This line of questioning originates from many different explorations I have undertaken throughout my life. Particularly inspired by a recent interest in Phenomenology, it also holds some aspects of conversations I have had in recent weeks. Not overly structured nor edited, I wish to expose some aspect of a way in which the world can be seen.
I exist. This is a statement we often take for granted in our lives. Why is that? In our modern world, Descartes is often blamed for this indiscretion. He had famously stated, “I think therefor I am” as his base assertion on the world and the base of his own reflection.
But I have to wonder, is this school of thought itself solely to blame? Putting aside its deeper historical roots, what else has led us to think this way? What leads us to bring ourselves into a state where we so confidently impose our existence onto the world?
Could this actually come from a deeper desire of ours? Could there be such a desire? A desire that brings us to our assumed understanding of “existence”? That is a form of the question I would like to explore.
There is much to be said about our desires as humans. There are those that we perceive and those that we may never notice. We are more often led by those we do not see than those we do. We may one day simply feel a strong craving for our favourite food, and yet even then we may not perceive the desire itself. Why is that?
Despite the many desires we often miss, I would like to focus on one that sees less discussion in our society: the desire for ‘certainty’. To me, this desire forms deep within us very early on. It is something that we do not always see, but it drives our lives in such a way that it seems to become our entire reason for being.
But why do we desire certainty? And is that even a problem?
The reason we desire certainty is that we simply cannot accept the uncertain. How can one truly accept what one does not know? Naturally, we eventually grow to fear the uncertain. Continually facing the unknown, our environment teaches us to truly believe that the uncertain is to be avoided. Even though we often convince ourselves to face it, those times are always momentary to varying degrees. Our lives are spent running towards what feels known. To safety. Since what is known is safe, we think of the known as the only safe place to be. Taught to think of the known as comforting, we see it as a place we want to be. A place where the unexpected won’t complicate our lives.
Unfortunately, what is often overlooked is that we do not truly have a ‘known’ that we can truly stay in. What we think of as the known is in fact just our own fear keeping us from stepping beyond its imaginary bounds. What can we say about this fear of the unknown? Well something I believe to be comforting is the idea that, just possibly, we can suppose that this fear is entirely unfounded. This opens the door to the possibility that this fear can be overcome. This fear, though much more universal, holds no special property making it invulnerable.
What is the unknown? What we label as the unknown is simply that which we have yet to experience. It is a label we place on any perceived change or deviation from our current experience of the world. But if the unknown holds such a strong tie to change, does it not follow that in fearing the unknown, we have come to deeply fear change as well? Then if we are to continue fearing the unknown, we equally live in fear of change. As change permeates our lives, we can see that accepting the fear of the unknown is equivalent to allowing fear to permeate our lives.
So what are we to do? Our lives are full of the unknown, so in seeking to run towards safety we engage in a meaningless pursuit. Our effort is wasted in what could no more be achieved than perfection of knowledge itself. For us to achieve a world with no unknown, there is no way but to reach such a perfection of knowledge. No knowledge is truly perfect. No matter how limited, when one feels that a perfection of knowledge has been reached, or a “final knowledge”, I believe that one has instead simply convinced themselves to stop seeking. Once convinced to stop seeking, one has lost the meaning of what it is to explore. They begin to live in certainty, leading to a great loss they refuse to truly see. Such ‘certainty’ is a loss of the kind of change that defines us, it is a loss of what defines our lives. Though it may seem cruel, in having come to certainty, one has simply destroyed part of the meaning their lives could have had. Once one is certain, they have to some degree decided to no longer explore. On its own, it may seem unclear as to the problems that may lead to in one’s life. However, a being that no longer accepts alternatives has closed their mind to everything that falls outside of their current understanding. In closing the door to all that is unknown, we come to see a life filled with disappointment. Unfortunately, simply deciding to reject the ‘new’ does not prevent it from making its way into our lives.
Though it may be a mistake, I do understand that this ‘certainty’ is something we seek because of the life we wish to live. Some part of us wishes to live in a world where there is something that we know. It believes that only then can our life’s journey truly form. It asks us how we can plan for the future without any certainty. Even if it cannot be everything, we hope that there can at the very least be something known to hold us comfort. But even this singular comfort is not truly within our grasp. It is simply something we choose to believe in because of the alternative we do not wish to accept. We do not want to live in a world without any knowing, without any comfort.
If the world is full of unknown, must we then live in discomfort? Why is it that we refuse to find comfort in the unknown? Is it not possible to stop fearing it? If we cannot truly find the ‘known’, then why is it that we refuse to accept the unknown instead? We give everything in our lives to the pursuit of certainty, and yet it seems that everywhere we go nothing is truly and absolutely certain.
Can we find comfort in the unknown? If certainty is what it takes to have comfort, then I believe that it must be possible to find comfort in this uncomfortable notion of the unknown. As we face a world of constant change, we can grow to embrace the unknown rather than to fear it. As the unknown will never truly fade, we can only begin to accept it if we are to intentionally avoid running away from it. By allowing ourselves to stop running from the unknown, we can start to see it for what it is. We can start to see how the unknown is truly just the inevitability of the things changing all around us. As things change from moment to moment, we cannot even begin to fathom how to know something before it slips away into the future. By accepting this form of the unknown that holds change all around us, we are in essence simply accepting change. We are accepting that the world will change forever more between now and the next moment. It is something we must understand to be out of our control, else we become ruled by a lifelong wish for control we cannot reach.
For me, to accept this is to accept a life of inquiry. One where as the world is unknown in essence, it equally holds an infinite horizon that beckons to be questioned. And through a love of questioning, I believe one can learn to love such a world.