The quote from John Keats that inspires this post is from a letter he wrote to his brothers George and Tom in December 1817. He was commenting about the ideal literary state of mind, one in which someone exhibits “negative capability”.
A sense of calm assurance and innovatory endeavour in the inevitable “uncertainties, mysteries and doubt” that defines the ups and downs of striving for something original.
I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason
Keats, John (1899). The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge Edition. Houghton, Mifflin and Company. p. 277
Most of the time it is what we don’t do in any given creative inquiry that helps us the most. This is especially true for when we are working on an issue with our teams that requires us to generate some new thinking or ideas.
It is also true when we are exploring a new line of inquiry with learners. In both of these situations, we are consciously choosing to step into a state of flux, a situation that can often be defined by what is not known rather than what knowledge we share.
Human nature does, in some way, dictate that we prefer the habits, rituals and the agreeable comforts of processes we know. We draw a degree of situational steadiness from the fact and reason we can rely on. We see this type of reaction in others as we work with them to move on to new practices or technologies.
The comfort in the known is often too tempting to make the leap and embrace something new. The physical reality of technology is even more challenging as it is harder to ignore and move off of your desk than an ideological concept.
Letting these go and embracing the state of change and the unknown that surrounds us is counter-intuitive and it takes practice to fully accept. Here are some ideas to help.
Accept the mess
The learning process seems to be defined by these moments of flux we experience, sometimes they are fleeting, but often they are protracted. Uncertainty, doubt and mystery is part of our process of learning.
Accepting that we will experience the uncertainty of such times is a great first step for us personally and within our teams, whether learners or leaders. After all, “If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” as Einstein once suggested.
Reflect on how uncertainty makes you feel
Secondly, we must be emotionally aware of this uncertainty. What I mean by this is to use our emotional state to help prepare for future experiences that will be similar.
When you are navigating an organisational inquiry it not only puts you in a state of cognitive flux but one of mild emotional turmoil as your intuition presses you to seek steady ground and the reassurance of decisions. We are torn between seeking originality and the comfort of tried and tested ideas.
We should be mindful of how this uncertainty feels, how we react to it and how our emotions change. When we have the energy to record our own emotional experience of such moments we are far more likely to recall them in future times and use these emotional schemata to respond more appropriately.
As an aside I think that meta-emotion is an area we must help learners understand much better. On a simple level to be able to help them manage their own learning more effectively by having a better understanding of their own emotional topography.
Trust the process
A third area that contributes to a better creative approach to inquiry is the understanding that we have a process. When you take this knowledge away or it is not shared amongst a group, we are introducing another mystery: where is this all heading?
We have all experienced those meetings or projects which never went anywhere, great energy and contribution but no follow up or shared understanding of the direction it was heading.
All too often inquiry can feel like we are researching forever, as much as we want to embrace not knowing, and Einstein’s suggestion from earlier, our process needs to signpost the way through this.
I believe that when we are able to recognise “uncertainties, mysteries and doubt” as a natural part of learning; when we share a process and if we have awareness of our emotional reaction, we are engineering the best possible conditions for creative inquiry and hopefully new ideas to flourish.
Photo by Tomas Sobek
