Comfort – neatness – control. They are nice things to have. They make us feel secure and happy. Consequently, we devote a considerable time in our life to achieving and maintaining them. But are they really doing us any good? Are they ultimately making us miserable? Is striving for comfort a good way to waste a life?

Nietzsche wrote of perseverance in the face of adversity as the way towards becoming:

‘To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities — I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not — that one endures.’

Nietzche, F (1968) Will to Power (translated by  W. Kauffman), Vintage books, New York, p.481

Keats touched on negative capability: the ability for a person to live with uncertainty, mystery, and to yield to not knowing.

Both these notions are at odds with a world that wants to have everything defined and neatly packaged. A world where we need answers immediately. The enormous popularity of the internet must surely be attributed – at least in part – to the immediacy with which we can ‘get stuff’. Whether we are searching for information, buying goods online, or sending a message that someone will see immediately, we are comforted by the reliable productivity of the internet. We like to settle an argument by googling. In a few minutes, we have the answer, and the conversation is done. There is satisfaction in knowing the query is now closed, wrapped in its neat little package, with all the edges sealed.

It is thus understandable, when the safety of knowing and the comfort it brings are so foremost in our actions and thoughts, that many are averse to acts of creativity. Those for whom a life devoid of creativity is no life at all, will continue to struggle in the uncertain spaces. Why else are artists famously tortured, self-doubting, depressed beings who turn to substance abuse? Clearly, this is a generalisation, however, there is a germ of truth in creativity being a place where one is forced to confront herself to a greater or lesser extent. Many of us simply do not want to do this.

Politicians are uncomfortable with enabling room for creative endeavours in our schools. Why waste time on something that in order to be successful, must acknowledge regular and necessary failure? Teachers, who must measure and account for every minute of their classroom time, are surely not comfortable with an open-ended type of learning that does not guarantee specific outcomes. Parents, caught in fervent aspiration for their precious offspring, want to know what they will get for their buck – never mind remembering what it felt like to be a child, and what the best learning scenarios looked like. Parents who send their children to state schools, and therefore don’t need to put out the big bucks, are similarly caught in a labyrinthine search for the best school for their child. Sometimes the best schools have little time devoted to the arts and creative endeavours in general. In my mind, this makes them the worst types of schools.

Embracing uncertainty, discomfort, and the unknowns that life throws up at us may well be the best way towards moments as the best and happiest we can be.