Rolling With Uncertainty

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

~ Hellen Keller 

The upending of our lives by the pandemic has pointed starkly to the fact that life is uncertain and that underlying everything is that we don't know what is going to happen next.  

Of course this was true before the pandemic and it will be true after the pandemic, but at least we had the illusion of continuity.  There was not the blatent insecurity we are confronted with now.  

As human beings it is true that we lack control over our circumstances.  Anything can happen at any time from natural disaster to a personal health crisis.  We don't have control.  And all the trappings of civilization are a crude attempt at control.  I can't wave a wand and make the coronavirus go away, but the unique super power we all possess is that we have language.  And language gives us some choice in the matter of who we constitute ourselves to BE.  

To loosely quote Werner Ehrhardt "there is what happens and then there is the interpretation that gets added."   The power lies within the noticing of the language we are using -- what are we adding or put another way "what gets added automatically as a function of the linguistic soup we are immersed in." 

Which allows me to segue quite nicely into Quaker Silence.  Oddly, speaking and not speaking are powerfully tied.  In silence we have the unique opportunity to notice.  

It is possible to go from being the observer to the observed.  

STOP ... WAIT ... LISTEN ... RINSE ... REPEAT ... 

Can you separate the observation of what is happening from the meaning you add to it?   Just that little observational practice gets us a little distance from all the judgments and assessments about what is and gives us a place to stand where we can actually generate a little creativity, flexibility and power. (and by power I don't mean force -- I'm talking about the power that comes from being able to think beyond language boxes) 

Queries on Uncertainty

• Consider that life is uncertain and it always has been. So what? 
• Is it possible to use silence to find a way to simply be with what is?
• Are you clear about what you add (what gets added) to uncertainty? 
• If you bracket the assessments and judgments about uncertainty, what new interpretation could you bring to the circumstances? 

Helen Keller, once she discovered language, invented a whole world of possibilities for herself and her life -- that very same option is open to all of us. 

I choose creativity, invention, and flexibility in these times -- and you? 

Joseph Olejak