So much uncertainty.

You know, I always thought that 50 was the age at which I’d finally know myself, settling into these bones comfortably; I thought that the things which once terrified me would look small and non-threatening from the great dual heights of age and wisdom. (Of course, I also thought I’d have a really well-made sofa by age 50, too…but that’s neither here nor there.)

50 was almost 2 years ago, y’all, and I’ve got to tell you that things still aren’t looking too good.

Instead of solid ground underfoot, every step is as if on a treacherous bog. Will the sun shine? Will the crops grow? Will the gods accept our offerings? In very real ways, I don’t know. None of us knows.

A tolerance for (even peace with) uncertainty is widely promoted as an enlightened way to live—perhaps the enlightened way to live. This morning, however, upon waking from a dream that Maxine Waters was stroking my hair and telling me that everything would be ok, I realized that everything about being human predisposes us to rage against uncertainty—even though uncertainty is the shaky, boggy ground upon which we walk. At a cellular, even molecular, level, the human body craves homeostasis. The human brain is full of intangible promises of stability in the great hereafter. Our every move, we imagine, has permanence. We use words like “forever,” “promise,” and “legacy,” and the gods laugh at us.

This beautiful, tragic planet turns; every season brings some new hurdle; the certain specter of Death lurks in every shadow, or might. And we’re supposed to be at peace with that? Are you kidding me? Rage, rage against the dying of the light, people! And the price of fresh tomatoes at the grocery! And the loss of relationships, and the growing up of children, and our ever-changing roles as living, breathing humans careening madly through bogs in pursuit of something—one stupid, tiny thing—that won’t leave us.

I mean, who settles for anything less than that raging, right? So where is this “peace” that is spoken of—this tolerance for change? Maybe you glimpse it from your peaceful meditation, but I, even with 50 in my rear-view mirror, have never been worth crap as a meditator, and so it eludes me. Looking around, I see that it eludes most of us.

I am terrified every day. What scared me then still scares me now, and in the wisdom of age I have added hundreds of new things to be frightened of, as well. I look into my own mind, and every day I see a new landscape; while the sky may be a brilliant blue, the path along the ground is never obvious.

Yet…there is a strange, magnificent beauty in impermanence and not knowing. It’s not beauty I’d necessarily go looking for or pay to see, but it is there; it’s the kind of beauty that makes one think, “yeah, I could totally go over those falls in this here barrel and it would be Such. A. Rush.”

I’m sitting on our busted-up Sofa-Mart sofa right now, cradled in the nest-like divot created by the broken frame. This is where I always sit, although maybe tomorrow, if I’m still alive then and still have a sofa, I’ll sit somewhere else. I don’t know what today has in store for me, and I don’t like that. It makes my teeth itch. And while I tend to believe that everything will be ok, I know that such thinking is just my brain’s way of imposing order on chaos. Every single thing I count on could come unraveled at any moment, and that is the current that carries this human boat.

It’s no wonder we cling to certainty—indeed we demand it, of ourselves, others, and the world around us—to do otherwise is to look into the abyss. But to fail to do otherwise has its own hazards, too. Look at the state of the Union and you’ll see them: intolerance, judgement, failure to question oneself, absolutism, the voluntary relinquishing of critical thought, narcissism.

I’m definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m better than a spoon if it comes to a fight. And here’s what I think: we must recognize the recklessness and absurdity of the human condition. We are short-sighted and longing for forever, both, thus we are set up to fail at permanence from the get-go. Let’s step into our barrels in the mist of the pounding falls and feel the craziness of it all. We will all make different choices; we will all see different shapes in the mist. Of those who jump, some will live. Of those who don’t jump, some will die. Feel the vertiginous rush. Lean in and let it terrify you into re-thinking everything. Consider the uncertainty. You don’t have to like it, or appreciate it, or for heaven’s sake be at peace with it, but just …feel it.