“A thing I had long suspected — the world’s absurdity — became obvious to me. I suddenly felt unbelievably free, and the freedom itself was an indication of that absurdity. […] Cautiously, clumsily, I loaded the revolver, then turned off the light. The thought of death, which had once so frightened me, was now an intimate and simple affair.” — The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov

Uncertainty blazing at the end of a tunnel.

Photo by darkday.

The wide variety of possible futures poses a problem. It’s very simple: uncertainty. Uncertainty creates risk, and it’s stressful. By definition the true future is unknown, and therefore scary. You can attempt to prepare for the future, but you can’t really prepare for it — because you’ll prepare for the future you expect, which will differ significantly from the future that actually happens.

Technology analyst Ben Thompson likes to say that the worst-case scenario for a five-year plan is that you achieve your goals, but the ground has shifted under you in the meantime. The ground is constantly shifting underneath us. It’s easy to project consumer gadget trends, but it’s not so easy to call the election (Hillary will win) or what will happen in Syria (no guesses here). Will self-driving cars take over the roads in ten years or fifteen? You can’t cash out if you don’t buy and sell the stocks at the right time. Will universal basic income ever be applied beyond a few one-off experiments?

The way to deal with uncertainty is not to try to eliminate it — that’s a futile task. Uncertainty and risk are inherent features of reality. The way to deal with uncertainty is to absorb it. Make it part of your being and your reactions. Come to peace with the fact that life is cruelly unpredictable. Embrace the instability of your circumstances, and practice honing your reflexes. You’ll need to jump at some point.


I’ve also been wondering whether I can make money from Exolymph. I don’t want to charge for the newsletter directly, and advertising won’t be lucrative unless I can gain several multiples of the subscriber base I have now. Sorry, I know it’s crass to talk about #monetizing, but I would love to be able to support myself by writing quasi sci-fi thinkpieces and story snippets. However, in order to convince people to give you money, you need to satisfy a market need — in other words, to solve a problem.

What problem most torments the kind of person who subscribes to Exolymph? Based on the anxious discussions about Donald Trump in the chat group — as well as automation and surveillance and the everything-industrial complex — the core worry that captivates us is uncertainty. I can write blasé dismissals of the utility of obsessing over uncertainty, but of course I’m still preoccupied with it. It seems that I’m not alone.

Because I’m a writer, I immediately thought, “Okay, I’ll write a guide to embracing uncertainty.” But that’s a silly idea. I’m not an expert, and besides, such a guide already exists. Neither am I a researcher, nor a scientist, nor a successful investor, nor any of those people who have either studied or experienced uncertainty to the degree that they can talk about it with anything approaching, well, certainty.

All I’m equipped to do is explore. Find out how people dealt with economic upheaval in the past. Dive into the long Wikipedia list of cognitive biases. I’m throwing ideas at the wall, but I still don’t know if anyone would pay for this.

Would you pay $5 per month for a weekly offshoot newsletter that delivered meditations and investigations on functioning and thriving in a world of uncertainty? If no one can be bothered to respond to this email, I can safely assume that no one would bother to pay actual money.