Uncertainty
The unknown is uncomfortable, but exploring the unknown is fundamental to the human experience.
We invent lenses that allow us to perceive incredibly small things, and develop other lenses that allow us to look out at the macro vastness of the universe. We want to see what’s over the next horizon, while simultaneously attempting to figure out what’s happening inside our own bodies and minds.
This is arguably one of our more beneficial traits, as it’s what incentivizes us to keep growing in experience and understanding, individually and as a species.
But because this also means we’re driven toward a source of discomfort, this predilection can result in a great deal of stress, fear, and apprehension.
Regardless, we seem to be unable to leave things well enough alone, and as a result, we have solid materials that are lighter than air, a fairly detailed understanding of germ theory, and smartphones.
We also have philosophical and intellectual frameworks that encourage us to treat ourselves and others with care and love, that push us to expand our intellectual horizons—both in terms of knowledge and wisdom—and which nudge us forward, while also encouraging us to refine our sense of where “forward” might take us.
A fuzzy, uncertain horizon, though, can be a stick in the spokes of an otherwise reliable, comfortable, locomotive rhythm.
Many people are experiencing different types of mourning, right now. We’re mourning lives lost to disease and violence, we’re mourning the loss of plans, goals, and even a sense of place within a system that seemed intelligible and, thus, traversable.
We mourn for milestones disrupted, relationships changed, career paths forcefully rerouted or ended, and a sense of safety that’s been replaced with the psychological equivalent of being dropped into a deep, dark, ocean. Some of us are fortunate to have life vests, others are not so fortunate; but everyone is trying not to think about what might be down there, unseen but within reach—and we’re all wondering what we’ll do if something, some thing, brushes against our legs.
There are as many legitimate ways to respond to such a situation, to such uncertainty, as there are people. Some responses are more productive than others, according to some measures of “productive,” but all are understandable within the context of our individual circumstances and experiences.
If you’re sad, that’s okay. If you’re feeling listless and unaccomplished, that’s okay. If you’re leaning into the changes and attempting to shape what happens next, keeping yourself busy with projects and goals, that’s okay, too.
If you’re uncertain about what’s happening and what happens next, and you’re hoping to make the best of a collection of largely bad things—to hopefully make things better, somehow, at some point—I hear you. That’s also okay.
Each individual step we take may or may not get us any closer to where we’d like to someday end up. But that we’re taking steps in the first place, that we’re still standing: that’s something. If we’re on the ground at this point, but figuring out how to eventually get back up: that’s something, too.
As a species, we truly suck at not knowing. But we have every reason to believe we can and will crest this horizon. And the one after this one. And the one after that.
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I haven’t been taking or posting many photos, of late, so I’m trying out a few other sorts of visuals for this newsletter; like this tweet and the NASA image, below.
Updates
This week on Brain Lenses I published an essay about the Theory of Mind, and a podcast episode about Action Bias. Paid supporters also received an essay about the Just-World Fallacy and an extra episode about Motivated Skepticism.
This week’s episode of Let’s Know Things is about Rogue Geoengineering (giant space mirrors, injecting chemicals into the atmosphere, and artificially eroding some types of rock—all in the name of preventing worst-case climate change scenarios).
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I’ve spent the last week working my way through Javascript courses, intending to rebuild my existing app projects by hand (whereas previously I was using pre-built tools for portions of them), and now I’ve stumbled into JQuery (a library full of tools for JS) and, long story short, I keep discovering better and more effective/efficient ways to do what I want to do.
Which is to say: I’m still tinkering around, and enjoying doing so, but I don’t have any new tools to share this week.
Do feel free to play with the current iterations of Authorcise and Take a Few in the meantime, though :)
Community
Stop by the forum if you’re keen to respond to the weekly prompt, or just want to share/chat/lurk: NeverNotCurious.com/forum
This week’s prompt is to share something interesting that you recently learned.
Interesting & Useful
Some neat things:
Lunar Origin Theories(video)
The Utopian Ideas of Keynes(“Social democracy must offer more than a lever to stabilise the economy. We need a vision of a genuinely better society.”)
It’s easy to forget, but the Curiosity rover is still puttering around on Mars, doing science, just as it has been since it landed in August of 2012.
Outro
Another week filled with a great deal of frustration and fear, but with hard-earned silver-linings emerging, mostly in the form of new, protest-catalyzed policy proposals and research that indicates there may be ways to open things back up with a lot less risk, if we’re smart about it.
I’m cautiously pseudo-planning a small roadtrip for about a month from now, knowing full well that variables could shift in the meantime, leading to its cancellation. But I’m keen to finally set up a new home base here in the US, after waiting a good chunk of the year to do so.
We’ll see.
If all goes well, I’ll be checking out a few towns and trying to imagine what they’re like when more things are open and more people are out and about—though getting a sense of how they are when closed down is probably prudent, at this point, as well.
Has anything changed in your routine/lifestyle, recently? Making any changes or plans? How’re you and your family faring?
How’re you dealing/coping with this moment of increased uncertainty?
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If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work by becoming a patron of my writing, buying a book, or becoming a supporter of Let’s Know Things or Brain Lenses. You can also buy me a coffee if that’s preferable for whatever reason.
Explaining the pandemic to my past self, part one and part two.