Face it; certainty is difficult to acquire. Yet, we deem ourselves certain, mostly in a few natural “laws,” such as “time’s arrow” that prevents us from going into the past, the Newtonian forces for which we must spend energy and treasure, and the biochemistry that governs our health. In our daily social and psychological realities we accept ambiguity. We have to accept ambiguity with regard to most communication and “understanding” with others and, yes, with ourselves. We can’t wait around for the Incontrovertible in most of our dealings; we’d have to wait forever, and we just don’t have the time, so we accept others and our own assurances that whatever “that” is, it’s “good enough” for us to get by. We find ourselves “sharing” feelings and goals as much as is “humanly” possible. But we can never really know that what we believe we are sharing is exactly what someone else is sharing with us.
Speaking of the temporal flow, time’s arrow and our finiteness, reminds me that it’s time for an inventory of all you accept as certain. I’m the one who has to point this out, just as others have to point it out for me. Otherwise, I’ll operate in supposed certainty. What do I really find to be certain?
See, here’s our mutual problem. Because we are creatures of language, we tend to live by symbols, by the interpretation of symbols, or representations. Ambiguity comes from our reliance on interpreting symbols. Oh! Yes. We can say that some symbols are unambiguous, such as those mathematicians will tell us are not open for “interpretation,” not open for debate. They will tell us that “their” symbols interpret the world incontrovertibly and exclusively, though math is all about relationships, and, as I have written before, doesn’t have to symbolize anything other than relationship. Having incontrovertible certainty (is this redundant?) with respect to human relationships isn’t very easy; we even seem to have difficulty defining the relationship between the Unconscious and the Conscious in our own being.
Imagine being able to put your own being in a formula. You know, constructing the Math of Self. The project would take your lifetime, sort of like Einstein still trying to figure out the Grand Unified Theory on his deathbed. But unlike Einstein’s problem, yours would be even greater because just as you believe you have achieved that moment of epiphany, that revelation will pass into uselessness because of time’s arrow, because, in continuing to live, you will continue to add internal and external relationships that will be both expected and unexpected: “Gee, I never felt this way.” Or “Gee, I never thought of that.” Or even, “Gee, I can’t believe….”
Don’t fret—I’m assuming you are—because everyone around you has some level of uncertainty, and everyone—well, not everyone—accepts personal and interpersonal ambiguity as normal, decides it’s okay to live with it because there’s not enough time to be “incontrovertibly certain,” and then simply moves on. Maybe the obsessive-compulsives among us don’t, but you’re not that, are you?
So, once again, I’ll remind you that it’s time for that inventory we all need to make. Ask now, “What do I find to be certain in my life?”
Speaking of the temporal flow, time’s arrow and our finiteness, reminds me that it’s time for an inventory of all you accept as certain. I’m the one who has to point this out, just as others have to point it out for me. Otherwise, I’ll operate in supposed certainty. What do I really find to be certain?
See, here’s our mutual problem. Because we are creatures of language, we tend to live by symbols, by the interpretation of symbols, or representations. Ambiguity comes from our reliance on interpreting symbols. Oh! Yes. We can say that some symbols are unambiguous, such as those mathematicians will tell us are not open for “interpretation,” not open for debate. They will tell us that “their” symbols interpret the world incontrovertibly and exclusively, though math is all about relationships, and, as I have written before, doesn’t have to symbolize anything other than relationship. Having incontrovertible certainty (is this redundant?) with respect to human relationships isn’t very easy; we even seem to have difficulty defining the relationship between the Unconscious and the Conscious in our own being.
Imagine being able to put your own being in a formula. You know, constructing the Math of Self. The project would take your lifetime, sort of like Einstein still trying to figure out the Grand Unified Theory on his deathbed. But unlike Einstein’s problem, yours would be even greater because just as you believe you have achieved that moment of epiphany, that revelation will pass into uselessness because of time’s arrow, because, in continuing to live, you will continue to add internal and external relationships that will be both expected and unexpected: “Gee, I never felt this way.” Or “Gee, I never thought of that.” Or even, “Gee, I can’t believe….”
Don’t fret—I’m assuming you are—because everyone around you has some level of uncertainty, and everyone—well, not everyone—accepts personal and interpersonal ambiguity as normal, decides it’s okay to live with it because there’s not enough time to be “incontrovertibly certain,” and then simply moves on. Maybe the obsessive-compulsives among us don’t, but you’re not that, are you?
So, once again, I’ll remind you that it’s time for that inventory we all need to make. Ask now, “What do I find to be certain in my life?”
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