ON UNCERTAINTY AND CLARITY

A couple of people were curious about qi gong exercises I’ve mentioned in the previous post and what does that have to do with diplomatic interpreting.

It doesn’t and yet it does.

We live in the moment of uncertainty, the permacrisis as some folks term it. At the time when institutions crumble that seemed to be the-rock-of-Gibraltar kind of solid. And yet we need to move on, to make decisions about our lives and careers without the luxury of having the full picture.

I see some strange beauty in how recent developments in and around the interpreting profession (Middlebury College, 🤜🤛) echo the challenges of interpreting itself. In how you first have to turn your mind into an empty vessel to effectively carry meaning across languages and cultures. And yet in this emptiness there must be readiness to act, there must be energy of a compressed spring hidden.

That’s exactly the state that qi gong and meditation taught me to return to.

As it often happens with these things, they appeared on my radar (not for the first time, but this time – appeared to stay) when my life felt broken, my calling – forlorn, and the career prospects – dim and grim. Now I want to share this knowledge with others.

It’s not a form of self-help. Nor a spiritual practice (unless you want to turn it into one). It’s not even about helping you “feel good” – about the world, yourself or the profession. But it’s about helping you feel ready.

Not because you will master clarity, but because it helps to make peace with the not-knowing. Not because it gives you answers, but because it teaches you not to demand them from the universe.

For me clarity did not come from pushing harder or hustling more (even though we live in a world that praises the hustle, the effort, the noise). It came from stillness. From pausing just long enough to feel again. From letting the muddy water settle.

So, as St. Mick put it:
“You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well, you might find
You get what you need”