How to live in uncertain times
Summary
In this episode of The Gray Area, host Sean Illing is joined by author and journalist Maggie Jackson to discuss her book ‘Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure.’ The conversation explores the human tendency to fear the unknown and makes a case for reframing uncertainty as a philosophical virtue and a practical strength.
Jackson explains that while humans have evolved a stress response to ambiguity for survival, neuroscience reveals that the moment of uncertainty is when the brain becomes most receptive to new data, broadens its focus, and bolsters working memory. This ‘good stress’ is a signal that there is something to be learned, making uncertainty a precursor to learning and growth, not paralysis. The discussion distinguishes uncertainty from ignorance, framing it as the conscious recognition of the limits of one’s knowledge—a dynamic, mutable state that invites exploration.
The conversation delves into the social, political, and personal implications of intolerance to uncertainty. Jackson cites research linking fear of the unknown to anxiety, depression, and poor coping strategies, while tolerance for uncertainty correlates with problem-solving and resilience. They examine how a closed-minded aversion to ambiguity manifests in political polarization and how ‘adaptive experts’ who embrace uncertainty outperform ‘routine experts’ in complex, novel situations.
Illing and Jackson also discuss practical ways to cultivate a tolerance for uncertainty, from simple daily exercises like answering a phone without caller ID to perspective-taking and using ‘hedge’ words like ‘maybe.’ The episode concludes on a hopeful note, with Jackson sharing how writing the book changed her own approach to life’s challenges and arguing that embracing uncertainty is essential for being fully alive to the contradictory, dynamic nature of existence.
Recommendations
Books
- Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure — Maggie Jackson’s book, which is the central subject of the episode. It makes a case for uncertainty as a philosophical virtue and explores the neuroscience and psychology behind why embracing ambiguity is good for learning and mental health.
Concepts
- Zone of Proximal Development — An educational concept from child development referenced by Jackson. She describes it as the ‘bud on the tree’ or the ‘green’—the space where a person pushes beyond their usual knowledge, which is where we thrive as thinkers throughout our lives.
- Predictive Processing — A scientific model of brain function mentioned by Jackson. She describes most of life as predictive processing, where we make assumptions and predictions to navigate the world, creating a ‘consensual hallucination’ of stability.
People
- Ludwig Wittgenstein — The Austrian philosopher is quoted in the epigraph of Jackson’s book. His quote, ‘I know seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known… One always forgets the expression, I thought I knew,’ is discussed as an encapsulation of our attitudes toward knowledge and its mutability.
- John Dewey — Referenced as a pragmatist philosopher who wrote about ‘the quest for certainty.’ Jackson expresses deep admiration for him and his work, aligning herself with pragmatist thought.
- William James — Another pragmatist philosopher mentioned. Jackson references his idea of ‘the courage of a maybe,’ linking courage directly to the state of uncertainty.
- Michel Dugas — A researcher and expert on anxiety cited by Jackson. His gold-standard study found that teaching simple strategies to ‘try on’ uncertainty reduced intractable anxiety and worry in patients.
Topic Timeline
- 00:02:32 — Introducing Maggie Jackson and the book ‘Uncertain’ — Host Sean Illing introduces today’s guest, author Maggie Jackson, and her book ‘Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure.’ Illing reads an epigraph from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein about the mutability of knowledge, and Jackson explains how it illustrates our general attitude toward knowing and the importance of uncertainty’s dynamism.
- 00:05:11 — The neuroscience and evolutionary purpose of uncertainty — Jackson explains why humans fear uncertainty from an evolutionary standpoint—we need answers for survival. She then details the neuroscience: encountering the unknown triggers a stress response, but also causes neural changes that broaden focus, increase receptivity to new data, and bolster working memory. Neuroscientist Joseph Kable describes this as the brain telling itself ‘there’s something to be learned here.’
- 00:10:42 — Uncertainty vs. ignorance and the ‘zone of proximal development’ — The discussion clarifies that uncertainty is not ignorance. Ignorance is a blank slate, while uncertainty is reaching the limits of your current knowledge. Jackson references the educational concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’—the space where learning happens by pushing beyond existing knowledge—and argues this is a human condition throughout life, not just in childhood.
- 00:20:19 — Intolerance vs. tolerance of uncertainty and mental health — Jackson defines the core difference: treating being unsure as a threat versus a challenge. She cites research showing that during the pandemic, people intolerant of uncertainty were more likely to use denial and avoidance, while those tolerant of it used problem-solving strategies. She discusses emerging psychology viewing fear of the unknown as a transdiagnostic root of conditions like anxiety and PTSD.
- 00:26:35 — Sean’s personal struggle with uncertainty and the role of routine — Sean Illing shares his personal, complicated relationship with uncertainty, acknowledging that while he philosophically believes in its virtue, in daily life, fear of the unknown often holds him back. He gives the example of avoiding camping by imagining everything that could go wrong. Jackson responds by explaining the human need for predictive processing and routine, but argues we should live more on the edge than our culture permits.
- 00:31:02 — The political and social hazards of closed-mindedness — The conversation turns to the social and political dimension, referencing the ‘Berkeley cat-dog experiment’ which studied authoritarianism and closed-mindedness. They discuss how polarization and an unwillingness to change one’s mind reflect a retreat from uncertainty. Jackson argues that constantly retreating into certainty is ‘backbreaking work’ that involves distorting the world to fit our stories.
- 00:42:28 — Can we learn tolerance? Practical strategies and the power of ‘maybe’ — Illing asks if tolerance for uncertainty can be learned. Jackson affirms it can, noting our disposition is situational and can be bolstered. She suggests daily practices like trying new foods and perspective-taking. They discuss the power of ‘hedge words’ like ‘maybe,’ which signal receptivity, though Illing is skeptical about their acceptance in politics, contrasting it with promising movements in medicine and AI to embrace honest uncertainty.
- 00:49:39 — Final thoughts and the joy of embracing uncertainty — Illing asks for practical advice when feeling the fear of not knowing. Jackson advises recognizing the bodily signal as an indication that the status quo won’t do and that discomfort can propel you forward. She shares how writing the book changed her life, making her more patient and open to unexpected paths. They conclude that embracing uncertainty is how we become fully alive to life’s possibilities and contradictions.
Episode Info
- Podcast: The Gray Area with Sean Illing
- Author: Vox
- Category: Society & Culture Philosophy News Politics News Commentary
- Published: 2025-03-17T10:00:00Z
- Duration: 00:52:40
References
- URL PocketCasts: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/1d3ce9a0-ae3d-0133-2e33-6dc413d6d41d/episode/c5f48b6e-67be-4093-93ca-4d1b062fbfdb/
- Episode UUID: c5f48b6e-67be-4093-93ca-4d1b062fbfdb
Podcast Info
- Name: The Gray Area with Sean Illing
- Type: episodic
- Site: https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast
- UUID: 1d3ce9a0-ae3d-0133-2e33-6dc413d6d41d
Transcript
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[00:00:57] I really believe that openness is a necessity, especially today,
[00:01:03] when the loudest, most obnoxious voices take up so much of the oxygen.
[00:01:09] But I wouldn’t say that tolerance of uncertainty comes naturally to me.
[00:01:14] Like most people, I like to be right, and I fear the unknown.
[00:01:19] The temptation to retreat into certainty is always there.
[00:01:23] I think most of us are like that.
[00:01:26] So why is that?
[00:01:27] Why is this the case?
[00:01:28] What is it about uncertainty that’s so scary?
[00:01:32] And what could be gained by letting go of that fear?
[00:01:38] I’m Sean Illing, and this is The Gray Area.
[00:01:54] Today’s guest is Maggie Jackson.
[00:01:57] She’s a writer and a journalist, and the author of a delightful new book called
[00:02:01] Uncertain, The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure.
[00:02:05] Maggie makes a great case for uncertainty as a philosophical virtue.
[00:02:10] But she also dives into the best research we have,
[00:02:13] and explains why embracing ambiguity not only primes us for learning,
[00:02:18] it’s also good for our mental health.
[00:02:20] Which intuitively makes sense to me, but it’s not something I really thought about.
[00:02:24] So I invited her onto the show,
[00:02:27] to talk about it.
[00:02:32] Maggie Jackson, welcome to The Gray Area.
[00:02:35] Thank you very much for having me.
[00:02:37] So, I don’t always read the epigraph quotes in books,
[00:02:41] but you have one from the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,
[00:02:47] and it caught my eye.
[00:02:48] So I just want to read it to you and hear your thoughts on it after.
[00:02:51] Sure.
[00:02:52] He wrote,
[00:02:53] I know seems to describe a state of affairs,
[00:02:57] which guarantees what is known,
[00:02:59] guarantees it as a fact.
[00:03:01] One always forgets the expression,
[00:03:03] I thought I knew.
[00:03:05] Tell me about that.
[00:03:06] Well, I think that’s a great encapsulation or illustration
[00:03:10] of our individual and general attitudes toward knowledge,
[00:03:15] because we’re so proud of knowing,
[00:03:18] and I kind of picture knowledge as an island.
[00:03:21] And after that, the implication is that there’s the abyss.
[00:03:26] And his quote,
[00:03:27] his quote hints at what’s really, really important about uncertainty,
[00:03:31] and that is its mutability.
[00:03:33] Knowledge has this dynamism that we are very loath to admit to.
[00:03:39] I like to think of uncertainty as wisdom in motion
[00:03:41] and not the paralysis that we think it is.
[00:03:45] How did you come to this topic?
[00:03:48] Why write a book on the virtues of uncertainty?
[00:03:52] Well, it was almost reluctantly, honestly.
[00:03:54] This is my third book.
[00:03:56] I’ve been writing about topics that are right under our noses,
[00:04:00] that are woven into our lives,
[00:04:03] and that we don’t understand or that we deeply misunderstand.
[00:04:05] The first book was about home,
[00:04:07] the nature of home in the digital age.
[00:04:09] The second book was about distraction,
[00:04:11] but particularly attention,
[00:04:12] which very few people could define,
[00:04:14] and it’s working, sort of newly being discovered.
[00:04:16] And then finally, I started writing a book about thinking in the digital age
[00:04:20] and what kinds of thinking that we need
[00:04:22] and what’s besieged and what are we gaining, et cetera.
[00:04:24] And the first chapter was about uncertainty,
[00:04:26] and not only did I discover uncertainty
[00:04:31] hadn’t really been studied or acknowledged
[00:04:35] or prized in so many different domains,
[00:04:38] but there’s now this new attention to it,
[00:04:41] lots and lots of new research findings,
[00:04:43] even in psychology.
[00:04:45] And at the very same time,
[00:04:46] I was really fascinated by this idea.
[00:04:49] And yet, I was also reluctant
[00:04:51] because, like many people,
[00:04:54] I had this idea that it was just something
[00:04:56] to eradicate,
[00:04:57] that uncertainty is just something to get beyond
[00:04:59] and shut it down as fast as possible.
[00:05:02] The book wanted to go there,
[00:05:04] and it was a hard sell for the author, so to speak.
[00:05:08] But it was great once I got going.
[00:05:11] Why do we fear not knowing what’s going to happen?
[00:05:14] What’s beneath that fear?
[00:05:17] It’s really simple.
[00:05:18] We fear and dislike uncertainty
[00:05:21] because as creatures,
[00:05:25] you know, for survival’s sake,
[00:05:26] we need and want answers.
[00:05:28] We have to solve, you know,
[00:05:29] what to eat, what to do, et cetera.
[00:05:31] And so we evolved to have a stress response
[00:05:36] when you meet something new or unexpected
[00:05:39] or murky or ambiguous,
[00:05:41] and your body and brain kind of spring into action
[00:05:45] so that when it’s your first day on the new job
[00:05:49] or you’re meeting your in-laws for the first time
[00:05:52] or all those sorts of lovely life situations,
[00:05:55] you know,
[00:05:56] your heart might beat or your palms might sweat.
[00:05:58] But at the same time,
[00:06:00] and this is newly discovered,
[00:06:03] neuroscientists are beginning to unpack
[00:06:04] what happens in the brain.
[00:06:06] The uncertainty of the moment,
[00:06:08] the realization that you don’t know,
[00:06:11] that you’ve reached the limits of your knowledge,
[00:06:13] instigate a number of neural changes,
[00:06:16] like your focus broadens
[00:06:17] and your brain becomes more receptive to new data
[00:06:21] and your working memory is bolstered.
[00:06:23] So this kind of rings a bell.
[00:06:25] You’re on your toes.
[00:06:27] And that’s why uncertainty at that moment
[00:06:30] is a kind of wakefulness.
[00:06:32] In fact, Joseph Cable of the University of Pennsylvania
[00:06:36] said to me,
[00:06:37] that’s the moment when your brain is telling itself
[00:06:40] there’s something to be learned here.
[00:06:43] So by squandering that opportunity
[00:06:46] or retreating from that discomfort,
[00:06:49] we’re actually losing an opportunity to learn
[00:06:52] because your old knowledge
[00:06:55] is not going to be learned.
[00:06:55] It is no longer sufficient.
[00:06:56] You need to be wakeful,
[00:06:59] but you’re also able to take up that invitation.
[00:07:03] So what happens there?
[00:07:04] Stress hormones flood our brains
[00:07:05] and it’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.
[00:07:09] But the consequence of that
[00:07:11] is that you’re super plugged in,
[00:07:13] super attuned to what’s happening.
[00:07:15] And is that what makes it, you know,
[00:07:18] fertile for learning and growth and that kind of thing?
[00:07:20] Right. No, exactly.
[00:07:21] Because sometimes we think of learning
[00:07:23] as being associated,
[00:07:25] the kind of Pavlovian conditioning, et cetera.
[00:07:29] That’s true,
[00:07:30] but really the more updated idea of what learning is
[00:07:35] that it entails surprise.
[00:07:36] I mean, no surprise, no learning
[00:07:38] is what the neuroscientist Stanislaus Dehaene told me
[00:07:41] and writes about.
[00:07:43] So when we are jolted from our daily routine,
[00:07:50] i.e. when we are recognizing the limits of our knowledge
[00:07:54] when we’re uncertain,
[00:07:55] that’s the time when your body begins to,
[00:07:59] and your brain begin to turn on, so to speak.
[00:08:02] What’s really also important to note about this
[00:08:06] is that what I’m describing
[00:08:08] seems like a kind of unconscious response
[00:08:11] and what can you do about it, et cetera.
[00:08:13] But actually there is a conscious approach
[00:08:17] to uncertainty that we have.
[00:08:19] It’s really important not to retreat
[00:08:21] from the unsettling nature of uncertainty.
[00:08:23] We can also lean into uncertainty,
[00:08:25] and I’ve tried to find the right word for this,
[00:08:28] and I can’t think of any other than leaning in
[00:08:31] because it’s sort of a deliberate embrace
[00:08:33] of that stress and that wakefulness.
[00:08:36] But it’s really important to, again,
[00:08:38] recognize that this is good stress.
[00:08:39] And another illustration of how this operates
[00:08:43] is in the realm of curiosity.
[00:08:45] Many different studies related to the curious disposition
[00:08:49] show that one of the most important facets
[00:08:52] of our curiosity is our curiosity.
[00:08:54] And that’s when we start to think about
[00:08:55] the ability to tolerate the stress of the unknown.
[00:08:58] So in other words, to lean in to that uncomfortable feeling
[00:09:03] and to know that that’s your brain’s way
[00:09:08] of signaling to you that this is a great chance
[00:09:12] to think and to learn and to create.
[00:09:14] And people who are curious and who have that capacity
[00:09:18] to push through or to embrace the awkwardness of uncertainty
[00:09:23] also are more likely to express dissent
[00:09:27] and they’re more engaged workers, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:09:30] I guess you can think of uncertainty
[00:09:33] as a precursor to good thinking,
[00:09:35] and I suppose it is.
[00:09:37] But to me, that makes it sound a little too much
[00:09:40] like a passive state
[00:09:42] as opposed to an active orientation to the world.
[00:09:47] Maybe what I’m really asking here is
[00:09:50] whether you think of uncertainty as a verb,
[00:09:53] or a disposition.
[00:09:55] Yes, I would say both.
[00:09:57] Uncertainty is definitively a disposition.
[00:10:02] We each have our personal comfort zone
[00:10:04] in relation to uncertainty.
[00:10:06] Our impression is that uncertainty is static
[00:10:09] and that is synonymous with paralysis, et cetera.
[00:10:12] To be uncertain also has that ring of passivity.
[00:10:16] But when you are taking up that invitation to learn
[00:10:20] that the good stress of uncertainty offers you,
[00:10:22] there is a bit of a slowing down
[00:10:25] that occurs to action and to snap judgment
[00:10:31] and to racing to an answer.
[00:10:33] So in contrast to what we expect so often,
[00:10:37] uncertainty involves process,
[00:10:39] and that’s really, really important.
[00:10:42] And so, you know, we can take one example of experts.
[00:10:46] You know, today, we really venerate
[00:10:48] the swaggering kind of expert who knows what to do,
[00:10:52] and whose know-how is developed over, quote-unquote, so-called 10,000 hours, that type of expertise needs updating.
[00:11:02] That type of expert’s knowledge basically tends to fall short in new, unpredictable, ambiguous problems, the kind that involve or demand uncertainty.
[00:11:14] So years of experience are actually only weakly correlated with skill and accuracy in medicine and finance, et cetera.
[00:11:22] People who are typical so-called routine experts fall into something called carryover mode, where they’re constantly applying their old knowledge, the old heuristic shortcut solutions, into new situations, and that’s when they begin to fail.
[00:11:37] Adaptive experts actually explore a problem.
[00:11:41] They spend more time on a problem than a novice even.
[00:11:43] And so there’s this motion here, this forwardness, I think.
[00:11:47] I think of uncertainty as honesty because that’s involved with…
[00:11:52] Wakefulness, but I also think of it as dynamic, very, very dynamic.
[00:11:57] The idea that not knowing can be a strength does intuitively seem like a contradiction, in part because we’ve all been taught that knowledge is power, right?
[00:12:10] Do you think that cliche is wrong or just a tad misleading?
[00:12:14] Oh, I think that knowledge certainly is power, and knowledge is incredibly important.
[00:12:20] Knowledge is the foundation.
[00:12:21] But at the same time, I think that what we need to do to update our understanding of knowledge and to look into the frontiers of not knowing is basically to see that knowledge is mutable and dynamic, ever-shifting.
[00:12:38] I mean, that metaphor of a rock is my own, and that’s people who are intolerant of uncertainty think of knowledge as something that’s like a rock that we are there to hold and defend.
[00:12:51] Whereas people who are more tolerant of uncertainty, who are likely to be curious, flexible thinkers, I like to say they treat knowledge as a tapestry whose mutability is its very strength.
[00:13:02] That’s an important point, right?
[00:13:04] Because I don’t think anyone, certainly you, would argue that ignorance is a virtue, but openness to revising our beliefs is, and that’s the distinction here.
[00:13:16] Right, and that centers right in what you’re driving about.
[00:13:21] Where?
[00:13:21] Where does uncertainty lie?
[00:13:23] And it’s really important to note that uncertainty is not ignorance.
[00:13:28] Ignorance is blank slate, the blank slate.
[00:13:31] I might not know anything about particle physics.
[00:13:33] I am ignorant.
[00:13:35] But when I’m uncertain, it could be this way, it could be that way.
[00:13:39] I’m not sure.
[00:13:40] I’m, again, reaching the limits of my knowledge, and that’s the chance where we can push beyond those boundaries.
[00:13:47] And in child development, there is an expression called the zone of perfection.
[00:13:51] Zone of proximal development, which is usually used as a shorthand for scaffolding.
[00:13:56] That’s the place where a child is pushing beyond their usual knowledge.
[00:14:01] They’re trying something complex and new, and the parent might scaffold a little bit and help only where necessary, but letting them do the work of expanding their limits.
[00:14:10] But that’s actually very much something that is human throughout our whole lives.
[00:14:15] It’s really zone of proximal development is, as one scientist told me, the green.
[00:14:21] The bud on the tree.
[00:14:22] That’s where we want to be.
[00:14:24] That’s where we thrive as thinkers and as people.
[00:14:33] When we get back from break, avoiding the pitfalls that come with uncertainty.
[00:14:38] Stay with us.
[00:14:50] Thank you.
[00:14:51] Thank you.
[00:14:52] We’ll be right back.
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[00:18:50] When does uncertainty become paralyzing? I mean, at some point, you have to decide and act,
[00:19:05] right? But maybe the mistake here is assuming that one needs to be certain in order to act.
[00:19:11] Yes. Well, you have to be relatively sure or the road does fork, you know, metaphorically and
[00:19:18] literally. And you, you know, you have to be relatively sure or the road does fork, you know,
[00:19:20] metaphorically and literally. And you, you know, you have to be relatively sure or the road does
[00:19:20] fork, you know, you have to be relatively sure or the road does fork, you know, usually you have
[00:19:20] to take one. And you’re right. Forward motion involves choices, involves decisions, and
[00:19:26] involves solutions. And uncertainty is never the end goal. Uncertainty is a vehicle and an
[00:19:33] approach to life. But I also think another really important point is that most of the time,
[00:19:39] and again, I just kept coming up with this reiteration in my research again and again
[00:19:45] in different forms. But most of the time, it’s our fear of uncertainty that leads
[00:19:50] to paralysis. It’s not the uncertainty itself. If we approach uncertainty, knowing it’s a space
[00:19:56] of possibilities, or as another psychologist told me, an opportunity for movement, then we, you know,
[00:20:04] roll up our sleeves and be present in the moment and start investigating and exploring. But if we
[00:20:11] are afraid of uncertainty, and if you are intolerant of uncertainty, you are more likely to treat
[00:20:19] uncertainty as a threat.
[00:20:20] The very, very simplest definition of intolerance versus tolerance of uncertainty is treating being
[00:20:26] unsure or something surprising as a threat versus a challenge. And one of the classic signs that you
[00:20:35] fall on the extreme of the spectrum is that you think surprises, etc., are unfair. And of course,
[00:20:42] we all do at certain points. I mean, we all do think that the traffic jam is unfair. But maybe
[00:20:48] if you can think of it as a challenge, you can think of it as a threat. And I think that’s a
[00:20:50] challenge or reframe it, which actually, there were studies during the pandemic, people who were
[00:20:56] intolerant of uncertainty were more likely to use coping strategies based on denial, avoidance,
[00:21:02] and substance abuse. And of course, hey, we all did some of that too. But people who are tolerant
[00:21:08] of uncertainty were more likely to use problem-solving focus strategies, such as reframing
[00:21:15] the situation.
[00:21:17] You cite some research about fear of the uncertain.
[00:21:20] And I think that’s a very important point. I think that’s a very important point. And I think that’s
[00:21:20] a very important point. I think that’s a very important point. I think that’s a very important point.
[00:21:20] As a root cause of things like anxiety and depression, it certainly makes intuitive sense.
[00:21:29] But what do we know about that relationship?
[00:21:32] Well, this is a very new but rising theoretical understanding of mental challenges in the
[00:21:40] psychology world that basically more and more psychologists and clinicians are beginning to see
[00:21:47] fear of the unknown as a threat. And I think that’s a very important point. And I think that’s a very
[00:21:50] important point. And I think that’s a very important point. And I think that’s a very important point.
[00:21:50] The transdiagnostic root, or at least vulnerability factor, to many, many mental challenges,
[00:21:59] conditions such as everything from PTSD to anxiety. But by narrowing down treatments to
[00:22:07] just trying to help people bolster practicing not knowing, basically, boast their practice with
[00:22:15] tolerance of uncertainty, they’re actually beginning to find that that might be
[00:22:19] a root cause of anxiety. And I think that’s a very important point. And I think that’s a very
[00:22:20] important way to shift even intractable anxiety. So there’s been one gold standard peer-reviewed
[00:22:27] study by probably one of the world’s greatest experts on anxiety, Michel Dugas. And he found
[00:22:34] that people who were taught simple strategies to basically try on uncertainty, their intractable
[00:22:42] anxiety went down. They also worried just about as much as most people, which probably is still
[00:22:48] a lot these days. It also worried about the fact that people who were taught simple strategies
[00:22:50] also helped their depression. And then other studies with multiple different kinds of
[00:22:53] populations so that these kind of very laser-sharp focused strategies about uncertainty actually
[00:23:01] boost at least self-reported resilience in patients with multiple sclerosis who are dealing
[00:23:07] with a lot of medical uncertainty. So it’s really, really exciting. And may I tell one little story
[00:23:13] about this work? Absolutely. Michel Dugas told me a wonderful story where he said there was a
[00:23:20] doctor, one of his early patients, who was afraid of birds. And she was so afraid she’d run to her
[00:23:25] car even from the classroom when she saw one run, you know, fly by her window. And he did one thing,
[00:23:31] one thing only. He gave her a guidebook to birds. And then she actually ended up adopting a pet
[00:23:36] bird. Well, he said to me, that’s what I’m trying to do with uncertainty. So if we can take a closer
[00:23:42] look and understand this state of mind as something that’s not something to fear, but as something
[00:23:48] that’s a source of wonder and fear, and that’s what I’m trying to do with uncertainty, then I
[00:23:50] can move forward. So much of this is about that need to control things and all the anxiety that
[00:23:58] comes when you realize you can’t do that. And it really matters, doesn’t it? Because
[00:24:02] so much of life is about our attitude, the way we choose to interpret what’s happening to us,
[00:24:08] the way we choose to respond to it. You know, is it a problem or an opportunity? Is it pointless
[00:24:12] suffering or a chance for growth? And this not knowing we’re talking about, it’s the same thing.
[00:24:20] A source of wonder or it can be a source of fear. And choosing is really our only superpower here,
[00:24:26] if we have one. Right, exactly. Choosing and practice, I would say,
[00:24:31] because there are opportunities to be uncertain that are threaded throughout the day. They’re
[00:24:37] almost invisible because it’s so easy and innate in the human condition to stick with what’s
[00:24:45] predictable, to stick with the familiar. In fact, one of the exercises,
[00:24:50] that psychologists are going to be giving Columbus, Ohio high schoolers in order to boost
[00:24:56] their resilience to help them bolster their tolerance of uncertainty, is to just answer
[00:25:01] their cell phones without caller ID. And I told a young relative of mine about that, and she said,
[00:25:08] oh, that would be terrifying. And this is a very, very simple practice. But another is to try a new
[00:25:16] dish in a restaurant. And I’m pretty adventuresome. I’ve lived all over the world. I,
[00:25:20] you know, jump in the cold ocean. You know, I really am fairly tolerant of uncertainty. And yet,
[00:25:26] when I think about it, you know, what do we like better than that same old clam spaghetti on a
[00:25:31] Friday night? And so that doesn’t mean you always have to be uncomfortable. But I think that at this
[00:25:37] point in time, in this era, when the uncertainty, that is what humans cannot know, seems to be
[00:25:45] rising, at this moment, the worst possible response,
[00:25:50] we can have, is to retreat into certainty and familiarity and obviousness. That curtails our
[00:25:57] creativity and our ability to solve the precisely complex problems that are at our doorstep,
[00:26:05] the lethal problems at our doorstep. And so by doing precisely the wrong thing,
[00:26:11] the thing that we don’t want to do, the uncomfortable thing, by flipping our worldview
[00:26:17] to make uncertainty at least,
[00:26:20] something to admire, to explore, to embrace, that’s the way we can move forward at this time
[00:26:29] in our world history. I think I have a more complicated relationship with uncertainty.
[00:26:35] Philosophically, I’m a big believer in the virtue of uncertainty. I mean,
[00:26:39] it’s built into the name of the show, The Gray Area. But if I’m being honest, in my life,
[00:26:45] in my actual life, I think the fear of the unknown has kept
[00:26:50] me from living the life I truly want to live. And the way it often manifests is in this instinct to
[00:26:58] stick to the refuge of routine, or this impulse to constantly imagine all the ways something might
[00:27:06] go badly, which really, in the end, just becomes a justification for not trying anything new.
[00:27:12] And it’s strange that intellectually, I’m very comfortable with ambiguity, but in my actual life,
[00:27:18] I often behave as though I’m terrified.
[00:27:20] And this makes me feel a little schizophrenic, but maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe it’s common.
[00:27:26] Tell me this is common. Maggie, help me out here.
[00:27:29] Well, I would say, as a human, again, we dislike uncertainty for a real reason.
[00:27:36] We need and want answers. And this unsettling feeling you have is your innate way of signaling
[00:27:43] that you’re not in the routine anymore. And so it’s really important to understand
[00:27:50] in some ways how rare and wonderful uncertainty is. At the same time, we also need routine and
[00:27:57] familiarity. Most of life is what scientists call predictive processing. That is, we’re constantly
[00:28:04] making up assumptions and predicting. You just don’t think that your driveway is going to be in
[00:28:09] a different place when you get home tonight. You can expect that you know how to tie your shoelaces
[00:28:15] when you get up in the morning. And so, therefore, we are enmeshed in this uncertainty. And so,
[00:28:20] in this incredible world of our assumptions, to the extent to which, you know, scientists say
[00:28:25] we live in a consensual hallucination, it’s so human and so natural to stick to routine and to
[00:28:31] have that comfort. If we were just a living mess of openness to newness and having to learn
[00:28:38] everything again, we really would be in trouble. And I don’t want to say it’s a middle ground at
[00:28:44] all. I actually think we should live more on the edge, far more than our culture permits us to do
[00:28:48] now. And so…
[00:28:50] I don’t think you should feel… I don’t know. Maybe you should change out of that purple
[00:28:54] sweatshirt tomorrow, Sean.
[00:28:57] It’s more things like, you know, like my wife is a camper, you know, and she always wants to go
[00:29:02] camping. And I didn’t grow up camping. And when she brings it up, I’m like, yeah, well, but, you
[00:29:06] know, what if it rains? What if my air mattress runs out of air and I can’t sleep? You know,
[00:29:11] whatever. It’s just all this shit. You can constantly conjure up all the ways something
[00:29:15] could go sideways, no matter what it is. You can always imagine the million and one thing,
[00:29:20] around the bend that might, you know, derail whatever the plans are. And I guess ultimately
[00:29:24] it comes down to whether or not you’re comfortable just adapting to that and kind of rolling with it
[00:29:29] or whether you perceive all these things that might go wrong as catastrophic.
[00:29:33] Right. Well, there is work actually to help people deal with stress in a way and this,
[00:29:40] you know, the good stress of uncertainty by teaching them that when people are able to
[00:29:46] understand that their body and brain are revving up for this new,
[00:29:50] Asian, they’re actually more present in the moment. And so it isn’t that really what seeking
[00:29:56] routine, you know, isn’t. I mean, you know, to be anxious about the unknown is to inhibit or close
[00:30:03] down your present orientation. You know, when you are able to be in that moment and see the nuance
[00:30:13] beyond the campfire smoke or the bear who really was sighted two miles away and now is a mile away
[00:30:19] are all those sort of things that you can do. And I think that’s really important.
[00:30:20] Little factors. You can begin to see the more complex. And one thing that’s really interesting
[00:30:25] about interventions to help people bolster their tolerance of uncertainty is that it harnesses
[00:30:31] uncertainty’s power and strength. It’s not that it’s a jolly good thing to be uncertain
[00:30:36] all the time. It’s just that it lends itself to peeking into the complexity of the world,
[00:30:43] the complexity that’s already there. I’m glad you went there because there’s also
[00:30:48] a social and political difference.
[00:30:50] There’s a social dimension to all of this. You know, history is littered with examples of
[00:30:55] otherwise sane people doing terrible things in defense of absolute truth. And there’s actually
[00:31:02] an experiment you mentioned in the book. It’s the Berkeley cat-dog experiment. And it speaks
[00:31:08] to the political hazards of a closed mind. And for people who aren’t familiar, the basic gist is
[00:31:14] people were initially shown a picture that very clearly resembled a cat.
[00:31:20] But then they were gradually shown more drawings that bit by bit started to look more dog-like
[00:31:25] until finally it was just a picture of a dog. But interestingly, a huge number of people refused
[00:31:30] to let go of their initial answer almost all the way to the end. And it was a study in
[00:31:35] authoritarianism and the nature of the closed mind and how that manifests in a political context. And
[00:31:42] somehow I wasn’t aware of this study, but it is pretty instructive, isn’t it?
[00:31:46] Right, exactly. And as the psychologist who
[00:31:50] created the study said, the people who just wouldn’t admit that it was becoming a dog
[00:31:55] refused to leave the safe harbor of their definite ideas or something like that,
[00:32:00] which is, you know, exactly like, again, it underscores change. And, you know, when we look
[00:32:05] around and we see 80% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats say the other side has few or no good
[00:32:13] ideas, and you see the U.S. rankings among other countries, you know, we rank the highest on
[00:32:19] polarization.
[00:32:20] Rates by degree and et cetera. You know, when you see 50% of people say they rarely have ever
[00:32:27] changed their minds, I mean, you’re seeing this play out in life today, very much so.
[00:32:33] It’s just a fact of life that things will change. You know, the world won’t conform to your wishes.
[00:32:40] And so you end up going one of two ways. You either embrace the limits of your own knowledge
[00:32:45] or you distort the world in order to make it align with your story.
[00:32:50] Of it. And I think bad things happen when you do.
[00:32:53] Right.
[00:32:53] That’s why I think this is politically very important.
[00:32:56] Yes. And I think that it’s also backbreaking work, so to speak, to continually
[00:33:01] retreat into our certainties and close our eyes to the mutability of the world. I mean,
[00:33:08] I had a real epiphany when I was doing some writing about a Head Start program that teaches
[00:33:14] people from very challenged backgrounds, both parent and preschooler, to,
[00:33:20] pause and reflect throughout the very chaotic days. And it seems like something that doesn’t
[00:33:26] have much to do with uncertainty, but they were basically inhabiting the question,
[00:33:30] even though it was a very difficult thing to snatch these moments of reflection within their
[00:33:34] lives. And in parallel to that, there’s also a lot of new movement to understand the strengths
[00:33:41] of people who live in lower economic situations that are often chaotic. Unpredictability is now
[00:33:47] seen as a real core issue.
[00:33:50] In challenged situations. But what was amazing to me is I realized how much I grew up expecting
[00:34:00] that stability and predictability was just an entitlement, that this is the way we should live,
[00:34:10] that this is the skill set you need to adapt in order to thrive, et cetera, et cetera. So we
[00:34:16] basically have sort of airbrushed out of our,
[00:34:20] our psyches in many, many ways, the ability to live in precarious situations.
[00:34:26] Yeah, I’m glad you said that because, you know, if you come from a place of precarity,
[00:34:30] or if you exist in that space, comfort with uncertainty may not be a luxury you can afford.
[00:34:35] If you don’t feel safe, for good reasons, uncertainty takes on a different hue. And
[00:34:40] that’s something that’s definitely worth acknowledging.
[00:34:43] Yes. And there are tremendous costs living in situations where you’re experiencing higher
[00:34:49] degrees of precarity. And that’s something that’s definitely worth acknowledging.
[00:34:50] But at the same time, I think it’s really important for many, many people today to
[00:34:56] understand, again, that adaptability is a skill that maybe we all have to cultivate. We don’t
[00:35:05] want anyone to live in poverty or to be abandoned in an international institution, an orphanage.
[00:35:12] But at the same time, we do all of ourselves an injustice by not understanding the full spectrum
[00:35:18] of human capability. And so I think it’s really important for many, many people today to understand
[00:35:20] that adaptability is a skill that maybe we all have to cultivate. We don’t want anyone to be abandoned in an international institution, an orphanage.
[00:35:20] But at the same time, I think it’s really important for many, many people today to understand
[00:35:20] After one last short break, Maggie tells us how embracing uncertainty has made her hopeful
[00:35:29] for the future. We’ll be right back.
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[00:38:12] but without the right tools, it can feel almost impossible. Shopify says they can help set you up
[00:38:17] for lasting success.
[00:38:19] Shopify is the commerce platform used by millions of businesses around the world. They say they can
[00:38:24] help you tackle all those important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics
[00:38:30] and more. No need to save multiple websites or try to figure out what platform is hosting the
[00:38:35] tool that you need. Everything is all in one place, making your life easier and your business
[00:38:40] operations smoother. Let Shopify be your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything
[00:38:47] from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. You can get
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[00:39:09] today at shopify.com slash box. Go to shopify.com slash box. That’s shopify.com slash box.
[00:39:19] Is there something in particular about this moment that makes this all seem all the more
[00:39:34] urgent to you? I mean, things are always in flux. Things are always changing. Does now seem like an
[00:39:39] especially dynamic moment that really summons us to lean into the ambiguity?
[00:39:44] I think it is. I mean, you know, for hundreds of years, particularly in the West,
[00:39:49] we’ve been pursuing what Dewey called the quest for certainty. I see this massive, long crumbling
[00:39:57] in humanity’s, or at least many societies’ ability to assume certainty where there was none.
[00:40:06] And so you can also see many, you know, different studies showing rise in precarity of work hours or
[00:40:12] rise in, you know, weather patterns, et cetera. It does seem as though things might be in more flux.
[00:40:17] And so that is,
[00:40:19] the time when I think we need a sea change in our attitudes toward not knowing in order to
[00:40:27] face this moment and not hide in our devices or hide in our certainties.
[00:40:32] Most people would say that confidence is a good thing. And confidence seems inextricably bound up
[00:40:39] with knowing that you know. What are we missing there? Is that just the wrong way to think about
[00:40:46] confidence? Well, there are different types of confidence. There are different types of confidence.
[00:40:49] Different degrees of confidence. So you can be confident while being open-minded to other
[00:40:55] suggestions. Linus Pauling and the great race to discover the structure of DNA came up with a
[00:41:02] solution, but didn’t listen to his colleagues, hardly did any homework, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:41:07] Now that’s hubris. That’s not confidence. Confidence is, I think, being open-eyed and
[00:41:14] open-minded and flexible. And people have come up to me when I’ve been doing talks about,
[00:41:19] for instance, one woman who headed a state budget for Rhode Island came up to me afterwards and
[00:41:26] said, ah, I always used to end meetings saying, is there anything more we should know? And she
[00:41:34] felt somehow sheepish about that, as if it was a weak thing. And now she really feels as though
[00:41:39] that was actually wise. So you can be confident and be open. I think I’m going to jump off that
[00:41:46] cliff. But maybe you might be able to jump off that cliff. And I think I’m going to jump off that cliff.
[00:41:49] You want to be stopped by somebody. Don’t do it, Maggie.
[00:41:52] It’s also, uncertainty very, very much is about knowing the limits of your knowledge. So even,
[00:41:59] for instance, something as simple as a Google search is associated with people thinking they
[00:42:05] know more than they do, even if they actually didn’t find what they were looking for. And
[00:42:09] that’s really important, really important. Because if you don’t know the limits of your knowledge,
[00:42:15] you can’t push beyond it. You can’t know what you don’t know, which, of course, is
[00:42:19] the very, very important thing. And so I think that’s a really, really important thing.
[00:42:19] Starting point of all learning.
[00:42:22] Can we learn to be more tolerant of uncertainty? Because if we can’t teach this, if we can’t
[00:42:28] absorb it, then what good is all this knowledge?
[00:42:32] Exactly. No, of course we can. And all great understandings of wisdom and knowing and learning
[00:42:40] throughout the ages have been infused with this respect for uncertainty. And it’s really important
[00:42:48] also to mention that there’s a lot of uncertainty. And there’s a lot of uncertainty. And there’s a lot
[00:42:48] of uncertainty. And there’s a lot of uncertainty. And there’s a lot of uncertainty. And there’s a lot
[00:42:49] that this spectrum, this disposition of tolerance or intolerance toward uncertainty
[00:42:54] is situational as well. We might live on the spectrum. We might be able to change or bolster
[00:43:01] our tolerance for uncertainty. But also on any given day, you know, you will maybe lean one way
[00:43:07] or the other. So when you’re tired or you have information overload or studies show when you
[00:43:14] feel compelled to give an answer, which basically describes daily,
[00:43:19] living today, you’re more likely to tend to be seeking an answer and also seeking what’s called
[00:43:27] need for closure, which is really important. You need and want to close down on an answer
[00:43:33] when you feel stressed and beseeched. And I think we certainly can in little possible ways,
[00:43:40] you know, just adopting some of those daily practices, like trying something new or perhaps
[00:43:46] one strategy that’s gaining attention when it comes to, you know, trying something new.
[00:43:49] Understanding the other, people who oppose your different views is perspective taking.
[00:43:55] And taking the perspective of another is just jolting yourself from your assumptions
[00:44:00] about the fact that you do know someone’s perspective. You’re reminding yourself,
[00:44:05] you’re jolting yourself into what Socrates called perplexity, productive perplexity.
[00:44:11] It definitely seems like certain people are wired in such a way that uncertainty is just
[00:44:17] untenable. You know, we just did an episode with Robert,
[00:44:19] Sapolsky about the illusion of free will. And so that’s rattling around in the back of my head
[00:44:26] as we’re talking about this. Yes, I think so. And yet I also think on the hopeful note,
[00:44:32] we maybe need to make more visible the way in which our entire cultures are predicated
[00:44:38] on certain types of language. You know, for instance, hedge words, words like maybe,
[00:44:43] and sometimes they’re seen as weak, linguistically give people two different signals,
[00:44:49] one, that you’re receptive to another’s point of view, and two, that there’s more to know out
[00:44:55] there. So just by throwing in the word maybe, studies show that you don’t look weak as you
[00:45:00] might assume. What you’re just saying about the power of words like maybe, I’m really skeptical
[00:45:05] of that. And it goes back to the political problems here. You actually talk about this
[00:45:09] in the book. You know what people don’t like in leaders? Leaders who are intellectually honest
[00:45:14] and say things like, I don’t know, or I’m not sure. If you want to not get elected,
[00:45:19] just be intellectually honest in that way and humble in that way and see what happens.
[00:45:24] We don’t like that. We don’t like it in ourselves. We certainly don’t like it in leaders. And I don’t
[00:45:30] know what to do about that, but it would be better if it were otherwise. Absolutely. But, you know,
[00:45:35] on the other hand, medicine is sort of, you would think, the final frontier for unsureness. And yet
[00:45:41] there are beginning programs by cutting-edge leaders to teach doctors to say, I don’t know,
[00:45:49] it’s actually seen as more positive among patients than expected. In Maine, there was a
[00:45:55] program to teach young residents to say, gee, I need to look that up, or wow, I don’t know,
[00:46:01] which is, you know, of course, really almost impossible to utter. And yet the word that kept
[00:46:06] coming up was that it gave them courage, the courage to think and rethink, to consider based
[00:46:13] on what was actually happening rather than their assumptions. That’s courage. You would never think
[00:46:18] of courage and uncertainty as something that you would never think of as something that you would
[00:46:19] never think of as uncertainty being, you know, associated or close related, but they are. In fact,
[00:46:24] William James talked about the courage of a maybe. So I think, yes, all right, maybe politics is,
[00:46:30] needs some dire help, but medicine in business and in AI, there’s a new movement to create robots
[00:46:38] and models that are unsure in their aims, which is a sea change, a complete reimagining of the
[00:46:44] field led by Stuart Russell. They’re creating robots that are more teachable,
[00:46:49] more honest, transparent. And here we are, again, looking at a sort of element in our culture,
[00:46:55] you know, technology or politics or language that influences us. But if you can create
[00:47:02] a technology that holds up a mirror to our better selves, you might have a good influence on us from
[00:47:09] our technologies. And so I see the seeds of change. I actually came away from writing this book
[00:47:15] hopeful. You’ve now referenced Dewey and
[00:47:18] Wilson.
[00:47:19] William James, are you a fellow pragmatist? Are you on team pragmatism? Because we are on this show.
[00:47:25] I am totally. And I just never studied philosophy, which I dearly regret. I was too
[00:47:31] daunted. And so I’ve been an amateur reader. And I just, I try to read all sorts of
[00:47:40] types of philosophy that help me understand what I might be studying at the time or researching.
[00:47:49] But I went back and back and back to Dewey, and I dearly love him. And I feel like going to Vermont
[00:47:54] and visiting his grave or whatever there is. And I would feel honored to consider myself a
[00:47:59] pragmatist because on one hand, I spend so much of my life out on journeys of the mind, you know,
[00:48:06] asking what are the questions and walking around and around to try to get a 360 degree look at
[00:48:11] some of the things I’m looking at. And to say something, there’s something pragmatic about that.
[00:48:16] Woo-hoo!
[00:48:16] I read something about your morning swims. What’s the story there?
[00:48:22] Well, during the pandemic, I had been New York, Rhode Island, New York, Rhode Island,
[00:48:26] and then we switched. And so the grand experiment was to live in the country.
[00:48:30] The pool’s closed. I’m a swimmer. It’s really important for my writing and all that sort of
[00:48:34] thing. And then I got hooked, like many people, it’s kind of a global phenomenon, on ocean swimming.
[00:48:41] So four seasons, rain or shine, snow. I do it with a wetsuit,
[00:48:46] but I…
[00:48:46] I actually began to realize I’m really fascinated by why is this so joyful? Oh,
[00:48:52] there’s the exercise. There’s a social camaraderie. You’re kind of swimming with
[00:48:55] your subway car, I call it, because these bunch of strangers get together.
[00:48:58] And then I began to feel or understand that really it was a daily dose of uncertainty,
[00:49:04] that you’re living at the edge because you might see the app or you might know that particular
[00:49:11] beach, but you really don’t know what’s going to happen even in the 30 minutes you’re out there.
[00:49:16] And so I began to realize that maybe the joy in it and the edginess and the discomfort there was
[00:49:23] really just what I was writing about. So when someone is confronted with that feeling of fear
[00:49:30] that comes with not knowing or that anxiety that comes with not knowing,
[00:49:35] how should they sit with that? I mean, what is your practical advice?
[00:49:39] Well, I think first telling oneself that this is, you know, your body and brain’s way of
[00:49:46] signaling…
[00:49:46] …that there’s a moment when the status quo won’t do, that this might be uncomfortable,
[00:49:54] but that is not, you know, a situation or a state of mind that is against moving forward,
[00:50:01] but actually propelling you forward. Because it is discomfort to admit to or to see complexity,
[00:50:09] nuance, other people’s perspectives. I mean, you know, I don’t like it when an editor says
[00:50:14] this needs to be improved.
[00:50:16] So I think that if we truly understand, I mean, it’s just changed my life to write this book
[00:50:24] and to at least loosen a little bit of the fear that I might carry into really new situations,
[00:50:31] from giving a speech to being in the presence of someone who’s very upset,
[00:50:36] a friend or a daughter who’s really upset. And I used to want to just offer a solution and give
[00:50:43] that silver lining and, you know, get that moment over with.
[00:50:46] And then, you know, I get them on the road to happiness, and now I feel much more patient.
[00:50:51] And with that comes the ability to follow a path down an unexpected path or even take a detour.
[00:50:59] At one point, I said to a friend, I’m writing this book in a spiraling fashion,
[00:51:05] going around and around like those kind of labyrinthian walking gardens or, you know,
[00:51:11] Zen Buddhist. And of course, she looked at me with absolute horror, but I think she actually
[00:51:15] understood what I meant.
[00:51:16] Yeah. You write in the book that embracing uncertainty is really
[00:51:21] how we become alive to the possibilities of life. And that really is the bottom line here for me.
[00:51:29] Clinging to our preconceptions and our fears of the unknown is probably the sheerest way to miss
[00:51:36] out on a well-lived life. And so I guess that’s the note I want to end on. Is there anything else
[00:51:42] you’d like to add, Maggie?
[00:51:44] No, I think you said it perfectly.
[00:51:46] I think that this is all about being fully alive, both to the disquieting and the beautifully
[00:51:54] joyous, positive elements of life. Because if we can’t contend with uncertainty, then we can’t
[00:52:01] contend with life, because life will always be contradictory, paradoxical, mutable, dynamic,
[00:52:07] everything we’ve been talking about.
[00:52:10] Once again, the book is called Uncertain, The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure.
[00:52:16] Maggie Jackson,
[00:52:16] this was a pleasure. Thanks for the chat.
[00:52:19] Thank you. It was an honor talking with you.
[00:52:36] Our producer is John Ahrens. Jorge Just is our editor. Patrick Boyd engineered this episode.
[00:52:43] Alex Overington wrote our theme music.
[00:52:46] If you dug the show, please rate and review. And also, I want to hear from you. Tell me what you
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[00:53:01] Area drop on Mondays. Listen and subscribe.
[00:53:16] We’ll see you next time.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.
[00:53:19] Bye.