Delicious Ambiguity
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious)." —George Saunders
In Big Trouble in Little China Jack Burton (portrayed like a John Wayne knock-off with perfect pitch by the estimable Kurt Russell) blows off his love interest in the movie with the throw-away line—"Eventually, I rub everybody the wrong way." While I've seen that film dozens of times the line didn't land for me until this year.
Recently on a FaceTime call with a good, long-term friend, I can see he is struggling with my approach to the world as well as my almost unceasing questioning of the basic tenets of his belief system. To be fair to him, it isn't his belief system I have issue with—I have issue with everyone's sense of moral certainty. I come across as being completely confident in my own contrarian nature and when someone—anyone—tosses out a black and white perspective of the world, an obvious good vs. evil view, I'm going to dissect and interrogate it.
While I've always been my own version of the devil's advocate, I wasn't always so uncertain. I used to think in terms of right and wrong, good and evil. Even then I would come across as completely convinced of why I was right. At some point that started to shift as the things I saw as definitively righteous fell by the wayside and I became less and less certain of the structures presented that grounds society into a conforming and functioning body. The form of communication stayed the same but the focus changed. I prosecute certainty because I am so uncertain.
Eventually, I rub everyone the wrong way.
On a recent Literate ApeCast, David opens with something that should be easy. The young, black legislators in Tennessee are removed from office by a predominantly white GOP. David lobs up the softball for me to immediately go with the standard response. It's racist. Of course it is. Except, is it? I want to look up under the hood of the assumption and wonder what else might be in play. Was it simply racism or maybe a little bit the responsibility of the Dems to perhaps not disrupt the body with bullhorns, shouting down the opposing view on gun control? Might the response be in part the fault of the new normal of, instead of working with people and using discussion and incremental change to move the needle towards progress, screaming down ideas we disagree with like children having a tantrum?
"Am I tone policing? You're goddamned right I'm tone policing."
This sort of response drives David nuts but we've been dancing to this tune for a while so he knows what's coming almost every time. He understands (I think) that I'm trying out the argument to see how it lands, to see how I feel about it, to parse out what I'm willing to believe in the face of the certainty of others.
I want to believe. It is so much easier to believe than to constantly try to crack into the certainty presented and find the flaws. Believing is far easier than facing the chaos and instability of things and finding any kind of foothold. I just can't bring myself to do it.
On the FaceTime call my buddy is struggling. I know he loves me and I him but he's having a problem with my lack of conviction on things he sees as obvious certainties. He wants to dismiss me as a rightwing dipshit but he knows I'm a die-hard liberal. He believes I'm a good person but my questioning of his most sacred beliefs makes him doubt that belief.
My immediate question is "Am I a good person? I mean, really? What are the hallmarks of a good person as opposed to a bad person as opposed to just a person with some good and bad?"
I think a part of this contrarian approach comes from the fact that I was raised to believe I was special. Unique. Over time and especially in the past twenty years that notion has been disavowed. I'm certainly no villain but I have done selfish things, cruel acts, and broken hearts along the way. I've also done selfless things, assisted people, and acted in ways that would support the good person theory. I am not special—I'm completely ordinary— and with that realization and deep looks into the behavior of others I believed were special I find that we are all just apes who learned to read. We all are a duality of mensch and asshole. We are all human and humanity, over history, has the capacity to enslave some and liberate others, stand on our convictions of truth and lie like thieves. We are all certain we are the good guy in our story but that can't possibly be true.
A buddy from my early days in Chicago texts me out of the blue. "Your book is being delivered today. Good timing as my wife asked me last night for a divorce because she's decided she's a lesbian."
I immediately call him. This will be his second marriage and second divorce and he tells me that all he has ever wanted was a true love, a loyal partner, a family. I can relate. I've spent most of my conscious life seeking out that unconditional love with the belief of a zealot that such a thing exists. After three marriages, three divorces, and countless girlfriends I have to come to the conclusion that either the concept of unconditional love is a fiction we tell ourselves to be able to get up in the morning without sticking a pistol in our mouths or that I am simply unloveable in a fundamental way and, while that unassailable love exists, it does not for me. Not fond of the taste of gunpowder, I choose to interrogate the certainty of the former while still wondering about the latter.
"As soon as someone insists something is a moral imperative, I instantly begin questioning it," I tell my buddy on FaceTime. "Moral certainty on a planet designed for chaos and uncertainty is a cul de sac from which there is no escape."
"What do you believe? In nothing? What changes your mind?"
"I used to be a rampant homophobe. I was fully invested in the belief that it was wrong. Turned out I was wrong on a monumental degree. No one convinced me to change my mind but experiences and curiosity about that toxic belief I held in college lead me to see it differently. What changed my mind was the very thing that's driving you nuts—constant questioning about any certainty and wondering constantly about whether I'm wrong."
BTW—this writing is all a paraphrase. I guarantee I wasn't as articulate in real time but, hey, I'm writing it so I will always seem more reasonable in the re-telling.
I'm not a nihilist because nihilism is just a certainty that nothing has meaning or matters. I'm not an atheist because I'm certain there is a god but because I'm uncertain if there is one and what if I'm wrong?
The closest thing I'm certain of in my life (aside that nothing is certain) is a universal belief in freedom of choice as long as those choices don't hurt anyone. Who am I to tell anyone else how to navigate their own lives? Who are you? Who are any of us to dictate how people live their lives as long as no one else is harmed in the process?
My oldest friend (in that he is both old and been my friend for the longest amount of time) merely avoids conversations with me about politics or society altogether. Once in a while, I get a bug up my ass and jump in and force the issue but, for the most part, we talk about the things we're doing, the art we consume, and how we feel about being straight white dudes in a world that has decided we've had our time and need to move aside. I suspect he's a bit embarrassed by me as I rubbed a few too many people the wrong way back in the day but I love him, he loves me, and we know how to dance to that tune just fine.
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. ” — Gilda Radner
I find that living in a state of uncertainty is a more optimistic path. I don't know for certain that if I cross a street I won't be run over by a car but I choose to cross anyway. I'm not certain that I won’t choke to death on a piece of delicious cheese but I choose to eat it far too many times for my waistline. I’m completely and overwhelmingly uncertain of any prospects for romance ever again but I’ll likely choose to date at some point in the future despite all indications that it will go badly for me.
Buying a house anywhere in the Midwest or on one of the coasts is an uncertain risk as the climate pummels the planet and burns, floods, or uproots homes all across America. It takes a true optimist to go through all the financial hassle in the face of that uncertainty but it is an act of hope to do so.
Having a child in a society that values both mothers and children so callously is an act of defiance against the uncertainty of humanity but people choose to procreate nonetheless.
My family is certain that I believe I know everything. I get it. I’m obnoxious that way. It’s why, if I say something that might be wrong, my mom immediately fact-checks. I’m wrong about half the time about most things. I certainly sound like a know-it-all but the exact opposite is true. I’m uncertain about just about everything and my way of refining that into a semblance of capable predictability is to argue the point, challenge any certainty I encounter, and continue to find something resembling concrete ground.
Eventually, I rub everyone the wrong way.
