Category: uncertainty

Fall of the Experts

Commentary In July of 2020, I was heartened by an interview by Freddie Sayers on Unherd with Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s COVID response. The interview was full of nuanced and common-sense statements by Tegnell. For example, he pointed out the lack of evidence and precedence for draconian lockdowns and their potential for enormous collateral harm: “Of…


In Pennsylvania, Fear and Uncertainty Are on the Ballot

Commentary PHILADELPHIA—It is just about 7:30 on a Thursday evening. Near Independence Hall, the cars ahead of me stop at a red light. As the traffic signal turns green and the vehicles start moving forward, a gang of young men on dirt bikes and motorcyclists tears through the red light and straight into the direction…


In Defense of Uncertainty

Commentary I don’t know. On a scale of 1 to 10, how squeamish does this sentence make you feel? If the verbiage floating around social media is any indication, 21st century Canadians score pretty high in terms of our intolerance of uncertainty. In fact, we seem to be drunk on certainty, so completely convinced we…


It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid

Commentary SCRANTON, Pa.—Ask a restaurant owner how difficult the COVID-19 era has been, and the list of struggles is lengthy—loss of customers, supply chain problems, doubling and sometimes tripling of food costs, utility costs, and the inability to find or keep workers. Many business owners will tell you their revenue has returned to pre-COVID-19 numbers,…


How the Superpower of Uncertainty Can Benefit Your Career

By Robin Buckley, PhD The uncertainty you are feeling is an evolutionary leftover. Early in our history as humans, uncertainty protected us. Uncertainty made us cautious, made us carefully evaluate situations, and avoid situations that were too tenuous. Fundamentally, the experience of uncertainty encouraged us to avoid situations that might be dangerous or risky in order to…


The Way of Openness

We are capable of any kind of change.


Living With Uncertainty

Commentary Faced with a war, a pandemic, or a spiritual crisis, it’s easy to fall either into a kind of complacency or into despair and despondency. Or first one and then the other, as with a war that elicits initial enthusiasm—cheering on the troops as they march off to war—and, a few years or military…