Dennis Merritt Jones - The Art of Uncertainty: How to Live in the Mystery of Life and Love It

Table of Contents

This book is dedicated to the pioneers of every generation who, through either sheer inspiration or necessity, have made this world a better place by coming to the edge of uncertainty and leaning over that edge to unfold what is next. Whether pushed by pain or pulled by the infinite possibilities of a life worth living, they are proof that living in the mystery of that which is yet to be is not something to be feared, but something to which we can look forward. May their wisdom, faith, and courage to act be the legacy received by the next seven generations to come, knowing the best is yet to be.

On the day we are born we enter the Earth School, as my friend Gary Zukar refers to it, not knowing a thing. The soul may come overflowing with wisdom accumulated along the eternal journey but the intellect is a blank slate. As we mature, chronologically and emotionally, advancing in our understanding of the rules of living in a human skin, the message we are given is that the more we grow, the more we need to know. It is only through this process that we can move forward in life. If our intention is to advance in our understanding of how to create a life worth living, it would be safe to say that one of the required courses in the Earth School curriculum is The Art of Uncertainty. Learning how to live in the mystery of life, and love it, is the journey of a lifetime. And it can never begin too soon!

When my daughter was a toddler I read stories to her every night. Because of my desire to see her grow emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, I tried to read new books to her on a regular basis. She resisted, wanting always to hear the same story, The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, over and over and over again. One night, as I was reading the story to her, I got it: She wanted to stay with the same story because she knew how it would end. It was safe and comfortable for her to know in advance that the mouse did get the strawberry away from the big mean bear and managed to live happily ever after. Isnt that the kind of ending we all want to know awaits us in the story of our lives? For most of us this is a lifelong lesson.

Recently my wife, Diane, and I took our grandchildren, James and Cailin, to Disneyland for the simple pleasure of some hang time together. I was amazed at how the park had changed since I first visited it in 1958 as a kid. Beyond the staggering number of people, there are now many new rides that, shall we say, are a bit more intense than the ones I remembered. The last time I was at Disneyland, the most intense ride in the park was the Matterhorn, which by todays standard is a mild-mannered roller coaster. Compared to many of the newer rides, the Matterhorn rates right up there with the flying Dumbo ride.

Throughout the day, I found myself steering the grandkids to the rides I knew from fifty years ago, like the putt-putt cars at the Autopia and the Jungle Cruise. Of course, while they humored me by going on those rides with me (and they will never let me live that down), the grandkids were more intent on all the newer rides, which caused me to go a bit queasy just looking at them. One ride that I had not been on was Space Mountain, and I have to admit that it brought me to the edge of my comfort zone. As we were climbing into our rocket ship for the ride, I noticed the woman just getting out of our capsule stagger off in a daze and promptly proceed to lose her twenty-two-dollar Tomorrowland lunch. Suffice it to say that this didnt exactly push my Oh, I am going to enjoy this ride because Disneyland is the happiest place in the world button. Nonetheless, as uncertain as I was about what lay ahead on this radical speedball ride into total darkness, I strapped in and held on tight.

Trying something totally new by being willing to come to the edge of my own uncertainty and launching into the unknown really paid off. As it turned out, Space Mountain was, indeed, intense, loud, dark (very dark), and really juicy. By juicy I mean that, for an hour after the ride, I was enjoying an energetic endorphin rush (courtesy of God) that I would not have gotten had I stayed with the rides I already knew so well from the past. The awareness I had was that my Disneyland experience is very much a metaphor for our daily lives in many respects: I entered Disneyland that day projecting images from my own past experiences, expectations, and limitations onto my current experience, and this restricted my ability to freely enjoy the possibilities that lay just beyond the comfort zone of the known. To further elucidate the experience and awareness I gained that day, I offer a quote by Deepak Chopra who, in his usual display of elegant words and profound wisdom, makes this point very clear:

We can continue to live in the restrictions of the life we have always known because its safe and predictable. However, in so doing we become prisoners of the invisible jail of our own mind. Chopra is spot on: If we truly desire to experience the freedom to be the fully expressed beings we were sent here to be, we have no choice but to embrace the unknown; that is, the mystery of that which is yet to be. Lets face it, before anyone climbs on a wooden carousel horse, that person knows, from simple observation, where the merry-go-round is going to take him, which is round and round, in the same locationeverything between where the ride begins and ends is in plain sight. Metaphorically speaking, there is nothing fresh and unknown about the merry-go-round. Its the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, thats how many of us tend to live our lives. Our ride through life is far too often a projection of the same images day after day, and thus we become prisoners to the known. In the process, we also miss the juice that comes with the adventure of going where we have never gone before. We were sent here to be explorersto push out, grow, and evolve. But this can only happen when we are willing to experience new rides in life.