I don't know...
If uncertainty is woven into the fabric of the universe, admitting that we do not know something may open up new possibilities for social change.
Advice
It’s late at night and I still have no idea what to write about. I ask my mother for advice, since she reads these newsletters.
“I don’t know, “ she replies.
Perfect. If uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of the universe, then “I don’t know” is a topic worth reflecting on. Ironically, “I don’t know” was exactly why I asked her the question. There’s something kind of zen about this — maybe the question is the answer. I often feel uncertain about what to write, when to write, or why I even bother to write. So this week I’ll explore some positive aspects of uncertainty.
Questions
What to write is always a challenge, especially when one has to decide on a new topic every seven days. I regularly soak in a lot of information, and ideas are always flying through my head. But as the week’s end approaches, I often draw a complete blank.
What I do write is consequently a bit random and spontaneous. For inspiration, I regularly follow the latest news on quantum physics. It’s a subject that fascinates me, baffles me, and invites me to question my assumptions about reality — including our shared social reality. For example, lately there have been a lot of stories about the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, which hypothesizes that potentially infinite parallel universes exist simultaneously. According to an article in Scientific American, the term “darkest timeline” trended in Google searches for a few hours on the morning of November 6th. The article explains why, even if a multiverse exists, we cannot simply ditch this dark timeline and choose another: ”Like it or not, we’re stuck in this one—if we want to change it, we’ll have to do that the old-fashioned way.” As in the classical way? More on that later…
When should I write? As much as I love writing, it’s hard to find time. Right now I am prepping intensively for the IPBES plenary session in Windhoek, Namibia, where we will present the transformative change assessment to 150 member states. We’ve been working on this for the past three years — four if you count the scoping process. Being away for much of December means that I’m also prepping for Christmas, next semester’s teaching, and so on. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that writing does not have to follow a strict, linear timeline. Once I know what I want to focus on, I write while I run, when I’m on the metro, sitting on the sofa, or even as I’m falling asleep. In short, I focus on the possibilities and potentials, not on my current reality.
Why write, especially when there is already an abundance of insightful and inspiring words floating around the internet? So many blogs, books, newsletters, and podcasts beautifully capture the heart of quantum social change and the essence of mattering, without naming it as such. So much is also being written about integrative and regenerative responses to climate change, biodiversity loss, and other sustainability challenges. Do we need more words, or is it time for action?
I write to deepen my own understanding of these issues, hoping that my inquiry will support the growing community of people who are taking actions with integrity to collapse our greatest shared potential into a reality that respects and includes the diversity of life. The responses I get to my writing remind me that I am not the only one who thinks that we can collectively do better when it comes to taking care of each other and the planet. For example, one reader reminded me of the Earth Charter, a global statement issued in 2000 to highlight sixteen principles for achieving sustainable development. The charter recognizes principles of democracy, non-violence and peace, where “peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.” Another principle emphasizes care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love. The way forward, the Charter emphasizes, is through a change of mind and heart.
Getting Unstuck
How do we generate a change of heart and mind in society? I don’t know about you, but I’m not convinced that “the old-fashioned way” of approaching social change is going to get us to a peaceful, healthy, and thriving planet.
“I don’t know” offers a powerful point of departure for alternatives to emerge. Acknowledging uncertainty includes the recognition that “reality is decidedly not how it is described by classical physics,” as physicist Carlo Rovelli writes in Helgoland: The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics. Emphasizing that the certainties of classical physics are just probabilities, he reminds us that “the well-defined and solid picture of the world given by the old physics is an illusion.”
If we truly are stuck in this particular multiverse timeline and want to change it, we may need an alternative approach to social change. My eyes are immediately drawn to my bookshelf, and I pick up the first book that I ever read about quantum social change: The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics and a New Social Vision. Published in 1994, authors Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall identify both freedom and ambiguity as the foundations of creative community:
The transformation from a mechanistic, atomistic society of selfish individuals where each pursues his or her own way in isolation to a quantum society with a vibrant sense of emergent, creative community requires a transformation of personal attitude. It requires that each of us , to some extent, let go of our fixed perceptions, our habits, our obsessions, our rigid ideologies, our single-minded pursuit of personal gain, and our parochial devotion to our own corner. It requires, instead, that we stand poised and alert, poised to let our inner freedom (our indeterminacy) give rise to the unfolding, common reality of self and community.
Attitude is the answer? Interesting! Zohar and Marshall suggest that attitude is the equivalent of measurement in quantum physics, and that “the attitude that we adopt in any situation partially determines how the situation will unfold.”
Improvising
If attitude holds the key to the types of communities that we can build, maybe we need a jazzier attitude to community building. In You Matter More Than You Think, I refer to Stephon Alexander’s book, the Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe. Alexander, a physicist and musician, describes the musical characteristic of a universe teeming with structure and sustained through what he refers to as a “dance among harmony, symmetry, instability, and the gaps of improvisation.”
In a world now dancing with an abundance of instability, maybe it’s time to get better at improvising. As Alexander writes, “Every improvisation is a new experience – not a reiteration of something past but of something never done before.” Will declaring “I don’t know” give me more internal freedom to participate in the emerging reality captured so beautifully in the Earth Charter? I don’t know, but I’m willing to improvise over the coming weeks to find out!
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
I feel inspired by this post, and the valuable references: The act of writing is quantum social change in action!
Oh thank you, thank Karen,
Hearing another IPCC scientist speak so well of the Peoples' Earth Charter is great.
I too suffer from what to write to my Haumea Ecoversity community for professional creatives.
Nevertheless, blogging was my creative practice for my creative practice PhD and I also found out that writing, and reflecting on others' works and text, helped develop my ecoliteracy and agency to stand up for the small forest I live with a new-to-Ireland ecological forest policy (quite something for an introverted artist/former scientist hollywoodforest.com).
A bit braver and clearer, in the last 5 years, I now teach ecoliteracy and the extraordinary-that-it-exists-in-our-divided world– the peoples' Earth Charter –to other creatives, artists, changemakers and cultural policy writers as the most impactful thing I can do. I have managed to quietly insert it into Green Party arts and heritage policy here too and I now write for this growing more confident eco-creative community of practice.
I'm sorry I never got to attend your wonderful course in Norway like I hoped, the change to in-person didn't suit me for ethical and financial reasons, but I have your treasure of a book that connects creativity to quantum social change 'You Matter More than You Think!'
During the last few weeks, I've been enchanted by the quantum randomness of seeing how my heart was drawn to share about the peoples' Earth Charter over recent years, and how it has come alive in magical, inspiring ways through other creatives' skills.
I shared the Earth Charter here in Ireland (where it is little known) to inclusive social community artists (Angelina Foster and her creative collaborators in Kildare, Ireland) who invited youth, theatre, the local sign language community, scouts, conservationists and elders to workshops to discuss what matters most to them and the environmental, social and peace principles of the peoples' Earth Charter.
The artists then asked participants to put their hands in paint and print their handprints on small squares of upcycled cloth, dyed with plants near the local river they were celebrating. They then asked participants to choose a symbol of one of the Earth Charter principles that most resonated with them and that symbol was screen printed over their handprint. Strung together, these printed handprints–with the values that matter most to all these people, young and old, were strung around a pilot Future Ancestor festival - like prayer flags for 'the community of life'!
I was startled by how principles for a better world, conflated with handprints on recycled scraps of fabric, moved me! Echoes of humanity's moral evolution from cave handprint times were sensitively made real, meaningful and personal in such humble ways. I can only imagine how activated the values conversations and holistic learning were between generations.
This type of work has a name that I've found from them and their wonderful Greek activist advisor Dr Asta Papachristodoulou - 'visual poetry'. I wish more ecoliterate visual poets, ecological philosophers and values educators were at the table with our leaders as that moves
people's conscience more so than policy, although of course policy is important too.
But something is failing in communications globally, something has been overlooked to reach peoples' hearts.
Thanks again Karen for your posts and your reflections,
from a small thriving wood in rural Ireland here under a wintry sky,
and from many eco-creatives too -as I will be sharing your post above with them for sure :)
PS be great if you could make, or share news about the 25th global celebrations of the Earth Charter, at the Peace Palace in the Hague next July.