Questioning in broken images
There’s a Robert Graves poem… that made me stop and think.
Questioning in broken images.
It has the quality of cold, clear air - bracing.
He suggests something uncomfortable.
Recalibrating something we take as true.
Confidence = strength. Doubt = liability.
We see this in some leaders. Maybe it’s what we expect from them, a level of certainty that offers us faith we’ll be alright if we follow them.
So their messages then leave very little room for manoeuvre.
They’re right and any opposition is wrong — the enemy perhaps.
That position seems to be encouraged by social media.
Even when ‘fact checked’ and found to be incorrect,
certainty is often defended with attack.
Ever noticed that ego and contradictory data don’t mix well?
Yet perhaps there is value in embracing uncertainty.
I was once asked “are you sure enough about that… to be unsure?”
That type of challenge is a welcome provocation.
But you have to be open to it.
The poem ends with this couplet:
He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.
That's worth sitting with for a moment.
He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.
He becomes dull, trusting his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.
Trusting his clear images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my broken images, I question their relevance.
Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question the facts.
When the facts fail him, he questions his senses;
When the facts fail me, I approve my senses.
He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.
He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.
- Robert Graves
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