In today’s information age it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data around us, from news to specialized information, from inbox to waves and digital overload. The sheer amount of information out there has had a serious impact on the way we feel as an expert, a leader, a parent, a decision-maker. It is easy to fall in the trap of feeling insufficient and ill-prepared. How do we trust that we have enough information when we know that there is no longer any way to master all there is to know about a topic? How does one rely on specific information when everything and its contrary exist out there? We may be tempted to close off, stop the flow of information, dismiss new knowledge for the sake of finding our way and keeping our balance. While tempting, this will likely become a hindrance, a limiting belief for our worldview.
There is another way. While thoroughly annoyed at my inability to “know for sure” the best way forward, the best medical advice, the right diet, the truth… I have come to welcome this overwhelming feeling, recognizing that there is no truth, there is no “best advice” to give or receive. There is only a possible option, at this particular time, in this particular place, in the face of many possibilities and multiple futures. How humbling! I actually wonder whether there ever was a best piece of advice. We may have lived in the comfort of less knowledge and therefore less possibility to be wrong. Can we even talk about being wrong? Should we simply approach “wrong” as a different experience – learning to fail and fail again? Even more humbling!
Life has certainly become more complex. This complexity can no longer be dealt with solely on the basis of our mind. Intuition is becoming increasingly salient in the face of increased complexity. Intelligence will still rely on our mind processing information, but decision-making seems to increasingly demand transcending powers, intuition, an ability to know not only on the basis of external factors but also on inner wisdom. This small inner voice may at times defy logic. Increasingly using our intuition may bring us to a place where the way forward is essentially our choice, our experience to live: SMALL DATA BIG ME, or the power of being 100 percent responsible where failing is the path.
I wonder if life is more confusing or more difficult for us than it was for people who lived a century or two centuries ago. I suspect not. The difference is that people have not, until recently, expected perfect knowledge. I cannot recall the philosopher who said that “God is about truth: Man is about the pursuit of truth”, but for the latter it is rather like walking toward the horizon. That is an important distinction and, I would suggest, that the belief in a higher Power cushioned the acceptance of less than perfect knowledge. Perhaps that is why you used the word “humbling” several times in this post. After all, it is necessarily humbling to “know” that we are not the most important element in the universal equation. Earlier generations did not face the same problem that our secular (often vehemently secular) society today does.
I like the idea of relying on intuition. It is an inherently human activity. It nonetheless presupposes some prior knowledge or frame of reference that an individual can draw upon in order to make a judgement or arrive at an understanding of something. Paradoxically, however, the modern day interpreters of the Enlightenment Project, that propagates a belief that real knowledge is achievable only through scientific means, also urges society to abandon any frame of reference that cannot be sustained by scientism. What then happens to the legitimacy of intuition (i.e., Big Me) in the eyes of others?
Once again Isabelle, a thought-provoking post on your part.
hmm, thank you Ben for pushing the reflection. Lots of questions to which I have no answer, but intuitively I would seek at the crossroad between science, philosophy, religion, and just evolution where knowledge is less important than the path.
Isabelle