The Uncertainty Mindset 2019-2020

This issue is Part 2 in a series about ambient uncertainty—intentionally creating manageable, low-level uncertainty as a sort of personal training regimen for cultivating the uncertainty mindset.

Getting good at working with and responding to uncertainty is cognitively and emotionally difficult. One way to do this is to design uncertainty into daily life—to make it ambient and ubiquitous—but on your own terms: where the stakes are low and where there’s potential for a desirable reward. This invariably entails finding ways to surrender control but in controlled ways.

To make things concrete and relatable, and because pizza is life, I describe how a home pizza-making practice can be re-designed to

1. Force continual low-level confrontation with uncertainty, and
2. Provide exposure to the serendipity of unexpected desirability.

You can find it here: #28: Ambient uncertainty, Part 2