The Older I Get, the Less Certain I Become

I spent a lot of my life being certain or pretending to be certain. An early brush with military life and leadership taught me that to lead men you must portray certainty, for it would be unreasonable to expect them to follow you if you were not. That translated into my business life, where I rather quickly found myself at the top of organizations; a place I was woefully I’ll-equipped to be.

I later discovered that quite a few people in those positions felt much the same way. I suspect the others were simply better at pretending. Or perhaps they really did know what they were doing. I've never been entirely certain.

When I was young, I felt certain that belief in a spiritual fashion was ridiculous. The world was clearly only what I could see and touch and experience; the universe could be explained by science and mathematics. Then as I grew older there were a few coincidences that I just couldn’t fully write off as coincidence. I write about one or two in EVA. Now I’m less certain that we are just ants in a nest called Earth; there seems to be something more to it all that I can carry in my heart.

And now there’s ageing. Things I used to rely on are no longer a certainty, be that my body, mind or entire world. I think that’s OK because it has given me perspective.

I spent most of my life trying to find definitive answers because they must be there.

Now I’m rather more comfortable with unanswered questions than I ever was.

Or, as with EVA, questions I can let my imagination enjoy answering.