Uncertainty and the Creative Drive

Freud recognized that human beings have a sex drive and even a death drive. Is it possible that we also have an aphorism drive?

We do seem attracted to pat answers and pithy summations -- especially from our politicians. It isn't enough to be wise or effective; one must be quotable.

In fact, aphorism is the oldest written art form, according to aphorism expert and author James Geary ("The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism"). Before famed aphorists Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker and Woody Allen put the party in repartee, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad were creating buzz. Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians and Chinese were chiseling out sturdy statements of universal truth.

Les bons mots tend to make us feel better, lending form to our thoughts and order to our emotions. They're especially useful in times of duress. Eulogies and editorials invariably feature those three little words: "As [fill in the blank] said."

Here comes one now: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Ahhhh. Feeling better already. Thus was born the Hallelujah Chorus.

Then again, more often these days, a politician's happy turn of phrase makes me feel worse. I don't know whether to clap my hands or clutch my wallet. Why does the very thing intended to make one feel uplifted and inspired make me feel manipulated and skeptical?

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, writing recently in the New York Times, inadvertently may have offered a clue. He was explaining that people are happiest when they are certain. We don't like not knowing, apparently, even when what we know is awful.

Gilbert cited various experiments to make his point, including one involving the certifiably awful colostomy. People who knew their colostomies would be permanent were happier than people whose colostomies might someday be reversed. Gilbert's conclusion: People would rather know than not know. Knowing, they can make psychological adjustments.

"We find our bootstraps and tug," he wrote. "But we can't come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don't yet know."

Gilbert's observations were in the context of our current economic woes. As soon as we know how bad things are (or aren't), he said, we'll adapt and get along just fine.

He may be right as far as it goes, but the same uncertainty that makes human beings unhappy also stimulates the creativity that makes us happy. Was Leonardo da Vinci happy? Homer? George Washington? Man's drive to create isn't born of contentment but of anxiety attached to the unconscious agitation that comes from the greatest certainty ever devised: Death.

Here is a truism, if not an aphorism. Without death and the certainty of physical finitude, Homo sapiens would never have left the cave. Unhappiness and uncertainty -- rather than happiness and certitude -- are what get us off our duffs.