Life's Uncertainty Principle

Throughout our life, we spend most of the time trying to predict what is in store for us tomorrow. We use every means possible to do that, sometimes very irrational methods as ‘Astrology’. But it is the desire of every living organism – to make life predictable – and we have to admit that compared to other species we have succeeded on many accounts due to our advancements in science and technology.

Today, though a considerable section of humans doesn't have a roof to sleep, there is also a section of the population who can safely claim that they will wake up in the same place where they slept last night unharmed. But away from the basic necessities we have gone a step higher. With the increase in life expectancy, we have begun to plan for many things in life – our educational institution, marriage, insurance and even our tombs.

It won’t be surprising if in the nearest future if we happen to design humans (forget medical ethics – they are dead). This has falsely made us strongly believe a quote credited to two great men, the liberator of slavery Abraham Lincoln and Management Guru Peter F Drucker that, “The best way to predict the future is to create it”. A rhetoric illusion which everyone knows is a mirage as they delve deeper into life.

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There are millions of factors beyond our control. The sun might exhibit more sun spots, the earth’s core might lose its stability, a killer tsunami may strike our country tomorrow morning, there could be a blackout this evening or maybe a disgruntled crow decides to shit your shirt on your interview day. The magnitude of uncertain factors dwarfs or rather sarcastically grins at what we are trying to do to ourselves. To quote Murphy’s Law, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”. We are simply lucky that it didn’t happen.

The two things that we battle hard to control are our mind and body. We seem to be slipping in these too because of the advent of mobiles and junk food. Milan Kundera in his book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being infuses artistry with his question on life’s worth, “We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”

But maybe it is this uncertainty that makes life interesting after all. Those million things beyond our control could combine in innumerable ways to create scenarios for us to overcome every day. And these uncertainties at crucial junctures in life could effectively alter life’s path. Anyone who is ‘lucky’ enough to live beyond ‘40’ has a story regarding an incident in which everything fell into place or 

everything was shattered out of existence.

Most people call it ‘fate’, but rationalists like me prefer a different word – Uncertainty.

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