Good morning! Way to push through the week. You’re doing amazing. If you don’t feel that way, say it over and over until it works.

Today, for our main course, we’ll be expanding on yesterday’s notion of humility when it comes to knowledge. We’re gonna munch on the thought of trusting the uncertainty that comes with accepting the limitations of knowledge. For today’s side dish, we’ll get scientific with it but stay within the theme with Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle. For our dessert (Book Nook), we’ll be taking another look at Joseph Murphy’s The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. Yesterday’s plate was practically spilling over the sides, so maybe today we’ll practice portion control.

Pull up your chair, because Thought Breakfast is served!

To reiterate our idea of grasping knowledge from yesterday; we spend so much of our lives chasing control. We want control over our environment, careers, relationships, beliefs, and ourselves. The deeper we look for it, the more we realize how little control we actually have.

Today we’ll look to Søren Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Kierkegaard saw this idea of control over our beliefs very clearly. When Kierkegaard talks about faith, he doesn’t see it as the opposite of doubt. Rightfully so; think of Doubting Thomas as an example.

Kierkegaard says, “If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe. But precisely because I cannot do this, I must believe.” He’s showing that faith isn’t blind optimism but the leap you take when there’s no ground in front of you. You don’t leap because you know you’re safe, but rather leap because not leaping leaves you in the same state forever.

Certainty is attractive to the human mind. It feels safe, but it stunts our ability to grow. Anyone, from all walks of life, has to get comfortable with living in uncertainty. Albert Einstein calls uncertainty or doubt “the most creative state of mind.” To keep your mind open is to keep your mind alive, growing, and thriving.

This also has to do with trust. Uncertainty is generally uncomfortable, but comfort can be found in trust. There has to be trust that meaning exists even if it’s not tangibly visible in front of you. We also have to take into account that Kierkegaard is not enticing anyone to believe or trust in anything specific. Rather, he wants people to believe something that’s worth believing in. Living in uncertainty means living with the understanding that the world is bigger and has more meaning than you are capable of comprehending.

Uncertainty isn’t mere chaos, it’s the fertile soil where you can plant childlike wonder and awe. When you feel uneasy facing the unknown, just remember that means you’re engaged and actively participating in the world and, more importantly, allowing yourself room to grow. Your certainty makes you a plant that’s stuck in a small pot with no room to grow.

The best way for us to interpret this is that sometimes knowledge can actually be interference. The idea isn’t to know nothing. The idea is to plant your feet in soil that allows growth. Don’t hold onto what you know, expand on it. Let your understanding of the world become a living thing that is always feeding itself, always growing.

The more precisely you know, the less you know.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is an idea that has humbled both science and philosophy. Heisenberg says that the more precisely you measure a particle’s position, the less precisely you can know its momentum, and vice versa. This isn’t attributed to poor tools or understanding, but recognized as a fundamental piece of reality.

Basically the more you observe actually limits what can be observed. Perhaps Heisenberg’s discovery wasn’t all about physics after all. It also applies to the idea of humility that we discussed a couple days ago. Truth is a living thing that’s always in motion. Certainty can freeze it in its place, while embracing your uncertainty allows your understanding of it to grow and evolve.

The more you learn about the world, the more it teaches you to keep wondering.

This overall idea gets hammered down by Alan Watts in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity.

Watts says, “To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim, you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”

Watts captures the idea of Kierkegaard’s “leaping” idea and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle with this poetic line. Kierkegaard used logic to prove that faith lives in the unknown. Heisenberg used science to show that the more we grasp at the world, the more it slips through our fingers. Watts, however, uses the perfect analogy of swimming in water to wrap it all together. He captures both ideas into human terms. The idea is not control or mastery, but participation. Let the water carry you, and then both you and the water can keep moving.

In other (chef ricky’s) words; let your uncertainty be your raft. There is a sea of truth beneath you, and trying to hold onto any of it will keep you in one place. Even worse, you may stay in that place so long that you sink and drown, having never touched the rest of the sea. Your uncertainty is what carries you along the water, all you have to do is surrender to the tide.

You ought to thank your friend/colleague/parent/forwarder because they’ve blessed your inbox with something special. Every day we will upload more thought-provoking content that will ignite your day with a sense of mindfulness and thoughtfulness.

Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast

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