The Comfort of Uncertainty
At some point, we all need to slide down the mountain.
In the early 1900s, Sir Earnest Shackleton and a team of 27 men had to abandon their ship, Endurance, in a deeply isolated part of Antarctica.
In a book of the same title, journalist Alfred Lansing does a masterful job of detailing the harrowing true story of what Shackleton and his team had to go through after that moment.
Toward the end of the story, after facing an endless amount of do or die decisions, Lansing describes a final obstacle that Shackleton had to face: Descending a very tall mountain.
“There was no need to explain the situation. Speaking rapidly, Shackleton said simply that they faced a clear-cut choice: If they stayed where they were, they would freeze—in an hour, maybe two, maybe more. They had to get lower—and with all possible haste. So he suggested they slide.”
We may have never heard of Sir Earnest Shackleton had he not chosen to slide down the side of a mountain.
**
I’m not a fan of uncertainty.
I can’t say that I’ve met many who claim to be fans, though I’ve certainly met many who are far more comfortable with it than I am. I am married to one such human.
There’s a line from a book I love, which makes me want to become more of an uncertainty fan. From Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland:
“You have a choice between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot - and thereby guaranteeing that it it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.”
Uncertainty is the comforting choice.
That’s the part that sticks with me. Yet, I so often fail to choose it.
**
We don’t always find ourselves stuck on top of a mountain with friends awaiting inevitable death.
But we face decisions fraught with uncertainty all the time.
How do we make the more uncertain choice in these moments? The apparently more comforting choice?
I don’t know. Like I said, I often fail to.
I think Rick Rubin can offer us a clue. From The Creative Act:
“Ultimately, your desire to create must be greater than your fear of it.”
Our desire must be greater than our fear.
Whatever lies on the other side of uncertainty, we have to want it.
**
Here’s a final take I’d like to offer to those of us seeking to become fans of uncertainty.
Regardless of its timing, death is certain.
Life is uncertain.
So perhaps, like Shackleton on that frozen peak, we need to make the the more comforting choice. Even if it means sliding down.
We must to choose to live.
References:
Endurance, Alfred Lansing
Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland
The Creative Act, Rick Rubin