The Power of Uncertainty

Being absolutely certain is a curse. I must be thankful to have learnt this by 34 years of age. I know many others who might/have learnt this much earlier.

There is a subtle difference in being Uncertain and being Doubtful. Being Uncertain is being an explorer you do not know what you will find. Being Doubtful is being Fearful - you are absolutely sure what you want to find but you doubt whether you find what you want or whether it actually exists.

Being Uncertain involves a Warrior Mindset. You are ready to face whatever comes at you with the solid acceptance that your life may end or be changed in totally unrecognisable way.

Being Doubtful involves a frozen mindset. You are absolutely certain that your goal is the absolute truth and that the world must bend to you. You forget the fact that the World and by extension the Universe is larger, older than you and therefore you do not have any claim in what the World has to offer. The end result is that we break the World around us to bend it to our will.

By the World we often confuse it with us Humans. This is the amusing part of the Curse of Certainty. The perfect embodiment of the Curse of Certainty is Human Society as it exists today.

Society is absolutely certain that Financial Success guarantees a better life. Society is absolutely certain that certain ways of marriage (strict monogamy, caste based marriages) is the only right way of life. Society is absolutely certain that use of force is justified for governance. Society is absolutely certain that economic growth is the only way.

The end result is a total destruction of natural human desires, animal and plant life and by extension dignity of life. We destroy whatever is given by the natural world in order to build a “better world”. By claiming to be absolutely correct in everything we do, we are chaining ourselves in unbreakable chains.

In contrast, being uncertain has a powerful sense of liberation. In India, marriages often end up in failure due to misplaced expectations. When two people marry with an absolute set of expectations either material or emotional and considers such expectations to be inevitable, then, in the event, life together is unable to fulfil these set expectations then the marriage is a failure.

Of course there are certain expectations that can be considered to be violent or immoral. But at what point does the manifestation or non-fulfilment of an expectation becomes unbearable? Here lies the power of uncertainty.

Being uncertain is a two way mirror. One cannot be uncertain about another person or thing without being uncertain about themselves. If I am absolutely certain about others but uncertain about myself it is once again a frozen mindset. Same goes for being uncertain about others but certain about myself. It’s either I am good others are bad or others are good but I am bad. This is the only line of thought for angry teenagers, terrorists, depressed people and sociopaths. There is no other message running in the brain.

The amusing and often irritating issue with both doubt and uncertainty is how similar the thought process look like. Both involve us sifting through various facts and scenarios. By being doubtful we have already made the decision but we are unsure of how the facts will fit in and we end up deciding to somehow fit the facts into our decision. More often the fitting breaks the fact or the decision itself and only an ugly broken mess remains. By being uncertain we are sure of what facts we are seeing but we do not bother about how they fit in. We accept in whatever manner these facts fit in. We allow the facts to fit into a container and we decide to accept the container or reject it. Either way we accept that we have not been certain.

That’s it. The only valuable endeavour in life is the decision to accept or the decision to reject situations of certainty vs doubt.

The understanding between doubt and uncertainty seems to be vital when examining one’s own life and when examining human life as a whole too.

Looking inward and accepting our own uncertain nature, liberates us from unnecessary commitments unwanted self-expectations.

Say you want a house. If you are absolutely certain that you need a posh crores worth home In a specific uber-highclass location or house built around specific amenities that “ you cannot live without” then you will most likely sacrifice many of your natural and simple desires in order to achieve this house. More likely you will have so many doubts along the way as to how you will achieve this goal because every step will take the goal post a little bit farther. I am sure readers will understand as we all face such similar situations every day.

Now say you got a house but it is not what you thought it would be. What is stopping you from selling it? Once again if you are certain that you will make a super profit you fall into the same well again. If you do not know whether you will make a profit, you are now free of your disappointment. You can use the place for a garden or playground or even write it in your Will for someone you love. You can even sell it to someone you know wants a roof over their heads for a lesser price and choose to forego the profit, if they are not ripping you off - again certainty to cheat or get cheated. If one does not work another door is always open.

Same goes for career and relationships. It’s better to be uncertain that you may not work in the same profession or designation tomorrow. If you are absolutely certain, then you will go to any lengths to ensure it happens that way no matter what is the cost, whether being unethical or being a sociopathic worker. It is quite sufficient to work to the reasonable extent that ensures that you are a valuable asset and need not be fired. Its that simple.

Being absolutely certain of your spouse or partner will have disastrous consequences. There is a great tendency to disregard the other persons emotions and even you own.

In the same manner by which uncertainty and doubt are opposites, certainty and truth are opposites. Being uncertain does not mean being blind to the truth.

The Truth is something that is unflinchingly evasive to realise and in today’s world it is almost near impossible. A bigger urgency to understand the truth never arose in the history of the world ever.

The two professions that unabashedly hammer the truth to pieces in a methodical manner is the legal profession and the medical profession.

The medical profession is notorious for fooling humans into thinking that treatment will solve the problem - another certainty problem. The legal profession is notorious for fooling humans into accepting that there is a certain line between good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice. Unfortunately for India and Indians we have inherited both the medical profession and the legal profession from the west and the certainty that the western way of thinking is the best has been drilled into our heads as Truth unabashedly by our Institutions, elders and peers.

The damage done by the legal profession in India is of no small proportions. By embracing the certainty that growth is paramount, business is important and development means replacing the old (often sufficient and happier) ways of life with new, the legal profession has turned from an alert guardian into an alert valet. The legal profession considers every human to be a degenerate no matter to what standard of life the human belongs to, and that only the fear of the law and its soldiers of fortune keeps citizens in check. It is a certainty that the world is full of rabid human dogs and that it is supposed to be that way for the benefit of the soldiers of the profession.

The Medical Profession has also degenerated from the service of prevention and cure into a business of management and drug experiment. There is a certainty of thinking that everything can be solved by drugs and constant treatments. The aim is not to achieve true perfection but reinforcement of the certainty that the physical body is a mess and only by way of drugs and not lifestyle can the body be managed better.

The only area of human life that embraces the power of uncertainty is Politics. It is no big secret that friendships, alliances and enmity in Politics are always uncertain and prone to changes. It is no small matter that being a shrewd politician requires one to embrace the power of being uncertain and unabashedly live up to that uncertainty.

If even one of the two professions embrace the power of uncertainty a lot of power will be divested from the places where the money ultimately flows into and back into the hands of the humans who serve these places directly or indirectly. But that is not likely to be atleast until the end of this century. You read it right not for the next 100 years atleast. There is however a dark side to this Political Power, where politicians are certain behind closed doors but claim to be open minded to the outside world. This is also a representative of the repressive certainty mindset - One or few family or One or few Community is certainly superior over every other. The only way to combat this dark side is to unabashedly unmask the certainty and struggle unflinchingly into revealing the truth.

With the new entrant into this cauldron - digital tech AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, things are definitely set to get very worse for the next half century atleast. The destructive power of certainty is amplified a thousand if not a million times by technology and it will definitely take a very rude wake up call that will include but not be restricted to a global human conflict by the end of this century to make us realise the power of being uncertain and the importance of realising the truth and the difference.

When Technology is deemed to be a certainty in solving problems, no senate or parliamentary committee can do anything about it, they will always be groping in the dark, full of doubts. Only when we decide to embrace the power of being uncertain especially with technology and our institutions, will we be able to cut through the established (certain) rhetoric and arrive at the truth.