Living in Between Certainty and Uncertainty

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A wan winter sun rested on the roof of the shed, spilling down in cool sheets of light that stretched shadows across the yard. There was no warmth in the morning sun, no real sense of progression; just this long pause between night and day, as though the world had forgotten what came next. I was behind the shed, breathing frustrated fog clouds into the air while trying to coax an old light fixture back to life. My thumb was frozen to the metal, so I gave it a shake. But I dropped it. It broke. I gave up.

I turned to watch a brown sparrow flashing white tail feathers, hopping through the garden; I envied it. It seemed that it belonged in this frigid land. It flits and lands, spying its meal of grass seed. This small, perfect life seems certain of its plan for the day.

And I wondered: “Does this tiny feathered one know how brief and periled his life is? Or does it not even care about this uncertainty?”

Uncertainty frequently arrives in my life, and rarely feels welcome. It rattles me. It goes against much of my conditioning. When I’m uncertain about the day, that’s threatening. I’d like the ambiguity tidied up, preferably by 9AM.

I’m still seeking solid ground; even as uncertainty shakes my foundations. As the earth beneath me seems to heave and breathe, my interior certainty is shaky. Like the tiny sparrow, I don’t know anything for certain, except that life is in the next grass seed I crack open.

I guess my life is more complex than a sparrow's. In this complexity, there's a middle ground that’s unexplored between certainty and uncertainty.

I want to be around people who see differently, who ask questions I’d never think to ask. I’ll write for the next three weeks on the same topic: Binary thinking, black-and-white thinking. This has been the way I led in business, in my family and around you, my friends. But viewing complex issues as only two opposing options ignores the real and rich ground in between the two.

The quote here by Voltaire reminds me that while uncertainty is unsettling, thinking I can attain certainty on all things is illusory. Uncertainty encourages my questioning, malleable mind. Certainty, on the other hand, can lead me to be intolerant and calcified in my views.

I’m going to try to live with both certainty and uncertainty. There’s no inconsistency between the two; perhaps we’re actually aiming for this paradox.

Thanks to your encouraging comments on my Jan 10 post I’m also trying to live in between Hope and Hopeless. It’s made me realize I would like to meet you. Preferably in person. I know it will make my life richer to talk through my certain and uncertain perspectives with you.

Want to join?

I’m thinking of Wed Feb 4, at 8:AM at my office boardroom in Vancouver. For those of you who can’t make that time, we’ll also have a video call on MS Teams; Fri Feb 6 at 7AM.

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I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn or Facebook​

See you next week,

Grayson

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