In physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sets limits on knowledge. As a scientific law, its effects are seen only on the minute scale of subatomic particles. But I suspect it contains a deeper meaning that might help us relate to life in general.

The Uncertainty Principle states we can never accurately determine both the position and motion of a particle. The more we can say about an electron’s location, the less we can say about its velocity, and vice versa. As an analogy, imagine we’re tracking a red Ferrari in San Francisco. The Uncertainty Principle, if it had relevance at this scale, would say that if we know the car is currently in the middle of the Post and Hyde intersection, we can’t say how fast it’s going. It might be stopped; it might be racing at 110 mph. Or if we know it’s traveling exactly 62 mph, it could be anywhere in the city.

In ordinary life this species of uncertainty is negligible; the police can document where and how fast the Ferrari was moving when they pulled it over. But at atomic scales, the Uncertainty Principle limits our knowledge. This isn’t merely a problem of measurement failure; it’s a cosmic restriction on achievable precision. We can’t know details beyond a certain level of approximation. The consensus view is that electrons don’t move in a way that permits exact description. Matter exhibits fuzziness and randomness that cannot be resolved no matter how sophisticated our instrumentation.

In a reply to Dave’s comment on the last post, I stated:

More and more it seems to me that the path to higher consciousness demands we let go of certainty. No fixed beliefs can pass the gate… Yet something in the human mind insists on answers. Whether it’s belief in a God who listens or in a universe that doesn’t, we gravitate toward conclusions and feel uneasy when we can’t find them. But I suspect true mental presence requires that we give up our quest for certainty. We must rest in the not-knowing.

Not-knowing is a venerable practice in Eastern traditions. Ancient mystics understood there are questions that can never be answered. In this scientific era we’ve become accustomed to expecting truth to emerge upon investigation. We assume that if a phenomenon looks mysterious, time and research will eventually clarify the situation in causal and mechanistic terms. The conventional scientist understands that we don’t know everything, but he or she believes that everything is in principle knowable.

The Uncertainty Principle suggests otherwise. Even though it comes out of observations in cloud chambers and particle accelerators, I suspect it’s telling us something about the nature of ultimate reality: it’s beyond our ken. Not just in practical terms, but in absolute ones. Precise answers are not just difficult to find, they’re prohibited.

We should keep this in mind when we try to pin down spiritual truths. Maybe the reason the universe can look both sacred and heartless is that there is built-in paradox and obscuration. The more we identify with the material world the less we see of universal consciousness; the deeper we delve into meditative states, the more illusory the physical world appears. But the elusiveness of cosmic awareness and the haziness of matter are ever-present; they confront us when we push concepts too far in our search for final answers.

The point is: a universe that enforces uncertainty is a universe that promotes humility. The moment we become too sure of ourselves is the moment we risk disillusionment. Many people battle doubt by attaching ever more rigidly to convictions. Although faith plays a role in spiritual life, it can be misapplied to demand unquestioning belief of unprovable concepts. A better approach is to hold our views loosely. Since we are prohibited from finding ultimate truth, we might conclude the cosmos invites us to embrace not-knowing as the path to grace.

Imagine the discord that would simply dissolve if we all admitted we just can’t know.

Since I started this blog at the end of May (and ramped it up in July), most of my posts took on a rhetorical style. In college (UC Berkeley) I took a year of Rhetoric rather than Freshman English, for reasons I no longer remember. Ever since then, it has been hard for me to write without composing an argument. My guess is that readership will not be attracted to an endless column of that stuff, as much as I enjoy logical analysis of issues.

While I cannot change into someone new, as much as I sometimes wish it, it is important for me to also be ‘real’ in this project. So what follows gives a brief sketch of my current lifestyle, at least as I lead it when in the Bay Area.

After waking up early, I sit at my computer for an hour or more looking at any comments that might have come in, writing responses, and visiting blogs. Then my wife and I walk our two little dogs: Emily, a chihuahua-dachshund mix, and Ralphy, who is some version of a poodle. Both weigh 10-11 pounds, and are the cutest dogs in the world (but it’s possible I’m a little biased). Some days I also go to an AA meeting a few miles from home; it’s a daily meeting, and it is one of the few places I’ve made friends as an adult.

After the dog walk, Mandy and I usually go to the gym. This takes us to noon, or a little later. The afternoon I often spend running errands, though I prefer to have time to write. That is one of the reasons I prefer living in the foothills (where we spend 1/4 to 1/2 of our time); it presents fewer distractions to my writing.

Mandy usually cooks dinner, and I either do the clean up alone, or with Mandy’s help. I actually prefer to do it by myself because, truth be told, Mandy does 90% of the housework; I have never been one to assist much. I feel guilty about it, but evidently not enough to pitch in on a regular basis. That’s another reason I like being up at our mountain place: there is a great deal of work to do outside, around the land. That way I can contribute to the function of the household, since I am poorly motivated toward cleaning and doing the indoor work.

In the evening we typically watch a rented movie. Then I do one of two things. If I am feeling OK, I spend more time at the computer. Unfortunately, very often I get depressed as the day ends, and I retreat to a dark room, curl up in a ball, and try not to think. I focus on my body and its sensations in order to escape the torment of my thoughts. Not a pretty picture, and obviously not one I am proud of, but there it is.

When I am writing, my guilt about not helping around the house gets alleviated slightly. Since my surgical career ended in 2000, I have spent six months in graduate school, three months teaching high school, and eighteen months doing public speaking for the California Department of Public Health (about childhood lead poisoning). I’ve also done some volunteer computer programming and other unpaid work (including a little recent work as a mental health patient advocate). But you can see how I do not have any earning capacity. For now we are coasting along OK, but someday an income will be needed. Since I have crashed at every endeavor since my surgical career ended (due to neck problems), the only thing I have left is writing. Although it may never pay actual money, at least it feels like work rather than mere laziness.

Writing as a living is obviously a very, very uncertain thing. Especially for someone with so little background in the field. I have what I think is an interesting story to tell, but whether I can tell it in a compelling way is an open question.

Believe it or not, those eight (rather short) paragraphs sum up the better part of my current life. It is simple, uncluttered, and sometimes boring. The difference between what I do now and what things were like back when I had a clinical practice is impossible to overstate. Back then I worked fifty hours a week (half of those in the operating room), fixed up our vintage house in San Francisco on the weekends, and spent the rest of my free time either sculpting or reading about sculpture. I was busy as hell. I felt productive and proud of myself. I was probably a little arrogant.

In those days I had minimal spiritual sensibility. I tended to see things from a materialist perspective and gave almost no attention to the murmurings of my heart. Stress consumed me.

Which is better? For all the loss, grief, depression, and defeat, I am now a more enlightened, understanding, and humble person. Admittedly, I sometimes take the humility thing too far until it borders on humiliation. But most of the time I see myself as a better person than before. (I admit my wife might have a different take on things.)

So that’s my story. I don’t know if anyone will care, or even read this far into my post. But I want this site to include some of my real day-to-day experience, rather than just arguments. Besides, I see now that my opinions about mental health topics sound naive compared to what I read on other blogs, where similar topics have been kicked around for a long time.

Lately, I’ve been battling a low-grade conviction that life is s**t. My grip on living has been slipping, and I find myself dreaming of the long fall off the Golden Gate Bridge, just like the old days. (When I was in the hospital, the therapists grilled me about why I was fixated on the bridge, when as a doctor I could–they thought–easily get my hands on some pills to die painlessly. My answer came down to what I mentioned in another post: my mother loved the bridge before she died. It seemed to represent something to her, even as she faded into the mists of depression back in Michigan.) That’s why I gave in and boosted the Cymbalta again.

Since the dose increase, my mood is perking up. Of course, I pay the price of diminished sexual responsiveness and the discouragement of losing ground in my project of breaking free of pharmaceuticals. But at least the nagging feeling that life just isn’t worth the trouble has lifted–sort of.

I’d like to end on a better note, but that would not be true to my current condition. When I started this blog my hope had been to show everyone a path to freedom out of depression: I actually believed my progress exemplary enough that I could begin to teach others. Rather predictably, however, I’ve slipped back into the pit, though fortunately not too terribly far. I have every expectation that things will look bright again before too long. I even have hope of feeling connected, once more, with the cosmic resonance that I feel at my calmest times, especially when surrounded by arrow-straight pine trees and dozens of birds, whose clicking, chirping and trills remind me of God’s voice.