RE:Post - Living in uncertainty

I live within uncertainty.

I am a trained technical and creative professional with more than twenty-five years of experience. The discipline doesn’t matter really, but my field of choice is architectural consulting.

I am trained to banish uncertainty. I do this mostly on behalf of others, for money.

The professional banishment of uncertainty is a Sisyphean labour - it is never-ending. It is also never concluded or resolved absolutely. Instead of this, it is a repetitive, reflexive practice, one that is perpetually anticipating and swiftly reacting to constantly changing circumstances.

We sell the banishment of uncertainty. It is profitable to do so.

This is the cornerstone of our business and central to the story of our competence. Our clients don’t rely on us primarily to provide ‘design’. This is important but secondary.

They rely on us to eliminate risk. The engine of risk is uncertainty.

Uncertainty is an immense domain and of necessity it is ill-defined in its centre and edges. It exists in the eye of the examiner. To our clients almost everything is uncertain except what they want, or need, or both. We are paid to be one, or perhaps two, steps ahead of them. Within the field of our experience, there are less uncertainties, and our clients benefit from this.

But this is an important point: we are only one or two steps ahead. Less is uncertain, it is true - but much remains indeterminate regardless of our experience and insight.

This keeps the work interesting. But that’s enough of the day job.

Today I am on my own time. When on my own time, the time I spend leading my personal creative life, I wallow in uncertainty.

In this vast realm I am free from the need for my activities to secure financial reward. The day job pays the bills. Here, I am unencumbered and unrestrained. I can move to any point of the compass at will - it simply doesn’t matter.

I do not need to anticipate, manage, manipulate or control risk of any kind. I am free to unknow.

Perhaps most significantly, I am free to set aside all the techniques and methods I have learnt, without consequence. Almost all of these tools are painstakingly calibrated to banish, or at least manage, uncertainty. Here, now, I can abandon them all, and embrace the consequences.

I am free to surrender entirely to a personal ignorance. A panoramic, sweeping vista of uncertainty I am not seeking to resolve.

I am free to declare this without fear of repercussions. And I do so now.

Today, I unknow. Let’s see what happens.