The urge to know, to have an answer, to understand, to explain— this is such a powerful drive in our lives. So many writers, philosophers, fellow human beings have thought and written about this. And we feel it all the time. We don’t hear from a friend or loved one and we send a text, and worry-wait for a reply. We get in the car in a snowstorm yet want to know if we’re being stupid driving anywhere. And when we listen to the news lately, we might wonder what will succeed in making things better? What else might be taken from us, or what will be revealed that will assure democracy and our humanity will prevail over autocracy and cruelty? There can be such pain and discomfort in not-knowing.

 

Many of us can recall a time we felt some new pain and wondered what the cause was. A pain without an explanation is a pain doubled. Sometimes, not-knowing can be fun and add openness, excitement, and anticipation to our lives. But often, it’s just another source of worry.

 

We have this sense of ourselves, of what it’s like to reflect on our feelings or experiences. I think I know what it feels like to be me.

 

But there are times that I’m not so sure. For example, when I realize my attitude, energy level, or what I enjoy doing has changed. Or when so much is going on inside my mind it seems like foreign territory, and I have no idea where it all came from or where it’s leading me. Our inner world can feel so vast and elusive. Or sometimes someone says something about me that shocks me. And as I get older, this rate of change intensifies. I never know from day to day how I’ll be or, of course, what will happen. This is another dimension of not-knowing. We might feel we don’t even know ourselves. How can we control what we don’t know?

 

And then there’s the negativity bias, where we imagine the worst so we’re ready to take action to prevent it. And we develop a theory about ourselves that’s just too awful to face and we cease to care about the reality; we catastrophise and paralyze ourselves. In this case, friends can help us perceive and face what we need to face but haven’t.

 

The same is true if a neighbor, friend, or loved one is in pain. If we don’t know the cause, we worry twice as much about them. We want to help. This is part of our natural compassion. If we have an explanation, a reason, even a mere theory of a cause, we worry less. We have a way to help. Even if the reality is bad, there’s often a sense of comfort in knowing.

 

But sometimes the suggestions we offer others can be hurtful. We can unknowingly imply we’re superior in some way, or that the person is ignorant, or doesn’t know what we think they should know. We can’t totally get into their mind with ours and maybe we don’t want to use our empathy and imagination to even try do so.

 

One issue here is feeling hurt and helpless in the face of another’s pain. We can feel a loss of control in being powerless to help. So, we reach for something to give us that control. But I wonder about control. What does it really mean?

 

We might also expect there to be reasons for things. Not just causes, but something like God delivering prizes and penalties. When something awful happens to a good person, and to ourselves, we might try to figure out “what did we do to deserve this?” But I think God is too big or the intelligence of the universe too inclusive to think in terms prizes and penalties. Maybe, the teaching about Karma is correct, and one thing, one action, one intention simply sets up the conditions for other actions and intentions.

 

And when I try so hard to find an explanation, I could simply be enjoying expanding my knowledge. I love reading and learning. But it can also be an attempt to turn reality into words and people into concepts. A word is so much smaller than the reality it purports to explain. And a concept of a person can describe at most a tiny particle of them. A little bit of humility about what we think we know can go a long way….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.