Blessed Are the Uncertain

"Δp × Δx = h"  ~Werner Heisenberg

"Dwell in possibility"  ~Emily Dickenson

Blessed are you when you are uncertain.

Uncertainty is quite different from doubt. Anyone can doubt, but it takes a very courageous person to be uncertain, and to stay there, dwelling in the positive energizing force-field of uncertainty.

Uncertainty expands the space of what is possible. A doubter cannot tolerate possibility, and so becomes a true believer. But one who rests in uncertainty refuses to cling to any belief. Uncertainty is the secret force within the artist, the poet, the improviser, the creator. The electron's uncertainty in time and space  is the spirit in matter, the lightness in creation.

Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman said, "It's more interesting to live by Not Knowing than to live by knowing what might not be true."


Feynman's language, by chance of course, resonates with the radical Christian mystical tradition of "Unknowing":

"But now you will ask me 'How am I to think of God, and what is God?' and I cannot answer you except to say 'I do not know!' For with this question you have brought me into the same divine darkness, the cloud of unknowing, where I want you to be!" (The Cloud of Unknowing, 14th C.)

"Do thou, in the diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non-being, that you may arise by Unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him who transcends all being and all knowledge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and of all things, you may be borne on high, into the super-essential radiance of the Divine Darkness." (Dionysius the Areopogite, 5th C.)

Blessed are you when you are uncertain. Maybe.