This is a post about finding value in confusion (maybe, possibly, one day)

“Confusion,” Henry Miller wrote in Tropic of Capricorn, “is a word we have invented for an order which is not yet understood.”

How much do you agree with this statement? Or rather: how much are you able to? Asking because, frankly, this post’s existence is due to the fact that I do not know how to agree with it entirely. But it’s (hopefully!) never too late to learn.

I’d be lying if I said this began with reading those words, of course. More so from confronting the simple truth that being in an in-between state — which, you know, happens sometimes, and even often, whether or not you want it, or want to admit that it’s even happening—is challenging.

Such a moment as this has sent me back to someone else’s words, actually, formatted differently but far more magnetically as such. It was Wendell Berry who put it this way, in his poem “Our Real Work”:

“It may be when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work,
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

This makes me think of individuation — of going within, and becoming almost formless, to grow into something (someone?) new while simultaneously returning to oneself. Of succumbing, in a sense, to being the universe’s putty. Or, not exactly putty. I don’t love that. Maybe it’s more using one’s free will and headstrong nature to decide to surrender for a moment or two in order to be transformed, renewed. Just like a caterpillar would — meaning, because it must. Because that’s what life is asking.

Clearly this is the aforementioned personal state of things. It’s odd to be very in it and to realize that individuation is not a hardcore, one-and-done process. That instead it’s lifelong, something to encounter over and over again, for the sake of becoming more and more of oneself. Over and over again that’s proven itself to be true. And so it goes: “The mind that is baffled is not employed.”

A comfort, perhaps! Speaking from a place of being quite often baffled.

Of course, while I have been pondering this on a personal level, it’s hard to read words like those without considering how they apply outwardly. Because they do. Contradiction and confusion are valuable, and yet that idea has been so thoroughly diminished by a modernity whose foremost theme is information, and the need to know it all. One ruled by spicy takes, and being oh-so-certain of them. Maybe that’s just the natural outcome of materialism being the be-all end-all holy grail.

Maybe, culturally, we’ve reached the end of that particular road.

We could go down a rabbit-hole of Dunning-Kruger with this idea, but that isn’t the real point. The point is that bafflement, paradox, and moments of seeming contradiction are part of this whole godforsaken life thing. Even if a lot of people have forgotten as much, or maybe refuse to learn it, that doesn’t make it less true.

And furthermore, it seems to be the case that, when one encounters those moments, it’s important to sit with them, in all their gnarls and knots. In that painful pulse of growth. Because that’s what life is asking, and that’s where you can find more life. If you’re willing to wait for it.

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An especially frustrating part of this dynamic — this tendency to avoid paradox and confusion — is the idea of being The One Who Says How It Is. Or Tells It Like It Is. Or whatever you want to call it. (See also: earlier ranting-ness about “spicy takes.”) Wow, but that has escalated to an incredible degree.

A recent This Jungian Life episode, “Speaking truth: is it venom or cure?”, summarized the problems of this archetype and/or complex so astutely. In it, the hosts pondered when and how so-deemed “truth” can be little more than a “Trojan horse” that masks other, more sinister things. Cruelty, for example. Or the need to be accusatory, in order to not have to feel responsible for an observation one has made all on one’s own.

This adjacent phenomenon sort of summarizes a lot of the problems inherent to an intolerance for confusion. (Again: a disease I often possess, too, being something of a problem-solving obsessor.) There’s a lack of trust that undergirds this fear of being in a place of confusion, and of letting it be what it is before acting or speaking.

And that lack of trust isn’t just reserved for oneself. No, it’s generously granted to others, too, and to the wider world, and to life itself.

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But it’s understandable, of course, that most of us would want things to simply be the way they seem to be. As the old sorta-proverb goes, “It is what it is.” Of course, even that phrase is fraught because, well, what about when it actually isn’t? Or what if it seems to be that way, but years later, you find out it’s another way? Doesn’t that happen all the time?

Yes, it does, and therein lies the conflict. I would very much like to question seemingly simple truths at every turn — but only to feel more secure by way of my doubt. I would also love to be able to see the truth clearly, solve the problem easily, untangle the confusion and merrily roll along.

So it’s easy to understand why the idea of a simple truth is compelling. There is a comfort in having that and holding onto it. A sense of security, even. But you have to wonder if a false sense of security, a state of being lulled by what only seems true, is remotely worth having in the long run. In difficult times, in moments of massive turbulence, some might say yes.

And yet. What acts of purposeful rebellion, what artistic works of staggering beauty, what movements of honest inclusion and change can actually take place from that foundation?

Or, in other words—one more quote because this guy said it better — “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”

Not to unpack Picasso’s entire history alongside those words, because sure, one could apply them to certain details of his life and thus (rightly) throw them in the trash. But that’s not what’s being said here.

It’s simply saying that trying to escape the pain of confusion might stunt your growth. It’s easy to cheat yourself of so much richness by letting easy answers reign almighty.

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I’m concerned that this is a great deal of what has sunk its teeth into modern spirituality and religion. I thought of this a few weeks ago at the first church service I attended for the first time in…well, awhile. (Perhaps the last for awhile, too?) There, it occurred to me that this surge of “nones,” of “ex-vangelicals,” that has some clutching their pearls must have been prompted in large part by how unsatisfying it is to hear someone speak with utmost certainty about what is happening in the wider world. (That’s what has done it for me, anyway.)

Who decides that we are meant to be so certain?

It feels like a cop-out, and a heartbreaking one at that, this belief that God is Definitely This Thing Doing Right Now Because of That Other Thing. And the looming-even-bigger, unspoken but ever-present one that any one of us can know what the purpose of something is for sure (which is just a layer above the even bigger one of, hey are you even out there, what the hell is all of this, etc, but this is neither the time nor place, is it?). Instead of making room for questions, or a willingness to learn something new.

That on its own is a great deal of what has driven my own deconstruction efforts (and, before that, sparked a lot of my fatigue and skepticism full stop).

And maybe that’s for the best, on an individual level. But on a grander scale, I do wish mainstream (and even niche/fringe) spirituality could at least try to be open to nuance, and to real uncertainty, without getting totally cowed by the fear of the void. Especially because, now that the materialism genie is out of the bottle, there is no going backwards. But there is also no reason to pretend people don’t want to see things differently. There’s room to build upon something other than proof to have any flavor of belief. It’s an opportunity, really. And I’m pondering all these reports on people leaving organized religion with tired eyes because there’s not much generosity towards those who do walk away, nor is there any serious inquiry into this sort of possibility for change. That is definitely another topic for another time, but for now, it is simply unfortunate that people are being starved of the chance to let the void be not a bad thing.

And maybe they — we all — need that. To know that life is still worth living even when turbulence and confusion take hold. To be challenged to trust that there could be something better on the other side of it, without having to know for certain.

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Maybe that is the biggest, truest benefit confusion has to offer each of us. Meaning, the chance to become certain of no singular thing, except that something is happening. To know there is value in that, even if you cannot yet see it or know what that value is or will be. And to realize that living a full life is not mutually exclusive with embracing an encounter with a paradox point.

Of course, I can’t say I know or understand even THAT for sure. But there is something satisfying about it nonetheless — about the ensuing practice of trust, of hope, of letting something greater than the mind be what leads the way.