Uncertainty

We all have our struggles.  I struggle with uncertainty.  I struggle with it because I don’t think I have to be this way, yet I’ve been this way my whole life, I believe.

There are legitimate grounds for being uncertain, but too much uncertainty cramps a personality.  Under certain circumstances, uncertainty can impede the sufferer from acting in a way that is appropriate and brave.  Because modern life involves many choices, uncertainty is a handicap when it comes to navigating the everyday.

Sometimes, uncertainty arises from taking something trivial to be important.  How many really consequential decisions do we make in our lives?  A friend of my father’s once told me, “The only really important decisions you make are who to marry, how to earn a living, and what to do with your money.”  Do you think it’s true?

Uncertainty may come from thinking too much.  In this way, great practical or philosophical weight may come to be attached to what is only immediate and discrete.  Social and aesthetic preoccupations may get in the way of what is intuitive and truest to oneself.

It’s enough to make one envy the misshapen tree, gloriously growing every which way, laden with the most beautiful berries, its irregular shape fairly reeking with charm.