On Certainty

No matter where you go, there are always these blurred, almost forgotten faces of random people or strangers that one finds on a train, at a marketplace, or somewhere in passing that leave one with the most unforgettable questions.

I came back home yesterday for my vacation on a night bus. It was a really long journey of ten hours. While I was on the bus, I had a middle-aged uncle beside me who was constantly staring at his wristwatch, as if he wanted to reach home a little faster. Looking at his repeated gestures, one could not help but think about what made him so impatient. It almost seemed as if his constant gestures directly affected the speed at which the tyres moved, and with every glance at his watch, the bus moved a little faster than usual, which obviously was not the case. When he asked me where I was about to get off, I told him, and then he replied that I would arrive earlier than expected. Which wasn't very shocking or likely to happen, but he said it with such certainty and surety on his face that it was almost impossible not to agree with him, even if just for a second. This random incident made me rethink something that I had been wondering about for a very long time: certainty.

Certainty about what, you may ask? Certainty about anything at all. Certainty about the future, certainty about a particular belief, a particular system, a particular teaching, or a particular question. In the modern world, people have become obsessed with discovering one particular kind of truth or one final answer about life or the world in general. I think while it is important to be certain about some things and not remain conflicted all the time, it is equally important to learn to sit with ambiguity most of the time. Because, as we know, nothing in this world is absolute.

So, one cannot certainly say whether the sight is completely true or completely false, because most of the things we see or listen to are always an amalgamation of what we know and what we learn later, what is, what isn't, and what can be. In a way, nothing is entirely true in itself; what remains is always a mixture of different fragments of understanding.

However, the problem with certainty, and this obsession with it, in my opinion, is that it kills curiosity. Universal truths are perhaps the only things that can be called certain; for instance, nobody denies the fact that the sun rises in the east. But when it comes to things that are about to happen, or things that may already have happened without complete evidence, that is when the problem begins.

Most discoveries in this world are a result of curious minds. When someone becomes too certain about something, they no longer feel the need to search further or question deeper. People are too busy trying to find one right answer to life, to the world, or to anything in general. But the obsession with finding quick answers often slows down the actual search for truth. This can be seen throughout history as well. It is only when someone begins searching for something which they are not completely sure of, that they open the doors to new knowledge and new perspectives.

What is important to learn is to sit with uncertainty, with that ambiguity in both the heart and the mind. It is one of the most difficult and brutal tasks, because while everybody else seems to have a particular answer, being someone who is still struggling to find one becomes extremely painful. But while all this is true, one should not forget that it is always about the journey and not merely about a particular destination. The more meaningful and enjoyable the journey becomes, the more deeply we indulge ourselves in the little things in life. And perhaps that is what eventually brings us closer to whatever destination we seek, making both the outcome and the travel itself more meaningful.

Thus, being too certain about something can obstruct creativity. If I talk about literature, or any art for that matter, it is extremely essential for an artist to express uncertainties, like John Keats' idea of Negative Capability — the capacity to remain in doubt and uncertainty without an irritable reaching after fact and reason. In that sense, certainty leaves little room for imagination, and creativity resides more in the questions than in the answers. To stop obsessing over answers and instead sit patiently with uncertainties is what truly fosters creativity. But then again, perhaps we cannot be too certain about uncertainty either, because if we are, would curiosity not be killed all over again?