The thing we call Uncertainty

After the long post I did just now, I opened this blog of my junior, http://elizabethlittleengland.blogspot.com/ . You should check that out as she is a frequent blogger and wise one too. 

Spoiler: This might be a messy post as I threw anything that crosses my mind inside.

Anyway, I read the post entitled "Life's Uncertainty" which is about how much insecurity one can discern regarding the endless possibility lying in front of them. I find this to be a very interesting subject since as she conveyed in the post. Everyone fail too solve the mystery regarding as to why people who have gone to such prestigious universities always work under the command of those who failed to finish much less experience a lot of formal education. If you're reading this (the self-proclaimed "Elizabeth"), I would like to elaborate more on my very own saying in this. 

Before I go deeper, I would like to put in the picture of my past. I am a very vigilant person in terms of future plans. In junior high, I managed to make a very crude plan as to what I would be doing in high school. Indeed, there are some detours which themselves can be regarded as uncertainty, however in the very end a lot of stuff went according the framework of life I created. However, the more I grew up, the more I was aware of how little I could control in my life. Not only have I decided to create myriads of plans but I have also prepared myself for any change that could happen. By the end of the day, I knew that there were too many variable changes to be expected in the equation of life.

Formal education is indeed a very rudimentary yet significant factor in one's life, yet it fails to, as you said, fail to prepare us in the face of uncertainty. You're going to notice that the gate of uncertainty is going to open from the moment you ponder on what you're going to do with my life and how to do it. My classmates, which are a member of an exclusive class (excellent students among our peers), always expect to much from the major they're going to have in the university, and they also fail to prepare to the minute details of how they're going to live their life, let alone be ready for it.

I'm not saying they're not ready for life. This habit is a disease we have been contracting throughout generations after generations. I'm saying that we can't be ready for anything in life, no matter what the case might be. As to how some people manage to get to the top with very little formal education, I would like to say that these people are those who won't stutter in front of the abyss of not-knowing. Being humans, we are horrified by unknowing. However, these people are those who manage to get better of themselves and see what truly matters for themselves.

Formal education teaches us how to respond to different cases in life, however it merely tests how much a student can follow rules, the rules they read in books. Formal education gives us the delusion that there is always an affirmative answer in life, that there's always the right way to do it. I, too, have been  made loss of words when I suddenly noticed this huge fact.

In the long run, all we can do is not prepare everything for the future, instead we should prepare ourselves for what's about to come, for what's about to hit us. We should be prepared to respond when things hit us. The analogy would be if a car is going to hit you, you should not prepare a shield and close your eyes, but you should notice what kind of car it is and how to avoid it in such a way that it would leave minimal scratches to you.

Here is a quote from her post by John Allen Paulos :

Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity 

is the only security.

Here are some quotes I found on the net:

“The mistake is thinking that there can be an antidote to the uncertainty.” 
― David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

“Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.” 
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” 
― Albert Einstein

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” 
― Richard P. Feynman

Please keep in my mind that Einstein and Feynman themselves are scientists who deal with the field of Quantum Physics where uncertainty itself is the groundbreaking fabrics of the universe.