Finding Clarity Is Overrated: Not Knowing Can Be Liberating

I used to think that clarity was a virtue, while lack of clarity was undesirable. That unclarity is to be transcended and replaced with the pristine experience of knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I want.

There's a reason so many of my articles are about finding clarity.

I have come to realize that that’s old world thinking. Just like Brené Brown teaches us about the gifts in imperfection, unclarity also comes bearing wrapped parcels. What’s in those parcels? Who knows?

Culture’s idealization of clarity

Have you ever judged yourself for not being able to find clarity or direction? For not having one track that you diligently follow, come hell or high water?

I sure have. And, there’s a reason for that. We’ve been conditioned to worship clarity.

Culture loooves clarity. It loves people who (think they) know what they want. True, we might also abhor them for what they are doing, but we are certainly fascinated with them.

For instance, one historical character I’m fascinated by is Gaius Julius Caesar. Man, did that guy have a drive. And vision. And direction. He wanted that (horrific) war in Gaul, and by the gods, he was going to get it!

While Caesar stands out, we all can think of others like him. The builders. The movers and shakers. You got to have a strong vision, right?

On the other side of the spectrum, we find the impressionists. While Caesar painted in broad and daring strokes, the impressionists were all soft fuzziness.

And while they were admittedly not as influential as Caesar, they were responsible for way fewer atrocities and mostly did manage to avoid getting stabbed to death. So, clearly (pun intended), fuzziness has its advantages, too.

The unclarity in clarity

Interestingly, even the lives of people who appear to have been masters of personal direction contain a lot of unclarity.

For instance, it might look like Caesar knew what he wanted and that that clarity (combined with his brilliance and ambition) molded the world in his image. But that’s how we are judging things in hindsight and with survivorship bias.

In reality, Caesar might have been more of a high-stakes gambler, like so many of his contemporaries. He just kept on winning (until he lost).

As historian Adrian Goldsworthy put it in his book Caesar:

“It is a mistake to see him as all that different from his opponents or most of the other prominent Romans of the first century BC… All were gamblers in their way…”

And what is gambling but a game with uncertainty and chance?

Perhaps the real undoing of Caesar—who liked to rely on his good luck—was that he got too certain while playing a game of chance?

The benefits of unclarity

Beyond avoiding a potential death-by-senators (not something you and I are very concerned about, I assume), are there other benefits of painting in softer, more hesitant strokes?

Confusion and transformation go hand in hand

While clarity knows, unclarity is open. Open to being impacted. Open to discovering. Open to being wrong.

That’s why it’s easier to go through a huge transformation when we’re unsure. Uncertain. Confused.

Since I changed my name a few weeks ago, I have, in some ways, also changed my identity. And that brings with itself a massive amount of unclarity and uncertainty. I know what Bere (my old self) would do… but what about Louise (the name I now go by)? How would Louise handle this situation?

What I find is that this confusion brings a lot of liberation. By letting go of my past self, I suddenly can be whoever I want to be. I find myself approaching situations differently. This is similar to what it felt like when I spend a year in Canada as an exchange student. Since nobody knew me, I was able to reinvent myself.

Reinvention is nothing new to me. I’ve gone through cycle upon cycle of deep transformation. If transformation were an Olympic sport, I would be on the national team (and confused about what national team I should be on, hah!).

What I now realize is that there is a beauty in that. I’ve been able to explore so many different versions of myself in just a few decades of life: the right-brained and quietly rebellious adolescent who got replaced by the overly rational lawyer who got replaced by the “starting again” energy healer who got replaced by the structured coach. And and and.

People who have a more static and “clear” identity might need a few reincarnations to go through that plethora of identity masks. Hold my beer. (Except, I went from being a disciple of Dionysus to a “no thanks, I really don’t like alcohol”-teetotaler. So, hold my vegan, no added sugar, organic protein smoothie, please.)

Unclarity can be very motivating

While clarity unleashes a drive, so does a lack of clarity. After all, what’s a stronger motivating force than a mystery, an unanswered question?

Case in point:

• The popularity of mystery novels. Sherlock Holmes. Ripperology (that’s right—the unknown identity of one particularly despicable human being who frequented London in the 19th century has birthed an entire new field of experts).
• The question of “why” if something bad happened, either in the collective (“Why did WW1 start?”) or in one’s personal lives (“Why did Bertie leave me?”)
• Every field committed to finding answers to open questions, such as science.

In my case, I think I’m obsessed with Julius Caesar because I can’t make sense of him. Was he a good person? Unlike Stalin (bad guy) and Nelson Mandela (good guy), I can’t fit Caesar into a neat box. He’s both a brutal conqueror and an uncharacteristically merciful victor. Which does not compute. Hence, my futile obsession with trying to put him into Box A or Box B.

(Of course, the real answer here is that people can be ambiguous, that things can be both-and, and that Caesar can contain multitudes.)

What can we learn from this when we're trying to find clarity?

Questions demand answer. That’s why we should be careful with the questions we ask.

Take, for instance, the question I’ve been a bit obsessed with recently: “Was Caesar a good person?” This is not a particularly useful question because 1) I don’t arrive at a clear conclusion, and 2) it’s not relevant for my life (if I were a historian or author writing about Caesar, this might be different).

Since Caesar has been dead for so long, this is probably an obvious example of an unhelpful question. When it comes to things that are currently happening (for instance, things we read about in the news), it’s much easier to fall into the trap of asking questions that don’t serve us.

If we give our mind a question—any question—our mind will run with it. Mull it. Examine it from all angles.

The key, then, is to get into the habit of asking better questions.

If you ask yourself: “Why can’t I be happy?” you will get answers. They just might not lead you in the direction you want.

You will probably get higher quality answers if you ask yourself: “How can I be kind to myself and others?”

So often I have refrained from writing because I didn’t feel like I could be crystal clear in what I wanted to communicate. Now I realize that unclarity can be a fresh breath of air.

While clarity has a finiteness to it (“this is how things are”), ambiguity is more flexible, malleable, and humble. It’s in times of unclarity that change starts to happen, that things begin to evolve.

If there are areas in your life where you are hard on yourself for a lack of clarity, I hope that confessing my confusion (and the gifts it has brought me) will inspire you to reconsider.

Remember to

• Honor unclarity, and
• Ask better questions.

Services

Given my newfound appreciation of unclarity, I’ve stopped offering Crystal Clarity Calls for people who are interested in working with me. I’ve replaced those with complimentary Discovery Calls.

If you’re (maybe, perhaps, not sure?) interested in going on a Whole Being Coaching & Healing journey, you can schedule a free Discovery Call here. I’d love to connect with you!