everything solid melts into air

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“Everything solid melts into air.”

Marx and Engels

We talk about uncertainty in a number of ways, but for most everyday people its experienced like quicksand – the ground you are standing on, solid, melts into air. It’s a shock to the system. It’s kind of like someone you trusted suddenly becomes untrustworthy or an institution, which has reliably met its responsibility, is suddenly unreliable and exploitive.

Anyway. So google uncertainty you will gets millions of hits with tips to deal with or coping with, but none on the moment in which solid melts into air. This is a really important point because, conceptually, ongoing certainty degrades thinking and while research suggests ongoing uncertainty upgrades thinking, there is the wretched space in-between. It is within this in-between answers are elusive, it is difficult to discern right from wrong and much of what was important has simply melted from solid to air.

Which leads me to society.

For a variety of reasons, a lot of what people deemed as part of ‘solid society’ has melted into air. As a consequence, we are seeing is the emergence of a new social configuration that may be at odds with the ideas that constituted the beginnings of the social life as they have developed up until now. This social transformation involves major efforts by individuals within that society to redefine their social places with the outcome of these efforts almost always being uncertain and, yet, driven by a certainty of some purpose. It is the odd conflict a feeling like their social identity has been uprooted and therefore attacking social configuration to actually uproot social identities as they are currently defined. What is at stake is certainly a new relationship between individual interests, social rights, and economic efficacy. But the outcome, in terms of a new solid fusion of all of these things, is uncertain. It is interesting that in this uprooting we are simultaneously seeking freedom for self and, yet, defining bounded social practices.

Which leads me to individualism as solidity.

Right or wrong, many people shrink back into individualism when faced with a moment of solid melting into air. This is important because virtually all the present major social issues focus on the individual right to self-define one’s situation and possibilities for action and on the definition of the boundaries and rights of the collective an individual is associated with. Much of this tension emerges from a foundational belief that human beings are not only enabled, but compelled to self-create their own rules of life. This is a semi-important thought because nobody ever creates rules from nothing in an empty space – context and history matters. It was Karl Marx who said “human beings make their history themselves but they do not do so voluntarily, not under circumstances of their own choosing, rather under immediately found given and transmitted circumstances.” I imagine my point here is that when something solid melts everyone struggles a bit to be able to proactively reflect on underlying assumptions. I believe it was Andrew Grove of Intel who used the term ‘learning to effectively worry.’ You worry, a bit, about some of the basic assumptions commonly made and whether they work within the situation at hand – or do they put a modeling constraint on which, in this situation, can be set aside.

This means, in the moment, someone needs to assess how the mood, or your mood, affects how you are addressing the situation. While this unique type of uncertainty tends to breed some aspect of fear (uncertainty itself), how you are framing the situation affects the mood – problems create anxiety (and desire for probabilities rises) and opportunities breed optimism (and increased risk acceptance).

Which leads me to recreating something solid.

The ability to regulate, and reshape, our own attitudes & behavior provides us the hope that melting is fleeting and navigating the sheer complexity of a seemingly simple moment between solid and melting is possible. The suddenness of solid melting into nothing does not, and should not, imply total destruction of all, and everything, that is solid. Most often when solid melts into air it is simply taking some time to reshape itself into something sold again. It may not be the same ‘solid’ as before, but it will end up just as solid. It is within that, well, where we escape the series of quicksand solid-to-air moments. Ponder.