Why Embracing Ambiguity and Uncertainty is Good For Your Creativity

How to harness the beauty of the unknown.

First off, let’s refamiliarize ourselves with Star Treks’ five-year mission: 

“To explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before!”

Now, why would space sojourners need to be reminded of the obvious? It’s because human beings love to know what we’re doing. We love to be certain. And why shouldn’t we? We are comforted by following clear road maps, by going directly from point A to point B, and from having unambiguous answers at the end of every journey. But what happens when there are no clear answers? Well, aside from a certain amount of fear and frustration, there are lots of benefits, especially as it concerns a deeper relationship with our own creativity. Ambiguity and uncertainty are, by their very nature, what push us beyond what we already know and believe. They require the kind of mental effort that can make relationships between seemingly disparate ideas suddenly evident.

As a musician and songwriter, I face two fundamental choices each time I sit down to write a piece of music. 

1. Proceed from what I already know 

2. Proceed from what I don’t yet know 

I can start working from a previously known set of chord changes—for example, I can base my new song on things I’ve heard before, such as a standard 1-4-5 blues progression. Or I can choose to start from a set of chords that I’ve never used before. That first choice will please a listener based on its familiarity. The second choice, if done successfully, will please a listener based on the adventurousness of its unfamiliarity. That second choice, which is born of ambiguity and uncertainty, will invariably lead me toward chordal groupings that, due to their novelty, require a greater level of effort and concentration on my part. My increased effort and concentration helps to ensure that the music I write will sound different from anything I’ve done before. My dive into the new brings newness to my music.

While ambiguity and uncertainty may cause you to struggle at first with whatever it is you’re creating, they often come with a big payoff. By allowing yourself to work outside the rote patterns you’ve created for yourself over time, you keep from falling back on ideas that you’ve used over and over again. Yes, you will, for a time at least, be floundering—lost at sea, as it were. But it’s in “getting lost” that you reap the advantages of creating something fresh and surprising. 

The beauty of ambiguity is that it throws us out of what neuroscientists call the Default Mode Network. This is the part of the brain that kicks in when you’re trying to empathize with someone or get a bead on what they’re thinking. It’s also the part of the brain that relies on past experiences to make judgments about the present. In that sense, it’s not particularly creative. But the great benefit of the Default Mode Network is that it allows you to be economical with your mental energy. Think of it as being on autopilot. Consider how difficult it would be if you had to constantly rename everything you saw or relearn what was dangerous or beneficial on a minute-to-minute basis. You’d be using way too much brainpower. 

That’s why, when you’re walking through the fields, you only notice the snake and not the grass. You tend to take the grass for granted, and as such, it escapes your attention. As you’re moving through the field, the mind only needs to know what will save you or kill you; it can largely ignore the rest. In that regard, the Default Mode Network is invaluable. But you can also picture the Default Mode Network as a truck that goes back and forth over that same field, leaving gaping ruts. While those ruts might keep a driver on track, they also impede him from exploring new pathways. Staying on the same path year after year is antithetical to creativity. When there’s too much control by the Default Mode Network, which happens as we age and gain a larger storehouse of life experiences, it becomes much more difficult to look at the world as a place of mystery—from which all creativity derives.

Whenever you’re looking to innovate, whether it’s through the arts, business, or entrepreneurship, the ambiguity you so often avoid might, in fact, be the very thing you should be looking to dive directly into. The familiar is safe … or so it would seem. But consistently drawing within the lines and staying with the “tried and true” is the least safe choice for anyone looking to grow creatively. Given the need to cope with the demands of rapid change, a better bet lies in having the courage and wisdom to plunge into the murky depths of ambiguity and uncertainty. It’s there that you’ll be able to push yourself and stretch your ideas far beyond their normal size and shape.

Now, cue up the Star Trek theme music and boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before!