Letting the "Real Work" Begin

"It may be when we no longer know what we have to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we know which way to go, we have begun our real journey." -- Wendell Berry

It takes existential skills to thrive in the present. People with existential learning styles tend to be highly introspective and find themselves deeply attuned and have a profound connectiveness to their inner selves. Connected internally in just this way, I have begun to have a firm understanding of my personal beliefs, preferences, and convictions.

For most of my life, I followed a safe path, but when I look back I was surrounded by uncertainty, avoided the unfamiliar, traded the unknown for what I knew. I did this to somehow safeguard what I felt was a reasonable attempt to failure-proof my life. I look back and I see what I was doing at the time and that it never occurred to me to go ahead and discard stability and try to understand the impossible, the unrealistic, or the unattainable.

I believe I have reached a point where I need to be doing the "real work" as Berry so well illustrates with the previous quote. I have begun to learn to thrive with the ambiguity I encounter as a part of my everyday life. "Learn to" being the operative part of the previous sentence, for it is an ongoing exercise to reach a comfortable existence with the beast that is ambiguity.

Creativity as Uncertainty

"Keeping your mind open in the face of uncertainty is the single most powerful secret of unleashing your creative potential." ─ Michael Gelb

Keeping your mind open when you are uncertain sounds simple enough, but for me, it seems to be the opposite of what is my brains default setting. Most of the time there seems to be a set idea or viewpoint that my brain tries to paint the answer to the problem with, regardless if it is a problem that requires a broad brush, a fine brush, or a big sloppy roller for that matter. 

People are often expected to be able to quickly respond to situations, and there is where the concept of an open mind seems most difficult. A trained, disciplined mind─say a mind like a soldier would possess─needs to react instantly at times, ignoring the uncertainty that would surround it. The "open mind" needs time to take in more than a simple, quick viewpoint. Hyman G. Rickover, a U.S. Navy Adm. who was a rare military man of conscience said the following: "Sit down before a fact with an open mind. Be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and whatever abyss Nature leads or you learn nothing. Don't push out figures when facts are going in the opposite direction."

Seems like wise advice in these hurried times, especially if we want to reach the creativity that we are offered with our lives.