When the outcome is a foregone conclusion, when you are secure in the comfort that what you seek is what you would be getting, when the sequence is linear and the numbers all add up as expected, you are dancing with the knowns, the certainties which will assure you that 2+2 will indeed be 4. No unpleasant surprises.
There’s beauty in the unknown and beauty in what may be, beauty in the promises of tomorrow, and beauty in all we cannot yet see.
You might be a scientist or a chef or a scriptwriter or an entrepreneur or an actor or a gardener or a painter or a game designer or a monk or a stand-up comic, if you know something is going to work, there is hardly any thrill in it. You are not putting your neck on the line, you are not embracing uncertainty and the unknown, you don’t need the courage or the faith, you don’t need to have skin in the game. It is all very predictable.
The foundry is where you forge your chips is the unknown. Anything important ever invented was because someone took that leap of faith into the unknown. Happily sitting in the domicile of discomfort and taking the plunge with only uncertainty as your ally is what moves mountains and give us the opportunity to leave our dents in the universe.
“ When nothing is sure, everything is possible “- Margaret Drabble
The assertion here, however, is that there really is no creativity without uncertainty. Put another way: dubito ergo creo. This is Latin for, I doubt therefore I create.
The outside world provokes, persists and insists that we change the story we tell ourselves. Our attitude doesn’t have to be driven by the outside world, but sometimes they overlap.
Specifically, when we experience the unknown – no matter how uncomfortable and unsettling and destabilizing it can feel – the good news is that it opens vistas of possibility for new thought and action. If we have the confidence and willingness to take creative action in that moment, then our experience with the unknown can lead to new ways of thinking and acting. Taking action, of course, does not guarantee creative outcomes, but it is through new thought and action that we can, at least temporarily, re-stabilize our experiences in new and better ways.
Organizations are created, powered, and led by people. To lead organizations well, we train people in disciplines such as marketing, finance, and leadership. But uncertainty and the unknown presents a special challenge since few of us have received training in how to deal with it. As a result, although we may call for innovation, transformation, and change, most people back down at even the hint of risk, falling into a series of behavioral traps that limit organizations’ ability to grow and adapt. The challenge is that all growth, change, and transformation inevitably come paired with uncertainty, the unknown. We have to go through the uncertainty to get to the possibility.
“In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty…in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.” ~ Deepak Chopra.
So, are you willing to knowingly venture into the foundry called the unknown?