Uncertainty

I published an elaborate post on Sunday and pulled it back later. Self-doubt, self-criticism, the most important instruments in the artist’s bag, and what is life, if not a work of art?

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard (Paul Simon, You can call me Al).

We’re all a combination of soft and hard. I’m walking on a layer of mud, but it stands on a bedrock of certainty: I’m connected to the All as an active component. Herein lies my strength and my weakness too.

I am not a construct of my intellect. It’s a relief to have realized that.

The post that I pulled was full of self-important certainty, but it was upstaged by doubts about really important things. In the grip of not knowing, I couldn’t act. I discussed things with someone who tried to fill that void and guide me to some positive action. They say “Nature abhors a vacuum”. It’s easy to condemn indecision, but though I found it uncomfortable to be in that place, I had a paradoxical certainty that hesitating, doing nothing, not knowing, agonising even, were right for me.

Dilemmas are universal. Only the descriptive language varies. I could bring in the word “God” but choose not to. “Bedrock of certainty” will do for now.

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