Tolerating Confusion

But never accepting it

I get confused a lot.

I’ve spent

• years trying to get to research level physics skill

• years trying to do a quantum chemistry project

• months figuring out how to best use physics in a biosecurity context

• months figuring out how to set up an independent science community

• weeks trying to learn LEAN syntax for PhysLEAN.

• several hours trying to do a tricky integral from Shankar’s condensed matter theory

For all of these things, I seem to live in a constant state of confusion. I am usually too confused to understand what the problems are. And if I do, I still get confused on terminology, novel content, mechanisms, relative importance, and math.

Having more experience doesn’t get rid of confusion. Rather, my feeling of confusion has stayed at a constant whirr. Nature has infinite levels of detail, and the deeper you go, the more confusing the levels appear.

So, to move forward, I have to do things despite being confused. It’s like being on an endless, wobbly treadmill. I have to make decisions, write code, do math, and email people with imperfect knowledge of what I am talking about.

It often feels like rearranging symbols around in some pattern-matchy way without understanding what they mean yet. And this leads to making decisions filled with uncertainty.

But I don’t think that one should accept confusion. Rather, the furthest I am willing to go is to tolerate confusion, like a guest overstaying in my house for eternity.

Or, like how my girlfriend tolerates my overly loud chewing. (Sorry Amelia).