The anecdote
I grew up in within a household and community culture that was resolute in its conviction that marriage was for life. This was not something I even questioned for myself. For those around me that had marriages that ended, they had failed. They must have given up too early without trying to work things out properly. This was part of a religious bundle of certainties that my life was framed around, including the certainty of God, the certainty of an afterlife, the need for certainty and 'faith' about anything written in the Bible.
At the time of my marriage, I was still firmly in this world of certainty. Over the unfolding years, however, I started to see that there were many things that were less certain than I realised. I become less certain that there was a plan for my life. Less certain that evil did not prosper. And less certain that there was a God in the form that I had once believed. However through all of this, my certainty about the foundations of marriage, and in particular my marriage, remained steadfast and unquestioned.
So when my wife at the time came to me and said that she was starting the think about a divorce, I was rattled. Not only was I completely taken by surprise by this - I had thought that our marriage was in good shape (see future post on How is your marriage going?) - but the one thing I thought was certain seemed no longer to be the case.
In the unravelling that occurred over the following 3 months, and then the following year, this was a profound truth that completely changed my perspective about the world. If the one thing I thought was certain was actually uncertain, then that meant everything was uncertain.
David Chapman might call this a moment of realising that there is no pattern to this world. That everything is meaningless. That everything is nebulous. That I have been walking on clouds this whole time, thinking that I was walking on the most solid of rocks.
This is, of course, an intermediate phase. A moment of necessary crumbling and potential nihilism where nothing seems meaningful or worth doing. If everything is uncertain, how can I proceed in any direction? Perhaps it doesn't matter then. Perhaps I can be destructive.
This it what it felt like for me for some time. That I could not depend upon anything. That I was walking on clouds that could give way at any moment.
It was both liberating and terrifying. If nothing was certain, then I could change anything. What did I want to change? Who did I want to be? What constraints would I choose for my life (see Single Mindful Dad: My Chosen Constraint)?
The insight
If the most unshakable thing in my life was actually shakable, and in fact disintegrating, then that meant anything in my life could change at any moment. My job. My health. My relationship with my kids. My friendships. The structure of our society. It was all fundamentally fiction (see Yourav Hurari in Sapiens on fiction being one of the key tools of our species).
If my marriage could change, then anything could change.
The consequences
The immediate consequence of this insight was that I unravelled. My life no longer made any sense. All the futures I had planned would no longer be. The idea I had of myself was no longer relevant. I spent some time allowing myself to unravel (see future post on Unravelling).
And then I was able to start picking myself up again. I could see that this uncertainty was something I could play with. Something that could be a liberation for me.
Because it meant that many of the things I thought of as given and as inevitable, actually were not. Things like not enjoying my job. Like being able to quit my job. Being able to explore my creativity. These were things that were not certain. I could play with these things. I could create in these margins.
The mindful wrap-up
As it stands I am able to live within the tension of pattern and nebulosity. There is pattern to our reality - there are things that have a degree of certainty. And there is also a lot of fiction, some of which is useful.
The idea of marriage can itself be useful. But more useful is realising that it is a made-up concept that serves some purposes, and that it can crumble at any minute.
And so it is with my kids and my job and my health and my sense of narrative about my life. There are helpful things about them, but they are fragile and temporary and I allow them to change.
What things do you hold as been unshakable certainties? And what might loosening the grip you have on their certainty enable?