On Uncertainty

“May you find moments of ease in the unfolding of these times of great uncertainty.”

I’ve found myself writing these words to many people with whom I’ve been in contact since the escalation of the covid-19 pandemic. Uncertainty.

Merriam-Webster offers the following words in definition of certain – Fixed, settled. Dependable, reliable. Inevitable. For uncertain, the definition is constituted by – Dubious. Doubtful. Variable, fitful. Indefinite, indeterminate. Problematical.

Life, in non-pandemic times, is anything but certain. Each unfolding moment is a mystery into a new present. The force of the wind, the passage of thought, the gesture of a loved one – no arriving element of life can be anticipated in full confidence until it finds its manifestation. We are patterned and patterning creatures, however. Our sense making process in this world is constituted by our ability to discern and construct patterns, and thereby orient toward a semblance of predictability.

Predictability is a core element in establishing a sense of safety. By virtue of a known rhythm, the body and the mind need not be on alert to anticipating the arrival of a potential threat, whether physical or psychological. This helps the nervous system to settle into a parasympathetic state, commonly referred to as a state of ‘rest and digest’ or ‘rest and repair’. Predictability, thus, can serve to provide access to a sense of ease in the body and mind.

Outside of controlled environments, in many ways, any semblance of predictability in life is a construct. Offering a mundane example, I arrive at a bus stop a few minutes early to board a bus to bring me closer to my home. Through my previous lived experience of successfully completing this journey, and the timetable provided by the bus service, I predict the bus will arrive on time. How can I be sure? Any number of attenuating factors may contribute to the bus driver being unable to arrive to the station on time or arrive to the station at all. In a deviation from my known rhythm, I may feel anxious, worried, or fearful in this barrier to my returning home. This may also be heightened if I feel a sense of urgency in a need to be home by a certain time.

Meetings with uncertainty pepper through daily routines, offering a remembrance of this reality of life, but often, conditions are such that we can settling back into our known rhythms.

When emerges the pandemic. When arrives times of great uncertainty. An uncertainty that has always been and is now an all too present reality as we attempt to learn anew how to move, how to connect, how to be.

The seeming abrupt arrival of this reality is not universal. There are many people for whom any sense of rhythm or consistency in life has long been a far distant dream, for whom each moment is an active recalibration and attempt to pause amidst chaos. Whether in contexts of war, abuse, acute poverty, or other situations of inescapable chaos, billions of people have known intimately the fear and instability of being that is now wrapping the globe.

In the disruption of known rhythms, of what was perceived as ‘normal’, billions of people are now collectively struggling to access any semblance of how find ease, if only for a moment, in the tumultuous nature of these times. The nature of this struggle is far from universal.

There are those who are privileged, those who have shelter, those who can self-quarantine, those who have work they can do from home, and those who have steady access to food and clean water. And there are those who have no option but to work, to put themselves and those with whom they live at risk of infection. Those who are in conditions of incarceration, detainment, occupation, our houselessness, for whom any recommended measures to prevent infection are precluded by the violent structures these individuals are in. Those who work in health services, for whom crisis weaves the fabric of each day.

And so, life is disrupted. The fabric of reality is torn. For all, this disruption is a matter of life or death. For some it is their own life at stake, for many it is the lives of others. Tossed collectively into the acute reality of uncertainty, we may strive to find a ‘new normal’. May we resist this temptation, for nothing in this current situation is normal. This is not to say, to the extent it is possible, that we should not (re)establish rhythms and a sense of predictability to our days. Much to the contrary, establishing regularity and consistency in your days can serve as an anchor through the tumult of our world in the times of pandemic. Perhaps it is waking up at the same time every day, joining with others around the world in honouring through the clapping of hands those in health services working tirelessly to support those who are ill, or taking a pause before a meal to give thanks. Such practices may be supportive in accessing a sense of safety, at least in one element or one moment of life, when any semblance of safety in being has been taken away.

In finding an anchor to hold steady, and only to the extent it is tolerable, may we be present with the uncertainty with which we are faced. May we endeavor in a practice not of moving quickly toward answers, but in resting into difficult questions.

Today, these are the questions into which I am resting:

~ How do we connect with a sense of safety when the resources that previously allowed such an experience are not accessible?

~ How do we mourn and grieve the trauma of this moment which so deeply impacts the collective, when we must remain apart?

~ How can we find moments of ease in body and mind to support ourselves and those with whom we are in direct relationship?

~ In the crucible of this moment, how can we create a future that is more just and more peaceful for humanity and the ecosystem in which we are embedded?

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