I’ve been thinking again about the addictive nature of certainty, and how tough a habit it is to break. Our Commander Brain tends to require certainty in order to feel it knows who “I am” and has the control “I need” to keep structure and predictability in our lives. That’s why it’s so important to first learn how to break the addiction to certainty, so we may be able to learn HOW to learn more about what we don’t yet know.
To break this addiction, I once spent possibly a whole year practicing being uncertain. Each time I felt I had a solid ground to stand on, to start building a new “what I know” foundation, I deliberately went searching out alternate ways to think and feel, pulling the rug back from underneath my feet. I wanted to stop allowing the habit of trying to find one solid place to stand firm forevermore. I wanted to get used to walking a path of personal growth and lifetime discovery. There will always be core values that will guide and comfort me, but these are gifts I carry in my heart, not anchors that hold me down.
Allowing myself to be trapped in the comfortable chains of certainty endangers that freedom to learn and grow. I have to thank an article I read today for describing these dangers:
Certainty is the most dangerous emotion a human being can feel in politics and religion. Certainty stops all outside thought or reason. It closes the door and is a metaphorical spit in the face of anyone who disagrees. Changing one’s mind is the essence of critical thinking. As Thomas Jefferson himself said, “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
Fox News tried to tear my family apart: How they failed to incite my father, by Edwin Lyngar on Salon.com
We are blessed with a bright and beautiful world, and equally bright and beautiful minds with which to enjoy it. Let us practice freedom and skill in our minds, that we may live our lives with skillful freedom.
Thought provoking and though I never thought of it the way you so eloquently put it, certainty is quite addictive–seems to me the more that gets put out there these days, the greater the potential for addiction–addiction goes far beyond drugs and alcohol. One thing I do in regards to opening up to uncertainty is reading–particularly non-fiction. Religion, “spirituality,” mythology…that kind of stuff and one thing I have found is that reading is a means by which to shake up my mind–that when it thinks it “knows” something, when I read something that challenges what it “knows” all of a sudden it is like a little earthquake, destabling, if you will, my mind. Or, as you said, pulling the rug out from under.
Nice post. I’m new to wordpress and look forward to reading more.
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Thank you very much for your comment! Reading is definitely a wonderful way to access experiences and perspectives that otherwise don’t come across your path. And it really can feel unsettling or “dizzying” when the foundation is suddenly shaken a bit!
Welcome to wordpress, and all the best to your exploration!
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Thanks for the welcome and for checking out my post. Speaking of dizzying, this whole worpress thing can be quite dizzying itself–for a newcomer like me that is. Can you recommend any that you particularly like? It would seem we have some similar interests…
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That’s a very good question, but I tend to go completely random! I’ll type in a tag on the wordpress.com homepage and see what comes up. Being one who embraces the generosity of chaos in life, as a rule I find what I need when I trust to chance.
That said, I do like Ocean of Compassion for Gede Prama’s very kind-heartedness
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Practising uncertainty, I like that. I’ve often thought that personal suffering is a mechanism that tells you reality is clashing with one of your, possibly unconscious, certainties.
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You know, I’ve experienced it much the same way! When I’m having a really tough time, one thing that helps me out is learning to shift and work through the expectations or desires that are being conflicted with… the ones I can consciously find, that is. It doesn’t always shift the expectations or desires, but it does help me make better peace with them.
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