Not
Knowing
“Eventually
we realize that not knowing what to do is just as real and just as useful as
knowing what to do. Not knowing stops us from taking false directions. Not
knowing what to do, we start to pay real attention. Just as people lost in the
wilderness, on a cliff face or in a blizzard pay attention with the kind of
acuity that they would not have if they thought they knew where they were. Why?
Because for those who are really lost, their life depends on paying real
attention. If you think you know where you are, you stop looking.”
David
Whyte (The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship, p.88,
Penguin)
Not
knowing what to do is just about the most uncomfortable feeling there is for
modern humans. We hate to admit that we are lost, or that we were wrong, or
that we don’t have a clue what to do next. We are now in a position of deep “not
knowing” and it is making life quite miserable. What has put us here is a "change master," who took us by the neck, shook us until our teeth rattled, spun
us around and flung us right out of our comfortable existence. As we are
staggering around trying to reorient ourselves, we are confronted with all the
shadow material we thought we had conquered: Egotism, Racism, Misogyny, and Narcissism.
All this time, we thought we were the white hats in the room and now we see
that maybe our hats were grey all along.
The
good thing about not knowing is that it wakes up your senses. It gets your
attention as nothing else can. Especially if you find yourself in a place you’ve
never been before—say, at the peak of a pandemic, with no job, and without the ability
to pay your rent. Now, we cannot be complacent, we cannot take for granted that
we will easily find our way out, so we open our eyes to some hard truths. And
we are alert in a way that we have never been before, not because we want to
be, but because we must. As Whyte says, “If you think you know where you
are, you stop looking.” We cannot afford to do that again.
I have
hope for us. We are not blind—we realize we have serious problems, and now that
they are out in the open, we are forced to confront them. Things will change—they
already have. We are in for some more turbulence and rough weather—socially,
morally, and politically. But now that we are awake, we will be more likely to come
to the table with our cup only half full instead of running over. Not knowing
means that we are ready to listen and think and perhaps, to reevaluate our claims
of superiority. We may even be open to new ideas and compromise. Those are the
directional signs for finding our way out of the wilderness. New ideas resolve
old problems and clear the path toward a new tomorrow. We are on our way.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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