Can there be beauty in the unknown?

I’ve been thinking a lot about uncertainty recently. Or rather, uncertainty has made a little den for itself in my brain. It’s making itself rather comfortable in there, plumping up pillows and pulling its thick duvet of insecurity over my thoughts. Planning is so hard for all of us right now. While we’re all used to dealing with the question marks that are as much part of life as the exclamation marks, the full stops, the dot dot dots, for many (including me) it feels like there are more ???? than ever. Not knowing what impact Coronavirus might have on the health of you and your loved ones, not knowing how social distancing will shape our everyday lives, not knowing what impact it will have on your job, not knowing how it will influence education and career opportunities, not knowing if you’ll be able to move house, not knowing how much you’ll be impacted by the monumental burden the pandemic is having on the world’s finances.

There’s a sharpness to this unknown. It’s as though the word uncertainty has been smashed to the ground, shattering each of its eleven letters into hundreds of little pieces, its multiplied edges multiplying our exposure to it, multiplying the uncertainty, its fragments as sharp as shards of glass. We move with care trying not to cut ourselves, not sure where to place our hands and feet, trying not to let uncertainty pierce our skin.

But maybe, instead of worrying about uncertainty splinters each time we put one cautious foot in front of the other, we could think about things a little bit differently. Perhaps, if we look carefully, we'll see there is some beauty in these countless slivers of uncertainty. If we stop stooping over them, our overcast shadow (and mood) blocking out the light, as we try in vain to make sense of the fragments at our feet; if we take a step back and un-stoop our shoulders and let the sun in, let these smithereens feel warmth, reflect rays, perhaps even glisten a little bit where the sunshine strikes their fractures - maybe then they will show us there can be beauty in uncertainty.

If we always know where we must go, what we must do. If we are governed always by reason and habit. If our vision is tunneled, if our mind is forcing our thoughts in only one direction - then perhaps that is to be blind to new ideas? Perhaps that is to ignore opportunities? Perhaps that is to shun the challenge and delight of thinking about things from other perspectives?

Maybe the beauty of uncertainty is in freeing us up to move forward without design, illuminating unchartered territory that our blinkered vision would otherwise relegate to darkness. With no exact end in mind, maybe we are less likely to shove our lives into a narrow funnel (just as tricky as trying to squidge and squeeze a king size duvet into your washing machine) knowing exactly what will come out at the other end (a shrunk, dripping wet duvet with nowhere for it to dry).

Let’s remind ourselves that there can be joy in not-knowing. That amid all the hurt and all the chaos in the world, question marks can be something really rather wonderful. Can't they?