I Alone Can Fix It

My ego is the elephant in the room. Whenever I feel certain that I’m correct in my thinking, I have to remind myself that a closed mind locks ignorance on the inside. If I don’t remain curious about possibilities beyond my opinions, my blind spots mushroom and I risk falling into failure. So, yeah, when I think I have all the answers—like if people just did what I do, or just voted the way I vote, or just believed what I believe—I lock my own ignorance on the inside. An error encapsulated in my certainty is my meta-ignorance. I get it. 

We all have our share of meta-ignorance, aka the Dunning-Kruger effect. We have limited competence in a particular area and we overestimate our abilities. When the subject is something we all experience like fear or society or the weather, we tend to think we have it all figured out because we have so much exposure. But how expert are we really in what causes fear, or how society functions, or why the weather is so unpredictable? Why do we believe that one idea or another, or one person or another is the solution? Note to self: Be open to the possibility that you are mistaken. But it’s hard to let go of being right. My ego really, really wants to be a genius. I crave the validation of being correct, and emotionally, I want the comfort of certainty.

Certainty helps us predict the future so we can be prepared for it. Everybody wants to be prepared for what comes next. Prediction keeps us alive. That’s what our brains do. Whether it’s catching a ball or planting seeds, or passing a car on the highway, we need predictability to guide us toward a successful outcome. Knowing potential outcomes and choosing the one I want is what makes me confident that I’m safe. I just need enough information. But what if it’s not possible to get the information I need to be prepared for action? Obviously, I can’t catch the ball with my eyes closed. Sometimes I can see but I still can’t decide the trajectory of the ball to catch it. Not having accurate information can be scary. I get hit in the face with the ball.

Recently I watched a very cool sci-fi series called “The 3 Body Problem” that shows the risk of not being able to predict ordinary events. I looked up the science on Wikipedia to understand what that phrase means, and I found a simple graphic on the physics that opened my mind in a big way. So I’m going to paraphrase a three body problem in laymen’s terms. A three body problem happens when three entities in motion are so closely aligned that their gravity disrupts their trajectory until it becomes chaos and their motion becomes random. In the series, an alien planet has three suns in such close proximity to each other that they disrupt each other’s orbit. Their motion becomes random and seasons on the alien planet become unpredictable. Every once in a while the three suns line up and fry the planet’s surface. So the aliens are looking for a new home.

Now I’m going to go way out on a limb and use the metaphor of a three body problem to explain my experience of life on Earth right now. Think of the three entities in motion as our energy supply, our economy, and our climate. You probably understand this intuitively. Every living thing requires energy and energy powers our economy. Economic growth depends on energy. But our main sources of energy—oil, gas and coal—disrupt the climate. When the climate becomes unpredictable and even catastrophic, it impacts energy supplies and the economy. Our three body problem is that energy, the global economy, and climate are so interconnected that any change in one of them causes change in the other two until they are bouncing off each other in what we experience as chaos.

I’m telling you this story because it’s a way of looking at the events in our world that doesn’t blame or shame others. It’s not political. And it’s not just our country. This is the complex problem human activity has produced over hundreds of years. To save ourselves the first risk we face is over-simplification. Meta-ignorance. Easy answers. No one knows how to untangle us from this three body problem. It will take generations to change how humans live on Earth. 

Trust your instincts. When someone says, I alone can fix it—that’s the voice of meta-ignorance. Billions of people will need to evolve their lifestyles to accommodate the pace of change as our three body problem speeds up with a warming planet. Life on Earth is becoming less predictable. Anxiety is a natural response. Breathe. Look for ways to evolve your lifestyle to adapt to the pace of change. At our house, minimalism is replacing materialism. It’s an ongoing adjustment. A new mindset. Are we saving the planet? That seems naive. But we feel the need to take small, manageable actions toward a better future. We’re trying to consume less energy.

I reject the idea of helplessness, even in the face of a three body problem. We are not dinosaurs. We have the capacity to adapt. I seek out the company of people who think differently than I do and I try to be an active listener. To inoculate myself against my own meta-ignorance, I maintain my curiosity. I practice tolerance. It’s not always easy. Sometimes even the people I usually agree with set my hair on fire. Everything is up for grabs. Peace of mind feels like a skill. I want to be good at cultivating my serenity because I see how the complexity of our situation is increasing. If this resonates with you, consider ways to protect your mental health. We are our own most valuable resource. We alone can fix it, one step at a time, maybe until forever.