Amelia Nicol
Decide Not To Decide
Information reliability and the willingness to wonder without sure, set answers and beyond absolutes. There are any number of ‘correct’ answers with any amount of alternatives that are hardly ever seen or used, and absolutes oftentimes become the only option for an answer. In a want for better questions, not answers, in need of more curiosity and willingness to wonder outside the norms and what we’ve been convinced are absolutely true. There are any number of examples of space in which alternative answers could make as much sense but aren’t used, just as there are plenty of examples of space in which not knowing would be better than pretending we do and presenting false absolutes or definitives. The need to be comfortable not knowing, the pressing indicatives of thought and its ramifications in positions of interest and intent becoming the wonder itself and capability therein: mediums of thought and its expounding views of possibility for process. The inventive mind’s intrinsic patterns of decision, never quite an absolute decision, but a continual work for conclusions that make sense and can form rhetorical situations that are operant: the need to know and the illusion of decision hand in hand, it’s easy to invent answers that work, it’s much more difficult to leave it for wondering, to leave an open ended question without a need for absolutist answers. Curiosity is plenty, and working minds can’t be forced to make decisions, especially about thought and its wonder, especially about metaphysical data and its possibilities. Free thought and the certainty of being wrong: uncertainty and the need for margins of error, recognizing alternatives and being comfortable with being in the wrong according to most. Certainty has its rewards in absolutes that fit but don’t actually operate or that operate but don’t really fit, and can always be answered by doubt. There is always room for doubt, there are always alternatives, there is always another option. If given only one of two options, choose neither or both, if given only limited options of possibilities and only absolutes to answer, choose nothing. There is no way to force a decision, and there are always other options to choose from! (Or invent!) Cartesian duality or Dionysian dichotomy, there are systems of influence that limit the process of decision to only a few operant options for good reason, but they don’t need to become absolutes and the options don’t need to be ultimate answers. Be comfortable not knowing. Be comfortable in the wrong. There are always other options, there is always another perspective.