Make life possible
Five principles for embracing uncertainty.
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Uncertainty is the condition of not knowing what comes next, the fear of change that is beyond our control and likely at odds with our thriving. It is a state of worry, of insecurity, of a lack of faith in the systems that keep us alive and living. It is, so often, intolerable.
And yet, as Le Guin reminds us, uncertainty is also the only thing that makes life possible. Without it, we would move like automatons through predetermined paths, unspirited, unaware, unliving. Our awareness of life, of its great variety and beauty and possibility, emerges out of uncertainty. Awareness, that sense of being awake to the world, is necessary only because we live in uncertainty. If we knew what was to come, we would have no need for sensemaking, no need to be alert to what’s around us, no need to ever open our eyes and ears and arms to each other.
This is, perhaps, the great paradox of modern technologies: in a world without uncertainty, we would need only be aware of our screens—nothing else would matter. But in the deeply uncertain world we do live in, we cling to those screens because they promise the one thing we can never have.
That is, screens and all the technologies that accompany them are tools to make the world seem more predictable and less uncertain: infinite scroll; autoplay; the always-on “live” news cycle; the steady drumbeat of notifications; the apps that summon servants to our doors, hiding all the labor and improvisation and accidents (often involving blood and bone) that go into moving atoms from one place to another. These tools train us in convenience, which is training in predictability, in the facade of certainty. And when that facade inevitably breaks, we often find ourselves at sea.
In the brilliant and ever-relevant Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott outlines the many ways states fail; principle among them is an obsession with putting things in order, with simplification and efficiency. More often than not, that efficiency translates into brittleness and weakness, into systems so fragile they break the moment something unanticipated arises. Near the end of the book, he proposes four alternative patterns that hold promise for different ways of building worlds, worlds more attuned to human and more-than-human surviving and thriving in uncertain times, to the critical skills of flexibility and adaptability. I’ve found myself coming back to those patterns often, and thinking about how they work in other contexts—not only in the sense of states or governments making change, but of smaller groups of people—a few friends, a block, a neighborhood. Here is the version I’ve been playing with:
Take small steps. Rather than trying to predict outcomes, aim to test, explore, and improvise. Consider each step or action you take to be a small, brief experiment. Try something, then step back and observe what happens. Then, try again. Remember that many small steps can add up to a great big change given a little time and persistence.
Be ready to shift direction. A step may reveal ground that’s too soft or too loose or too steep to climb. An experimental approach admits of the possibility that the best route won’t be a straight one, but one that zigs and zags around sinkholes and obstacles both. When the ground is unpredictable, so is the path through it.
Anticipate surprise. Expect that as you move and learn, there will be many lessons you couldn’t have planned for, could never have seen coming. A choice or habit that made sense a few miles back may no longer serve you. Don’t engage in hindsight; do be ready to relinquish old truths and accept new ones.
Trust in creativity. A basic condition of life is the creative adaptation to changing conditions—and you, my friend, are alive and living. Trust in your own (and others’) ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances with inventiveness, playfulness, and ingenuity.
To this, I will add a fifth principle: Go with friends. Whatever you do from here, do it with others. It’s a long-held maxim in movement circles that the people who work for liberation and freedom will always be outgunned and out monied by those who fight for precarity, oppression, and exploitation. Our power is not measured in weapons or cash but in humans; our power is with and through each other. Making life possible in uncertainty is to make room for more life, your own and many others. It is, as ever, to practice solidarity and reciprocity, to show up and to be present. To recognize that what happens next is—not now, not ever—written in stone. 
Spring speculative fiction work/shop
As we all reel from the events of this past month, and look for ways we can care for ourselves, our kin, and our communities, it’s as important as ever that we permit ourselves to dream and hope for better days. Moreover, it’s clear that how we work—whether that work is the work of government and care; of art or of community; of the technology and practices that allow us to communicate, organize, and build together; or of the solidarity and reciprocity that inevitably arise in moments of crisis—all of it is critical to the world we live in now, and the worlds we may yet live in in the days ahead.
In that spirit, I am gathering a new cohort for the speculative fiction work/shop this spring, starting April 2. Together, we’ll practice new ways of thinking, being, and acting through our work, recognizing that we have the power to shape that work, and in turn, to shape the world around us. Space will be very limited; apply now to be join the gathering.
Reading
In Practicing New Worlds, Andrea Ritchie draws from Black feminist abolitionist politics, emergent strategies, and speculative fiction to light up a path for surviving racial capitalism, fascism, and the climate crisis. I’ve found it to be a balm on the darkest days.
In a similar vein, Dean Spade’s concise primer on Mutual Aid contains clear and practical counsel for the radical act of caring for each other while working to make a better world.
Two books rooted in the natural world have also brought some solace: Zoë Schlanger’s The Light Eaters explores the re-emerging consensus that plants are intelligent; I’ve found it a welcome corrective to the nonsense we keep hearing about so-called intelligent machines. And Roger Deakin’s Wildwood is a gorgeously written journey that shows how much our lives are deeply, beautifully, and intricately interdependent with our great cousins, the trees.
On a different note, I’ve found myself returning to Aimé Cesaire’s 1950 Discourse on Colonialism as I try to make sense of the present moment: “a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.”
And every time I think I’ve reached the end of Le Guin’s oeuvre, I find another book that’s still new to me. This time it was Five Ways to Forgiveness, the tale of a two-planet system in which a class of “owners” has enslaved others referred to grotesquely as “assets.” Among Le Guin’s greatest gift was to tell stories of people who find their way across huge chasms of difference, and here that gift is especially stark. Whether there’s any actual forgiveness is left to the reader to decide; but there are a great many steps along the way.
A Working Library is a project to explore the intersections of reading, technology, and the nature of work. Browse all sixteen years of the archives, subscribe, or forward this to a friend—because friends are what make life possible.
Thanks for reading and for staying alive,
mandy
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