Life: In No Uncertain Terms

Dear reader,

I want to begin by wishing you the happiest of holidays. And I want to end today with something more personal and meaningful, focusing on ways to make you think about the most important things in your life. This is my gift to you. It is a slightly longer essay than the 500 words that I limit my weekly pieces to. I hope you will please indulge me here.

If you are a regular reader of Elevations, you know I generally write about the business of life—and life in your business—through the lens of leadership and personal effectiveness. These things are important to me and the hundreds of people I have been privileged to work with over the years.

As a writer, I choose and craft what I say based on what I want people to see and think. It's a way of letting people know who I am but in a very selective way. This is also crucial to being an effective leader —but today, I am not diverging from my normal focus to something more risky: religion.

Given that the holiday season is rooted in celebrations of religious events, it is an obvious time to share my thoughts about a topic that will touch some people and provoke others. There is a good reason we are advised to avoid conversations about religion and politics in polite society. However, we need to talk about the things that matter—and not avoid the difficult conversations we ought to have. Too many things divide us as a nation and worldwide and demand greater understanding and humanity.

Whatever you celebrate this season, for whatever reason, I wish you all the very best throughout the holiday season and into the New Year.

prl

Life: In No Uncertain Terms

I have often wondered why I have always felt antagonistic towards religion. Throughout my religious education as a child and the spiritual aspect of my life since, I have rejected organized religion for myself and have been curious about what makes people embrace it. My discomfort is not with any specific religion but with all, even those I find intellectually enticing. I am just beginning to understand why I feel the way I do.

What I feel isn't contempt or intolerance. I sometimes describe it as being allergic. I feel no ill will towards religious people, and I tend to respect their beliefs so long as they don't try to proselytize or impose their unwelcome morality on me. I recognize beauty in the deep sense of faith in those who find connection and purpose in their religious faith. I love some of the ceremonies and their connection to ancient traditions. But what speaks to me is the light and joy I see in people with deep, abiding faith. It's not the ceremonies, churches, prayers, or scriptures. Those artifacts feel like tokens that serve others but have never offered me anything of value, much less the people seek through the religious practices they embrace.

I accept I may be wrong, but I believe comfort is the driving force and common denominator. For those who see their religious doctrine as a duty and have a sense of obligation to live their lives as prescribed by what that doctrine dictates, I suspect there is comfort in having life organized and relief from the fear of the consequences of being unfaithful. People have suggested that my discomfort stems from my lack of understanding or unwillingness to surrender. I have tried, to some extent, to do both, but. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to see what it was about me that rejected what the religious faithful believed.

I had been recently diagnosed with chronic leukemia when COVID-19 became a recognized threat. I quickly learned that my medical condition placed me at an extremely high risk of dying if infected. I needed to be cautious. And I refused to be afraid. Like many people, I rearranged my life to be safe and make myself valuable to my friends and clients during the shutdowns and the following months. I saw the deep anxiety, denial, anger, resignation, heroics. And I saw so much death, not just in the news each day, but through my daughter's eyes. She was an ICU provider in New York City, which was ground zero for the early and most deadly phase of the pandemic. It was beyond heartbreaking. 

But the words I kept hearing repeatedly reminded me that these were uncertain times, suggesting that this was unusual. The pandemic may have been a black swan event, but there is nothing unusual about uncertainty. 

It was then that I saw people seek comfort by shielding themselves from as much uncertainty as possible. But why? Uncertainty is natural to the human condition. We can strive for certainty in our attempts to understand nature, and to some extent, we can control some of what we choose to avoid or ensure the things we want. But uncertainty is what fuels our imagination and drives our curiosity. We cannot be curious about things we are certain of; as the Stoic Epictetus wrote, "We cannot learn that which we think we already know." 

Religion allows people to believe that the uncertainty in their lives will be removed. In exchange, they offer obedience and surrender control of their lives to a doctrine that promises divine certainty to those who believe. They empower others to control their lives with the control they give up. A prescription for how to live and what to sacrifice replaces the final uncertainty of death. 

The fear of curiosity replaces the fear of the unknown. Curiosity defies obedience and undermines the bargain with death. In this regard, safety depends on certainty, and curiosity is dangerous. 

The problem with this bargain is that curiosity is how we solve problems. Learning is how we grow, discover, and accomplish things that ultimately matter most to us and society. Without curiosity, whatever comfort we find in blissful ignorance is shattered when nature, with all its uncertainties, shows up, as it always does. The untimely death of a child, a great flood, or a pandemic shatters the protection, and obedience becomes dystopian submission to the power of those to whom we ceded control of our lives over to. The subservient masses become human shields and cannon fodder, protecting those who have consolidated power and wealth off the backs of the faithful and the fearful who dare not question the righteousness or authority of their leaders as captors.

When learning stops, our existing knowledge is accumulated and consolidated as a form of power and currency. But nature's absolute and limitless power always eventually rises above the level of human understanding and consumes whatever is in its path. For those who somehow manage to survive the carnage, it becomes further proof that protection from uncertainty is necessary. Without faith and obedience to the institutions that protect them, the suffering will be even greater. In this respect, the suffering is also evidence of certainty– because it can be predicted and imposed. 

I recognize that all my life, I have been insatiably curious about the world. I don't think I am unusual in this respect. I don't know when or why I grew more comfortable with being uncertain than being obedient to what others believe. Questioning everything, from beliefs and opinions to facts and authority, never felt like defiance or an exercise in courage. I suppose it was learning early on that curiosity wasn't nearly as dangerous as misplaced certainty. I saw because questions are endless while answers tend to be finite, there is greater power in asking great questions than in having all the answers. Eventually, I learned that powerful questions are what make us safe and protect us from the randomness of the universe by helping us learn to adapt to an always-changing world. 

It isn't religion that I resist; it's the idea that there is safety in certainty. My spirituality has always been akin to those whose religious journey is that of seeking truth. Or at least the best version of the truth we can understand today and the truth we will find tomorrow if we keep asking powerful questions and never stop questioning everything. 

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