I was listening to this podcast recently and was reminded that while we, as a global society, are no stranger to conflict and how to resolve it, what we do seem to have less “knowledge” about is how to prevent it from continuing to occur. In some ways we really can’t know EVERYTHING that’s on the horizon, and maybe that’s good.
But this process of loving the unknown, while not suggesting we love everything, *is* absolutely multifold given the interconnectedness of our society. For so long we did not understand that everything we did had an affect on everything else, everywhere else. In some ways, I think it may have been easier to embrace the unknown in the past due to the lack of “connectedness” that technology (i.e. the internet) has given us.
But now we have more, or at least, access to more knowledge than ever before and yet still, we fight and there is conflict that seems greater than ever before because of the realization of our connectedness. We’ll get deeper into this as we move through this book, but for now, what about the unknown are you in conflict with, if anything?
You may have several things or many things, perhaps there’s just one really big thing…write it down, one or all. Then consider from what you’ve written that you may never know how these things will ultimately end – can you still love them anyway? How can you love them?
Writer Brian Greene has said “Exploring the unknown requires tolerating uncertainty”, and while this certainly rings true, in terms of loving the unknown I’ve found that that requires embracing certainty….at the very least, that there will continue to (most likely anyway) always be something we will not know.
*The particular episode of the On Being podcast I’m referring to is with journalist Amanda Shipley and is titled “Stepping out of “the zombie dance” we’re in, and into “good conflict” that is, in fact, life-giving.”
TimeSpaceOne 