I Don’t Know
Today I feel moved to write to discover what I know about not knowing to find clarity. That’s funny. And kind of the point.
It seems to me that as humans we want to know.
We want to know what we should do in this or that situation, we want to know where we’re headed, we want to know if they love us, if we’re doing the ‘right’ thing, we want to know if we love them.
We want to know what we should be doing with our lives, we want to know what we should weigh, what we should be eating, what everyone thinks about us, exactly what to do with our seedlings, the one strategy for business success and what we’re going to get up to next week and how we’re going to feel about that.
We think safety comes from knowing. That clarity brings peace.
As we head into action, based on what we think we know, there’s an inner feeling of being ‘on track’, of okay-ness.
But then, if you notice, the thing we thought we were certain of doesn’t go as planned, or we find ourselves back in a place of uncertainty.
I’m finding the very infrastructure my life is structured around seems to be crumbling. The previously unquestioned ideas about schooling, family, heath-care, marriage, work and what makes people happy. How money comes into our lives, that more is better and even what the weather is ‘supposed’ to be doing. What it means to be human.
And in the day-to-day, I notice a writing of blog posts, then taking them all down as what I was so sure of one week doesn’t represent what I think the next.
Asking myself: What do I stand behind if I was asked to share what to do about x, y or z? And being uncertain of any of the responses - they are all just temporary ideas - where before I used to be so sure.
The unknown feels like free-falling. The mind has nothing to grasp onto - it flails and hooks it’s tentacles into something, anything to feel secure.
To know I AM HERE; that I exist, to feel real.
The truth is intolerable to the mind.
That nothing we think is true.
Or is it? See the dilemma? Anything the mind throws up cannot be trusted.
There IS something constant rumbling along underneath it all; something formless that is the source of all this experience. That feels like a KNOWING rather than a believing.
There is an undeniable sense of presence, of existence.
Thoughts and feelings are definitely arising. But it seems more and more that these are a series of ever-changing ghosts, like Netflix turned on and left to play for 85 years. (In truth the length of time also unknown).
My attempt to turn towards even these three things to find truth itself just another example of the quest for solid ground so I can exhale.
Where does all this leave me? It leaves me with an ever-deepening realisation that nothing in the world can be relied on.
A noticing of the pattern of the sensation of free-falling off the edge of a cliff then throwing out a safety line to hook into the side and haul myself back up so I can go into ‘controlling the shit out of it’ mode (as one friend pointed out to me!) in an attempt stabilise things.
A suspicion and deep fear that everything I’m looking for (including safety) will only be found on the day I go to throw the lines and find nothing in my pockets.
And in the meantime, showing up to each moment with fewer and fewer expectations and be here responding to the here and now.
When asked questions (either by myself or another) about what I should do about work or the kids, I find myself responding more often: “I don’t know.”
This, at least, feels truthful.
