» René Descartes
Being a scientist requires having faith in uncertainty, finding pleasure in mystery, and learning to cultivate doubt. There is no surer way to screw up an experiment than to be certain of its outcome.
« The scientific way of thinking counters our perilous compulsion for certainty with systematic assurance that uncertainty is the only arrow of progress and error the only catalyst of growth. » Carl Sagan. 7 Reasons for Panic-Buying Behavior. Source: Christopher Corneschi /Creative Commons What explains the rise of panic-buying of foods and stockpiling toilet paper during the outbreak of coronavirus?
1. Two ways of thinking. We have two levels of decisions. At the basic level, individual decisions are best understood as the interactions between the logical brain and the emotional brain. Article continues after advertisement 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The beauty of uncertainty. Home » Love & Relationships » The beauty of uncertainty We’ve figured out how to control most things in our lives — our bodies, our weight, our work.
But relationships? That’s something different altogether. We can’t control someone else’s heart, and because of that, there’s always a certain amount of uncertainty in any relationship. And, sadly, it is this uncertainty that causes many of us to put up walls and push others away. So just how do we overcome the innate urge to self-protect during periods of uncertainty? How do you protect yourself from feeling pain? Becoming aware of your behavioral patterns makes it easier to recognize them when they arise, and helps you achieve more objective viewpoint when emotions take hold.
Open up to your partner about what you need in order to release your inner withholding and connect. Learn to give without the promise of getting. For example, try looking your partner in the eyes and asking them to explain what makes them feel loved. The Beauty of Uncertainty. The Truth About Your Uncertain Life Path & Purpose. By Leo Babauta If you’re in your 20s or even 30s, you might feel a lot of uncertainty all the time — you aren’t sure what your life purpose is, or your uncertain about what path you should take in life.
This is normal. We all want to know what our driving ambitions should be in life. We all want to have a certain life purpose. We all want to feel we’re on the right path. We all want to perfect our habits, our routines, our productivity. We all want to feel more certain, and perfect what we’re doing. The comfort of certainty and perfection vs. the fear of uncertainty and being suboptimal. Let me let you in on a secret: no one is free from this struggle. No one ever feels they’ve found the perfect productivity routine, the perfect version of themselves … because it doesn’t exist.
Anaïs Nin on Embracing the Unfamiliar. We’ve already seen that life is about living the questions, that the unknown is what drives science, and that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.
John Keats wrote of this art of remaining in doubt “without any irritable reaching after fact & reason” and famously termed it “negative capability.” But count on Anaïs Nin to articulate familiar truths in the most exquisitely poetic way possible, peeling away at the most profound and aspirational aspects of what it means to be human. In a diary entry from the winter of 1949-1950, found in The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955 (public library) — which gave us Nin’s whimsical antidote to city life and her poignant meditation on character, parenting, and personal responsibility — she observes: Educators do all in their power to prepare you to enjoy reading after college. It is right that you should read according to your temperament, occupations, hobbies, and vocations. The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long.
“How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard memorably wrote in her soul-stretching meditation on the life of presence, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
And yet most of us spend our days in what Kierkegaard believed to be our greatest source of unhappiness — a refusal to recognize that “busy is a decision” and that presence is infinitely more rewarding than productivity. I frequently worry that being productive is the surest way to lull ourselves into a trance of passivity and busyness the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but being absent from our selves, mistaking the doing for the being. Despite a steadily swelling human life expectancy, these concerns seem more urgent than ever — and yet they are hardly unique to our age. In fact, they go as far back as the record of human experience and endeavor.
Seneca writes:
Complexity. Adventure. Adversity. Stress Factors. Margin of Safety. Detachment. Tips for performing well amidst uncertainty. 5 Ways To Turn Fear Into Fuel. Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jonathan Fields, author of Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance.
Uncertainty. It’s a terrifying word. Living with it, dangling over your head like the sword of Damocles, day in day out, is enough to send anyone spiraling into a state of anxiety, fear and paralysis. Like it or not, though, uncertainty is the new normal.
Prudence. Worry. Trust. Risk Management. Compulsive Buying Disorder.