Uncertainty at the end of the rope

The atmosphere becomes thinner, the pressure decreases, the gas inside expands and eventually bursts. Should we say, “The balloon bursts, remember the flight”? The pieces of the bursting balloon return to the earth, perhaps to a mountaintop that no foot has ever touched, perhaps to a forest. The balloon that escapes into the sky does not fly forever, the laws of nature somehow call it back to the earth.

The thread of life, similarly, swings along an invisible line. The first thread that is cut at birth is the one between us and our mother; then we hold on to life with another thread that we feel exists under our feet but cannot see. One end of this thread is tied to uncertainty, the other to time. And we swing in the middle. In this shaky place where everything can change with a few seconds of shaking.

Last week, I was caught in the earthquake while writing my weekly article. The meaning changed in an instant. Obviously, if we tried to measure it in time, we had only a few seconds of rope, where uncertainty turned into a deep fear . A short rope that we did not know how it would end, a rope that was 13 seconds long, where we felt the helplessness of that great uncertainty, of not being able to predict a moment that was as close as a few seconds.

Everything happened suddenly, says Orhan Veli, if not everything, many things happen suddenly. Those things that happen suddenly happen in a short time, but the causes they cause continue for years. We lost thousands of people in the earthquakes on February 6, one lasting 65 seconds and the other 45 seconds. The meaning changed completely for those who survived. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima caused the deaths of thousands of people in the blink of an eye, in less than 43 seconds, and its effects continue.

It takes a second to press the shutter button, but a photo can last a lifetime. For example, the so-called “napalm girl” who became a symbol of war after she was photographed running naked from napalm bombs dropped during the war in Vietnam.

Let me not digress, I was trying to talk about uncertainty, uncertainty has deep and multi-layered effects on the human psyche. While uncertainty confronts us with difficult emotions such as anxiety, stress, loss of control, difficulty in making decisions, it can also trigger creativity and adaptability, and increase emotional resilience. I would like to share with you a small compilation I made from the psychology literature on uncertainty;

In his work "Being and Time", Martin Heidegger speaks of the "thrownness" of man: Our existence, in the world we are born into, oscillates in the midst of an infinite uncertainty. According to Heidegger, man makes plans and plans for the future, but every plan is open to being thrown on the rocks of uncertainty.

In his work, “The Courage to Be,” Paul Tillich writes that uncertainty is the root of human existential anxiety. According to Tillich, a person truly ‘exists’ only when they can take a step despite the unknown. Uncertainty is another name for fear, but it is also where courage is born.

Irvin Yalom, on the other hand, treats uncertainty as the fundamental condition of life in existential psychotherapy. According to him, existential realities such as death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness require people to live with constant uncertainty. Yalom says that souls that cannot befriend uncertainty also miss the depth that life offers.

In his work "Fear and Trembling," Søren Kierkegaard expressed the intricate relationship between faith and uncertainty by saying: "The man who can walk in uncertainty finds himself closer to God." Because true courage lies in a step where the outcome is not guaranteed. Only in this step can we discover the limits of our own soul.

Modern psychology literature, especially Daniel Kahneman’s work on uncertainty and decision making, shows how our brain is obsessed with the search for certainty. Kahneman shows that the fast, intuitive decision-making mechanisms that humans develop in the face of uncertainty are often misleading. Because the unknown is full of traps for an impatient soul. Uncertainty is not only a threat, it is also a moment of birth. Behind the curtain of fog, there are new paths, new meanings.

Today's positive psychology argues that tolerance for uncertainty can develop as a personality trait. Recent studies have shown that high intolerance for uncertainty is closely related to anxiety disorders. On the other hand, individuals who can tolerate uncertainty adapt more easily to a changing world, and their psychological flexibility increases. Individuals with a high level of "need for certainty" are generally less flexible, more prejudiced, and more stressed. Because life does not always fit into the definite patterns they have constructed.

And art? Art always walks on the edge of the unknown. Great poets, painters, thinkers have never been travelers on a completed map.

Because creating is a wink at the unknown.

After all, holding on to certainty can sometimes feel like a solid rock, but that rock can also become a shackle that narrows our horizons.