What makes the world go around? The cliché answer is “love.” And while I’m a huge fan of love, that isn’t what makes the world go around. In my view, the animating force driving human behavior is… uncertainty.
What do I mean by this? Well, as humans, we must act to survive. We must use our minds, i.e., our reason, to make the choices we need that allow our continued existence. In an evolutionary sense, our “telos” is to survive long enough to pass our genes down to the next generation. But on a day-to-day basis, our telos is to prevail from moment to moment, and to remain alive.
This quest to stay alive is our prime directive as humans, but doing so is no easy task. Unlike so many other species, humans are largely devoid of the instincts needed to survive. Instead, our means of survival must be trained throughout our lives. To survive, we have to choose, and the reason we have to choose is because every moment we face is one characterized by uncertainty.
We know not what will occur at any given moment, including right now. We certainly don’t know what will occur in an hour, in a day, in a week, in a month, a year, a decade or a lifetime. That’s because reality is both unknown and unknowable. And despite the phalanx of mystic charlatans claiming to know the future, or what happens after we die, or what fate the world is destined to suffer, nobody knows this — and nobody can know this.
So, why do I say I love this massive cloud of uncertainty shrouding existence?
The reason is because all human progress, all human triumph and all human good comes from our effort to conquer uncertainty.
Think about this for a moment. All of our actions, both as individual humans and in groups, are undertaken to combat the uncertainty we face.
Early humans faced the uncertainty of not knowing when or where their next meal would come from. And though we have for the most part solved this problem in the modern world, for much of the world this uncertainty prevails. Moreover, the only reason we’ve solved this uncertainty is because humans put in the requisite rational effort necessary to create food production systems capable of sustaining life for billions on a daily basis.
Of course, it’s not just food systems that placate human uncertainty. Just about any threat, any need, any desire, any art, any political system and anything you can think of came into existence by humans seeking to conquer some aspect of uncertainty.
The uncertainty of surviving harsh weather conditions created building and construction.
The uncertainty of surviving attacks from other tribes created weaponry.
The uncertainty of how the world ought to be prompted the creation of art.
The uncertainty of tyranny by a minority created political systems such as democracy.
You often hear that there is nothing that Wall Street hates more than uncertainty. Indeed, the current uncertainty over tariff and trade policy, future economic growth, monetary policy, fiscal policy, etc., has been the near-term cause of the recent selloff in equities.
While I agree that, in a near-term, practical sense uncertainty causes a “risk-off” trade in markets, what I want you to do is to start thinking of uncertainty with a wider philosophic lens. When you do so, you will understand that the need to combat uncertainty and to mold it into a more certain state is what humans do best.
A friend once told me that he views humans as, in essence, problem-solving machines. I agree with this view, and I think that the problems we solve all derive from our need to combat uncertainty.
This is why I say… I love uncertainty, because it’s what makes the world go around, i.e., it’s what makes all the virtues of life possible.
So, the next time you hear a talking head on CNBC say that Wall Street hates uncertainty, just remember what I told you today. I suspect you’ll smile as you reflect on the deeper meaning of the concept.
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Sailing A Vast Sphere
“We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.”
–Blaise Pascal
Since this week’s issue is all about loving uncertainty, I felt it appropriate to include a favorite quote here from French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal on the essence of life. You see, though all of us sail through a vast sphere of uncertainty, we are “driven from end to end” by our desire to overcome and make our world just a bit more certain. And it’s this process that is the essence of human behavior.
Wisdom about money, investing and life can be found anywhere. If you have a good quote that you’d like me to share with your fellow readers, send it to me, along with any comments, questions and suggestions you have about my newsletters, seminars or anything else. Click here to ask Jim.
In the name of the best within us,
Jim Woods
