Maggie Jackson on the Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure

Humanity’s future depends on our willingness to embrace uncertainty

A growing body of rigorous scientific research demonstrates how and why the foundational hallmarks of a creative mind (a willingness to explore uncertainty, to follow ideas and hunches, to be comfortable without answers) are not only beneficial to humanity at large, but also essential to saving the planet (no joke).

I had the enormous privilege and pleasure of interviewing a brilliant thinker, researcher, and author, Maggie Jackson, whose latest book, Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure, explores why we should seek not-knowing in times of flux.

Jackson’s deeply reported book offers fresh insights and revelations on every page. If you delve into only one meaty nonfiction book this year, let it be this one. I promise that what you learn will resonate for a long time.

My interview with Maggie barely scratches the surface and I hope it whets your appetite for more.

Note that all italicized quotations are taken directly from the book.

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About Maggie Jackson

Nominated for a National Book Award and named to multiple “Best Books of 2023” lists, Uncertain has been lauded as “incisive and timely…triumphant” (Dan Pink), “surprising and practical” (Gretchen Rubin) and “remarkable and persuasive” (Library Journal). Jackson’s acclaimed previous book Distracted sparked a global conversation on the steep costs of fragmenting our attention. A former columnist for the Boston Globe, Maggie has written for The New York Times and many other publications worldwide. Find Maggie’s book on Amazon.

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You state in the book “It is not outrageous—and increasingly it is necessary—to ponder a future in which our uncertainty can save humanity.” Can we unpack that?

There’s so much new research now that shows basically we have mistaken assumptions about the ‘uncertainty mindset.’ Epistemic or psychological uncertainty is a key human response to the unknown. When we meet anything new, unexpected, or ambiguous, we experience a stress response that is essentially the body’s and brain’s way of waking up to what we don’t know. In this way, uncertainty is highly beneficial; it’s a state of arousal that readies us to learn and investigate.

That’s not all. Being unsure is in itself a space for learning and investigating and creating. When we open up the space between question and answer through our uncertainty, we can dig deep, find new connections, see new perspectives, and muse. Uncertainty is both a spur and a space.

“Uncertainty plays an essential role in higher-order thinking, propelling people in challenging times toward good judgment, flexibility, mutual understanding, and heights of creativity.”

In our culture, which is efficiency-oriented, and technology-oriented, we often think of uncertainty as weakness or paralysis, whereas it’s actually a time of productive, dynamic cognitive activity.

Why is this so essential? Unless we harness uncertainty successfully, we’re in trouble. It’s obvious we’re at a difficult point in human history, where the survival of the species is at risk and where geopolitics and economics and other aspects of life are highly unpredictable, highly volatile.

If we as a society respond with close-mindedness and a lack of curiosity—with brittleness, not resilience—then our way forward, our ability to solve complex problems, is diminished radically. The research bears this out.

I’m particularly interested in the link between uncertainty and creativity. Is uncertainty a condition of a creative life? I’m thinking of your statement: “Unless we honor the discomfiting work of not-knowing, we squander the potential of a perceptive mind.”

Uncertainty is a foundation of creativity. Creativity is by nature edgework or frontier work. It involves seeing or creating things—artworks, literature, technological inventions, et cetera—that haven’t been known before and that are both innovative and useful. It makes sense that uncertainty is part and parcel of this mix.

One of the most important aspects of creativity, and also ‘good thinking’ or problem-solving in new or unexpected or ambiguous situations, is that we have to launch from the known.

To put it more concretely, we operate most of the time on a kind of auto-pilot, depending on expectations based on honed knowledge—heuristic thinking and mental models. [For example, we don’t have to think about tying our shoes or where our driveway is located; we automatically know.]

When we are seeking to be creative, uncertainty is an opportunity. It’s difficult to move beyond what we already know well and into realms where we have yet to know or understand or imagine. And so uncertainty, as discomfiting as it is, is very much a spur and a provocation that moves us away from the tried and true.

“Let go of the notion that answers are always at hand, wade into the wilderness of uncertainty, and new perspectives open to view.”

Studies of creativity show this to be the case. People asked to come up with different uses for household objects, such as a brick, usually start out thinking about walls and construction. But creative people move away from what’s routine toward creative solutions, such as the idea that a brick can be a mini-pizza stone or a pillow. They do this by flexibly thinking across categories. They launch from the familiar category of construction to new categories by asking, What is it made of? What is its shape? They seek uncertainty to find new frontiers of thinking.

Children around kindergarten age are quite good at this because they don’t have to first get out of the way of their sureness.

Learning is all about building on the tripwire of surprise. Only then can you break down your assumptions and expectations. Only then can you really move forward and update your understanding of the world. We can be surprised by life and learn from such encounters—but we can also seek surprises in life. That is creativity.

One of the most delightful and surprising things I learned in the book was about the power and necessity of daydreaming, which gets such a bad rap in our culture.

We should embrace daydreaming because it is so important for meaning-making and for inventing our own lives, for stepping back and musing on who we are. I call daydreams the sketchbook of the mind because they’re really a portable space for detours, errors, and what-if questions. When you daydream, you are uncoupling from the environment and going within; parts of the brain associated with imagination, meaning-making, and coherent thinking are all activated. This is uncertainty-in-action.

Daydreams are not the mush we often think they are. More than half of daydreams are future-oriented, and so involve what-if questions. You can apply daydreaming to questions you’re wrestling with, questions about what your book topic is, and what the book wants to say.

By taking a step away from doing and goal-seeking, from deliberative, outer-focused thought, and allowing our minds to semi-drift, we’re able to embark on a kind of thinking that is minimized or shelved in our busy, hyper-connected lives.

I interviewed a genius scientist who spends an hour or more a day daydreaming, carrying out thought experiments about his innovative work [in biology]. He spends ample time daydreaming, even though it’s seen by many as ‘unproductive.’ He invests in the future of his work by daydreaming. Reverie really is an investment in the mind and also a way of having faith in the human mind.

One of my favorite anecdotes in the book is about an astronaut on a spacewalk who’s told by Mission Control not to spend time looking out in space because that’s not why he’s there. He’s told to focus on his task. This raises questions about the tension between focus and observation.

Nothing can be known except up close and at a distance, as the scholar Walter Ong noted. By opening up the space between questions and answers, uncertainty allows us to dig into the minute details and evaluate what’s in front of us in a very present, mindful way. It also allows us to take that 30,000-foot view. If you’re willing to be uncertain by pausing for a moment or sleeping on a problem or deliberating in a crisis, you’re gaining the chance to look at the situation from up close and from a distance.

Uncertainty lets us push back on the idea that operating in linear (‘a to b’), efficiency-oriented, quick ways are always best.

What are the biggest takeaways you learned from researching this book?

I learned how corrosive it is to live constantly expecting, wishing, hoping for predictability, because that’s not how life is, and it’s increasingly more unpredictable. So only by being open to and leaning into uncertainty can we be open to life as it truly is.

And only if you’re open to life can you actually observe it fully—and be awed by it.

I see certainty as an incredibly toxic form of close-mindedness. We live in a world that’s tried to sweep uncertainty and gray spaces under the rug. It doesn’t work. That route doesn’t equip us and it actually sets us back.

The science is here. We’re beginning to scientifically understand uncertainty, and how we can be creative and thrive and cultivate mental well-being by being open to and managing uncertainty well. Let’s not squander opportunities to harness this wisdom.

“There is a workmanship to quiet time beyond stilling the body to liberate the mind. We must do more than let memory catch up to experience for a minute, a night, or a year.”