top of page
Search

Using Play to Navigate Uncertainty

Writer's picture: EmilyEmily

it is easy to work when the soul is at play

Emily Dickinson 244


Last week I found myself driving to the ER. An urgent care doctor had said, after palpating my abdomen, “I think you should go to the ER now.” And poof – there I was gripping the steering wheel, awash in uncertainty and fear. By the time I reached the ER, I had already diagnosed myself with any number of terrible things.


Just enumerating the possibilities – giving myself a fantastical differential diagnosis – helped me not to panic during the car ride. Even that fake certainty was better than the real uncertainty I faced.


Uncertainty is a state in which it is impossible to know the future or even describe fully the present. It might be that our knowledge is imperfect or, as in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that the data we need does not even exist. In short, as the economist Frank Knight noted, “You cannot be certain about uncertainty.”

All that shadow, half images, partial facts, the world unformed and incomplete – it beckons towards fear. We want to be certain so much that we fill in the gaps with our own terrible imaginings, holding ourselves hostage.


And yet we also hold ourselves hostage if we insist upon certitude. It’s impossible for one thing. No matter how we plan or prepare, we are not omniscient or omnipotent. And it’s not just impossible, but deadly for our own growth. To learn is to experience something new, to step into the space of the unknown and uncertain. Keats, in his negative capability theory, posits that there is a beauty and truth that only exists outside of what we can fully know. Our response to uncertainty, then, straddles the space between fear and beauty.


What’s the role of play in uncertainty?

“Play is the state in which uncertainty is fun,” writes Casper ter Kuile. Play lets us move towards growth and beauty rather than fear.


Here are five ways play helps us navigate uncertainty.

1) Agency

Play, by its very nature, is a voluntary activity. We cannot be ordered to play, (Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga).


When we approach uncertainty with playfulness, we are activating our own agency, acknowledging what we can and cannot control.


2) Pause

Play creates a space, a pause, a moment outside of the immediate business of survival. Play creates the illusion of time so that we can sort through our feelings and responses.


3) Perspective

Play asks “what if”? What might happen if this path were taken? What would I understand if I played a different role in this scenario?


4) Fun

Play creates amusement. I’m a white knuckle flier and when I do fly, I create a secret identity for myself. For that time in the air – in a situation in which I have to give up control – I amuse myself by imagining a completely different life. It lightens my fear.


5) The Embrace of Contradiction

The very nature of play is about imagining the seemingly impossible and contradictory. The princess is a ninja dragon doughnut shop owner book lover seven-foot tall alien. Yup!

Life is so much about the embrace of contradiction, about allowing ourselves to be ok with an anti-Boolean life – not a binary choice but this and this and this.

And ultimately that is what uncertainty is – this and this and this – and our ability to hold all of those seemingly contradictory possibilities allows us to be sustained by uncertainty rather than threatened by it.


By the time I made it the ER, I was no longer panicked, but I was still stuck in fear. My fear of the unknown made me defensive. Everyone was kind, but I was prickly, inventing their judgment. I was not playful. Then a friend came to keep me company, bringing her knitting. She was making up the pattern, playing around with what it would look like. And in that moment, I began to remember that I had the capacity to be present and sit in this uncertainty, to gain back some lightness, to take on the perspective of those around me, to remember I still had my own agency.


The ER visit ended on a positive note –a pulled abdominal muscle can mimic acute appendicitis!

And it reminded me of how, when I lose myself to fear, I lose sight of what I value.


Play helps us to embrace imperfection and uncertainty. It keeps us thinking in flexible and innovative ways. It shows us how to be resilient as we navigate our responses to the unknown.


Most critically, it helps us open up to loving ourselves and others more deeply.


In joyful play,

Emily


PS Play is my word of the year (idea from Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness Project) and the more I explore it, the more fascinated I’ve become. I’d love to hear your thoughts on play.


Thought Questions:

What’s something that’s fun for you? Who are you in that space? What values or qualities from that space can you bring into something that feels stuck or scary?

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn

© 2023 Thresholds Coaching. Proudly created with Wix.com

All original artwork  created and owned by Emily Miller Mlčák.

bottom of page