The Freedom of the Unknown
Will James

We are all very comfortable with the familiar and a little uncomfortable with the unknown or uncertain.

We have this habitual tendency to interpret the present with the constructs we have built up from the past. We carry over our impressions and overlay them onto what is happening now, thus interfering with the natural spontaneous flow of life. In looking for the familiar there is a tendency to distort the present experience, for the ideas and concepts of the known, which are always carried over from past experience, cloud the mind and limit the openness to any new experience.

We also bring from the past experience our fears and anxieties. This inhibits and restricts our willingness to be open to new experiences. We narrow and fence ourselves into a restricted area of the familiar by imagining all the possible harmful outcomes that may arise. We are talking here about the psychological fears and anxieties, our imagining what might happen and the uncertainty that goes with that. We are not talking about the learnt survival responses that protect us from physical harm.

Facing the present moment afresh is a challenge for all of us, can we recognize the uncertainty of each and every moment and still remain open to each new experience.

All these behavioural patterns arise as some form of protection mechanism for the self, for the construct that needs continual reinforcement and affirmation. The self is inherently insecure for the very reason that it exists as a separate solid thing only in our imagination. The more fears and anxieties we have the stronger our sense of a separate self and also the more restricted and controlled we become.

Is it possible to live free of this conditioning, this construction?

We don’t need to practice extreme sports or to be constantly putting ourselves into dangerous situations, actually every situation is uncertain and at any time anything could happen.

Are we taking each moment for granted, feeling a false security that today will be just like yesterday? Can we be open to whatever arises without feeling we need to be prepared or protected by our knowledge and our concepts.

With the understanding of the fear of uncertainty comes a freedom that is not imprisoned or restricted by the known and opens the unlimited possibilities of the unknown, the full expression of just this unfolding life.