Embrace Uncertainty!

- life would be boring without it!

Some things were always meant to be uncertain of course - such as whether you can plan a picnic in England even with a perfectly sunny weather forecast!

And I don’t mean that we ought to be culpably uncertain about whether we will pay our taxes or subscribe to the criminal code! Nor would I recommend that an airline pilot be uncertain about the law of gravity or a teenager driving his first car be seized with uncertainty about the laws of velocity and acceleration!

There are also uncertain things in our daily lives which we dare not believe to be certain - such as whether our wives will praise the particular, reckless, culinary adventure into the kitchen that we undertake!

Those of us who have used maps spread upon our laps whilst navigating unfamiliar roads and places, are no doubt grateful for the relative certainty of GPS. And technology has also taken much of the uncertainty out of such things as buying tickets for a train, an airplane, or bus (some of my readers will remember that after queuing up at a grubby ticket counter, you would occasionally learn that all places in the bus/train were taken!).

GPS and booking tickets and trips on the internet have undoubtedly made for a convenience that we take for granted and have largely eliminated uncertainty in these areas.

But those who have not experienced the utter, alternate joy, despair, relief and exasperation of ending up in the wrong road (and destination!) in the late 1980s and 1990s (or earlier), cannot know that when the intended destination did finally arrive, the sense of fulfilment, achievement and triumph was so complete, that it cannot possibly compare with the puny satisfaction of Apple or Google maps’ flat, robotic instructions - “turn left - turn right - stay on road X - pass the traffic light - red light camera coming up - at the next traffic light turn left - your destination is on the right!”

It might also seem inconceivable that being denied a sleeper cabin train ticket after queuing up for more than an hour would somehow be preferable to the certainty of online reservation and cabin selection! But because of the possibility of the train being full and there being no sleeper cabin available, if you did get the ticket and the reservation after all, it made it all more wonderful, made you more grateful, made the journey more valuable, made traveling a bigger, better adventure.

The taking of photographs before the advent of the iPhone in 2007, was a glorious saga of uncertainty. We would also take far fewer photographs (and when traveling, usually find an excuse to leave the rather bulky camera in the hotel!), since both the camera and the roll of film were expensive. With our eyes focussed on medium and long-range objects, we would then be able to literally see more - more that is, than the second-hand, short-range, “smart” phone images to which today’s travellers seem to be glued.

But the real uncertainty would be when we returned home and submitted our roll of film to the camera shop for developing. You could get your photographs in 48 hours for an extra fee, but it was usually a 4-6 day wait. When the photographs were delivered to you, it was usually in a sturdy, open envelope, which held the highly uncertain results of our efforts - the photographs could be over or under exposed; and sometimes, for a multitude of reasons, they would be so dark that it would then be something of a humorous game to discern faces and places in the photographs! Uncommonly, they would be dark as night! But usually, the uncertainty would yield to pure joy, even surprise at the rather good quality of the colours and images - and a few of the photographs would go into an album. Some fewer still, would be framed!

All the certainty that seemingly surrounds us now, was supposed to make us less anxious and more productive. “Leave all these routine, mundane tasks to technology,” they said - and that would then give you significant time to spend on the really creative pursuits! Are we writing better now? Or producing better art or science? Are we less anxious?

My readers will remember that there was no such thing as central heating and that the indoor temperature was always uncertain in the age of Shakespeare (400 years ago)! There was no electricity either! The feathered quill of the greatest dramatist produced 2,500 pages of sublime drama and poetry surrounded by uncertainty! A hundred years before Shakespeare, under even more uncertain circumstances, the great theologian and philosopher Erasmus wrote more than 100 consequential books.

Nowadays, it is not merely such unimportant things as the weather that is assiduously sought and researched for certainty. If a gentleman wishes to propose to his lady love, for example, he typically spends endless “online” hours not merely looking at various diamonds set in various strands of gold, he also scours the internet discussion boards and AI, and sends countless text messages (and emojis) to his friends in order to be as certain as possible that the particular combination of genuflexion, speech and flourish of diamond will meet with a “yes!” Arguably, by relentlessly narrowing the field of uncertainty that formerly existed when such an enterprise was undertaken, the scope and depth and breadth of ecstasy and joy that resulted, have all been considerably diminished!

Lest I be accused of being a luddite who bemoans the passing of an age that cannot be recovered and who would be content to return to the age of horse and buggy (I wouldn’t!), I should state at once, that the question here is not whether uncertainty itself is a good thing - but whether by the constant pursuit of certainty, we have made our lives much more predictable and much less fun.

A good dose of uncertainty needs to be brought back to human living, or else the goals of the AI mandarins may soon be realized - of creating automotons who can be predictably programmed to do their bidding, based on their desire to be as certain of everything as possible.

There is a vast and consequential difference between using technology to modestly decrease uncertainty and enhance our lives on the one hand - and getting addicted to technology in order to pursue the elimination of uncertainty! There is much of the latter that has already crept upon and seized the human race. Once tethered to technology and the smart phone, it will become increasingly difficult to break free to a more spontaneous, joyful, uncertain existence; and increasingly likely that we will be controlled by those who control the technology.

Speaking of the weather, we were just hit by a late season, spring snowstorm. I purposely did not look at the weather forecast these last three days - just looked out the window!