Are You Certain or Are You Curious?

It's time we get more comfortable with uncertainty

It’s been a while since I last wrote. I’ve been mentally trapped in a strange space — one defined by the Dunning-Kruger effect. There comes a moment when you look around the world and realise just how little you know. It’s my most favourite irony of life. At the start of learning about anything, you’re filled with confidence — thinking you’ve got “the fundamentals” figured out. And then, suddenly it hits you. You’re right there on that uncomfortable phase in the curve and you feel humbled by your own ignorance.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities.

This is where I am right now. I’m a 39-year old woman who has seen (glimpses of) successes, failures, and everything in-between. I’ve built businesses, led teams, and faced some of life’s most precious gains and hurtful losses. And here I am, feeling like I know very little about the world.

Perhaps, it’s the weight of this chaotic time we’re living in — where crises of every form seem to loom around the corner. Or maybe it’s a natural part of getting older, recognising that the wisdom we sought wasn’t really about knowing more at all, but rather about embracing the endless unknowns of life.

The Great Simplification

One concept I’ve recently grappled with is from Nate Hagen’s “The Great Simplification” video. It’s a wake up call showing that the complexities of our modern world are unsustainable. We, humans, have built towering systems of consumption and production that feed our lifestyles, but they’re at odds with the planet’s natural limits. Hagen urges us to recognise the necessity of scaling back, of rethinking the very systems we live by.

Is it not eerily similar to what we are experiencing at individual level? How the complexities of modern life mirror the chaos within us. How we chase the external markers of success, like wealth and status, and losing sight of what truly brings us joy. We’ve created lives disconnected from our core, choosing the illusion of success over authentic fulfillment (Read: my piece on Byung Chul Han’s take on the modern struggle).

The Metacrisis

Building on Hagen’s work, Daniel Schmachtenberger talks about a metacrisis — an interconnected series of crises that stem from our systems being fundamentally misaligned with human values (growth, power and control vs. love, connection and belonging). The focus isn’t just on the environmental crisis, the economic crash, or political upheaval — it’s the fact that it’s all of these crises happening all at once that adds to the storm of existential uncertainty most of us are feeling right now.

Schmachtenberger’s words hit us hard. There’s no singular issue we can “fix” to save ourselves. It’s systemic. Much like the human condition, it requires a shift in how we view the world — not through a singular lens but through multiple perspectives. It’s a crisis of perception, of understanding how to hold these different ideas, conflicts, and emotions in our minds without collapsing under their weight.

The Hemisphere Hypothesis

In this chaotic storm of ideas and experiences, I find myself drawn to Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis (who I’ve mentioned before in my piece “Decoding Daniel Schmachtenberger on "The MetaCrisis of the AI Era"). He proposes that our divided brains — right and left hemispheres — offer contrasting views of the world, with the left hemisphere, the “emissary”, trying to impose logic, order and control, while the right hemisphere, the “master”, embraces creativity, intuition, and emotion.

The more I reflect on Dr. McGilchrist’s work, the more I see it in everyday life. The left brain wants answers, wants to systematise everything, wants certainty. But the right brain knows there’s beauty in the unknown. There’s richness in the chaos, the contradictions, and the emotions that cannot be rationalised away.

For a long time, I’ve lived by systems. I’ve clung to logic, strategy, and planning to make sense of a chaotic world. But now, I’m learning to let go about knowing and instead, put more effort on ‘broadening’ my right hemisphere. The human experience is not something you can fit into neat boxes. It’s messy, it’s soulful, and it’s deeply personal.

Quantum Physics and Observation

Unexpectedly, a book that brought me peace in my unsettled feeling is Marcus du Sautoy’s What We Cannot Know. Known as “Britain’s most famous mathematician”, his words gave me much comfort in embracing the limits of knowledge. If modern science has proven anything, it’s that there are still realms we don’t even know we don’t know. The double-slit experiment in quantum mechanics is one example that blew me away. The experiment explores how particles can exist in multiple states until observed (yes, you read that right!) — illustrating that at the subatomic level, certainty evaporates. Particles actually behave differently depending on whether they are being observed or not! (Watch: The best explanation I’ve found on the double-slit experiment)

It’s a profound mystery how mere observation can change reality. If anything, I think it teaches us that the act of observing — of paying attention — shapes the world around us, even when we don’t fully understand how (Read: my piece on “How Our Feelings Shape Our World”).

The act of observing an event changes its outcome.

We often think of life as something we passively experience, but what if every moment we engage with the world, we’re shaping it? It’s not just the external that influences us; it’s us influencing the external. I think the idea of reciprocal observation is humbling — how we perceive, pay attention, and engage with the world directly impacts the reality we live in.

In that sense, maybe true power lies not in knowing more, but in being more aware. In paying attention. Because attention is what crafts the narrative of our lives.

Ubuntu and Plurality

In African philosophy, there’s a term that deeply resonates with me: ubuntu — “I am because we are”. To me, it captures the essence of interconnectedness, the idea that we are not isolated beings but a collective, shaped by and shaping those around us.

In my previous piece, I talked about Plurality, and how embracing different perspectives can be humanity’s forward path. Survival isn’t a solo journey; it’s a shared one. As individuals, we are incomplete. We thrive when we are together.

The world needs more ubuntu, more plurality. While our differences should be celebrated, not all deserve that recognition. There’s a clear line between differences that enrich us, and those that cause harm or division. True plurality means fostering empathy and connection, while rejecting the harmful behaviours disguised as “difference”.

It’s important to discern which differences elevate us…. and which ones tear us apart.

The Conclusion: Looking Inward

There’s no doubt that we live in a fascinating time. A time of unparalleled development and technological advancement, but also a time of deep introspection. We can’t afford to just look outward anymore. We need to turn inward, to reflect on our actions, our beliefs, and the systems we’ve built.

The world is multi-faceted, complex, and overwhelming. But within that complexity lies an opportunity — to expand our mental bandwidth, to embrace multiple perspectives, to understand each other more than yesterday, and to tackle the challenges our societies face head-on.

The more we allow ourselves to sit with uncertainty, the more we grow. And perhaps, that’s the most important truth of all.

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”

Eugene Ionesco, Romanian-French playwright and a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement that highlights the absurdity of human existence.

Other interesting finds:

Ren is a modern-day bard who burst onto the scene with his masterpiece “Hi Ren” just over a year ago. He blends the lyrical mastery of Shakespeare, the emotional intensity of Beethoven, and the raw storytelling of Eminem.

His work goes deep into the battles between man and societal expectations, the chaos of unchecked capitalism, and the internal conflict we all face.

“Hi Ren” is poetry in motion — a sincere exploration of truth, freedom, and identity delivered with unapologetic emotion and brutal honesty.

Ren’s Money Game trilogy is a bold critique of the societal structures that govern our lives. In part 2, Ren dissects the destructive forces of unchecked capitalism, laying bare the greed and systemic flaws that define modern economies. Nate Hagens would no doubt appreciate Ren’s analysis as it mirrors Hagens’ own warnings about society’s perilous trajectory — exposing the dark undercurrents of a world driven by profit over people. (Watch: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)