

One of the things that held me back all these years was a very limited sense of what kind of writing was possible.

I had also somehow internalised this idea that I had to become wildly successful and only then would I have something worth saying. A plan like this might help if you've actually defined what successful looks like to you. But let's just say I hadn't even broken down what that meant. Jeepers, what a mess.

I also assumed that age would bring a level of certainty about things. Which to be fair it has in some ways. It's unavoidable as you go through life and make enough mistakes. You can't help but learn about yourself, and the wisdom I've gained from the countless misguided attempts and fools errands, fools quests even, has been hard fought and is now incredibly precious to me.

I've read all sorts of books too - one's without pictures even - as a part of this same quest to achieve certainty. And many of them have changed my life. Whenever I come across some tiny bit of wisdom, I imagine a tiny fork in the road appearing ahead of me. A new path suddenly becoming visible, sending my new slightly enlightened self (enslightened) off into a new future, while my slightly dumber older self stumbles off on the old path.

Of all the wisdom I've hoovered up from people smarter than me, I can't always remember the exact details. I wish I was one of those people who could pull out an amazing quote during a conversation. God that'd be a great feeling. 'You know that reminds me of something Nietzsche once said'. Nope, not me. I think it happened one time and then that part of my brain must have just retired. Or been rezoned for some other purpose like remembering lines from TV shows. Important stuff like that.

The problem with waiting until you're wise enough or certain enough before putting yourself and your ideas out there is that it never comes. It's a moving target. And the more life experience and wisdom you gather up only makes you realise how much you don't know. Not only that, but life is constantly in motion anyway. Things might finally be true and correct until they're not again.

Certainty is a weird thing to aim for anyway. I've been undone so many times in the past by feeling certain about things, and cutting myself off from other ways of thinking as a result. Not just because of my own doing, but from other people too. People who talk loudly and confidently about all sorts of things, which as an impressionable young person I took to mean that they knew what they were talking about. They don't. Quite a few of them anyway. There are lots of people out there more than willing to tell you how the world works. The trick is to not be fooled by their false confidence and loud voice.

I'm definitely not perfect mind you. I still make this mistake all the time and I still have a lot of strong opinions about things. It’s as if my brain needs to latch onto some semblance of certainty amongst all the uncertainty, so it comes out in other ways. Mostly about trivial things. For example, recently I have formed the very strong opinion that chocolate covered strawberries are wildly overrated. I can tell right now that you're getting worked up but hold your tiny horses for one sec. When I was in Germany last year I tried a chocolate covered banana - they sell them in supermarkets over there - and it was incredible, and immediately made me wonder why strawberries have been crowned top ranking in the chocolate covered fruit list. Banana is so much more of a complementary pairing, and like any great pairing, they lift each other up. Whereas chocolate only undoes the sweetness of the strawberry, and it seems painfully obvious to me that they need to go off on their own. Strawberry is living in chocolate's shadow. It's literally smothering it.

You might argue that it’s easy to have strong opinions on something with such low stakes, and you'd be right, but it’s still very satisfying if you're looking to be certain about something.

I think one obvious way you could combat this seemingly insatiable desire for certainty is to just become more comfortable with uncertainty. I've heard a lot of smart people say this and I find this to be helpful because oh boy, not having things figured out really sucks sometimes. It's also very anxiety-inducing, so the more comfortable you are, the easier it is to navigate. Take that uncertainty and knit yourself a full jumpsuit out of it. Own it, wear it, get compliments on it.

Once you've done all that and entered through that gateway, in my opinion this opens up a much more fun way to go through the world, which is to just enjoy wondering about things.

I wonder if this thing is true? I wonder if I would enjoy living here? I wonder what success looks like to me? I wonder what path I should take? I wonder whether I would look good in a jumpsuit? I wonder if me writing at a similar age to Montaigne is significant?

Try it yourself. Have a good old bloody wonder about something. It feels really good.

Letting go of trying to be right and certain all the time allows all sorts of wonderful possibilities to open up in front of you. You can take all the things you've learnt, the books you've read, the advice you've heard from people and assemble it all into a delicious gourmet grazing board, and then graze it all to your heart’s content. Try all of it, sample this and mix it with that. Why don't you pop a lovely bit of cheese on that one there, give it a nibble and see what you think. Go nuts. Yes, there's even nuts. Someone even brought some mansplaining dip, but I'd give that a miss. It's all part of the grazing board experience.

With all the wonderful bits to sample that are on offer, eventually we have to make a decision. We have to pick a few things to try out and go off and enjoy the party. But the grazing board is always there. We can always go back to try something else.

I heard someone speaking the other day about a tough question that they were trying to figure out and that instead of not knowing the answer and letting it torment them, they talked about living the question instead.

And that’s what I think I’ve figured out, that it’s about the questions. That's the bit to focus on. Having interesting, meaty (or mushroomy if you're a vegan) questions. It’s the thrill of the chase and rolling around in it with your lovely jumpsuit of uncertainty. There’s nothing wrong with chasing certainty, but it might never come so you might as well enjoy the ride.

Certainty can become a prison anyway. A self imposed one. And the certainty jumpsuit is a prison jumpsuit. You bang on your prison bars and shout and then when you get let out into the yard you try and shank other prisoners with your opinions. And soon we're brawling and rolling around and getting thrown into isolation. We cut ourselves off with our strong opinions and ideas.¹

We need more uncertainty, more of us saying 'I don’t know'. And if we want to cling onto something, why not cling onto the questions. The big juicy questions and live our life in devotion to that instead. Questions and wondering allow all of us to add to the grazing table and have a lovely cordial party where no one gets shanked, which is a real fucking downer for any get together. Sometimes I'll stick around after a shanking, but only if there's a really good dessert.

And if it's a chocolate covered fruit, I think I've made it fairly clear where I stand on that.

Sometimes I wish I had more of my life figured out and had more answers, but then I think about how boring life would be. And that instead of trying to become another guru or expert, a better thing to aim for is to find an exciting question. And then chase it with the innocence of youth. The infinite energy of childlike wonder. To climb inside it and ride it like a rocket to the moon. Then report back to the group, all starry-eyed and out of breath.

I’ve given up trying to be certain. I'm not even certain about what I've written. But that’s fine because I've decided it’s much more fun to be a wonderer anyway. And so I think that's what I’ll keep doing.

I wonder what Montaigne would have to say about all that.

1. Just want to jump in here to say I don’t think certainty is a bad thing. There are plenty of times when we need to look to an expert and don't need everyone chipping in with their thoughts. I won't wade into all that but there's probably a few examples to choose from.