Mick Scott: It starts with an earthquake | Columnists

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No, really, what was that?

There were so many unexpected and unpredictable occurrences last week, from Kansas’ rejection of abortion restrictions to Republicans praising House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her visit to Taiwan to Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema actually agreeing to support Democratic legislation. If there are people who run odds in Vegas on political developments, I suspect even the savviest gamblers now owe the house bigtime.

When it comes to politics, I’ve never been one for predictions. I’ve never trusted polls or FiveThirtyEight. Even among the most educated and experienced pundits, there’s just no way to know for sure what’s going to happen next. For people who demand certainty, the NC Education Lottery delivers more predictable returns.

Several years ago a few readers started telling me things like, “Special prosecutor John Durham is going to send Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to prison.” The phrasing was as interesting as the predictions themselves; they didn’t say, “I hope that Durham sends…” or, “It’s likely that Durham’s going to… .” The tone was more certain — this is what’s going to happen.

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One reader promised that when there was an opening, President Biden would appoint Kamala Harris to the Supreme Court. Then he’d appoint Hillary Clinton to be vice president. Then he’d resign and Clinton would be our unelected president.

Again, this prognostication was offered with a degree of confidence that would do Dale Carnegie proud.

I wondered: Is this a QAnon thing? Is some prophet claiming the gift of clairvoyance, or secret access to hidden government files?

Needless to say, none of those predictions panned out. Yet.

These past few months, we’ve all heard, “When the Republicans take control of Congress in November” — a claim that doesn’t require much predictive ability. It’s a longstanding tradition in the US that the minority party makes substantial gains in mid-term elections, as if to right the ship, whether it swayed port or starboard on the previous election.

But in light of the conservative push for harsh abortion restrictions — as well as some Republicans’ insistence that we need to revisit Social Security and Medicare — even that certainty seems questionable now. We may be in for a surprise, just as many of us were in 2016 and 2020. There’s a lot of churn in the system — a lot more, I’d say, than normal. Whatever normal is.

I worry about the future sometimes. Especially in light of the climate pushing back against our manipulations. I worry about losing our democracy.

I worry about our encounters with wildlife, which seem to be increasing. I worry for wildlife’s sake; we’ve not been great at accommodating the needs of the natural world.

The increasing degree of uncertainty we’re facing in America — the churn — has a profound effect on our well-being. I have no doubt that it contributes to our growing national crisis of anxiety and depression.

Predictability, a trustworthy economist will tell us, is important not only for individuals, but for society. And yet even our economic system seems to generate more uncertainty these days, and did long before Biden took office.

Maybe this uncertainty is what leads so many to listen to the hucksters, whose explanation for the confusion of modern-day life always leads to a conspiracy fomented by them.

Beyond the current moment, uncertainty is always present and can be distressing, Buddhist nun Pema Chodron says in her book of meditations, “Comfortable with Uncertainty.” But its detrimental effects can be mitigated by certain practices — meditation, breathing exercises and “cultivating the four limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.”

I’ve found such practices to be helpful — but they require more work and dedication than just blaming a handy scapegoat.

As for the future, there’s hope. A central character in the Nikos Kazantzakis novel “The Last Temptation of Christ” reveals a sure-fire way to predict it: “A prophet is the one who, when everyone else despairs, hopes. And when everyone else hopes, he despairs. You’ll ask me why. It’s because he has mastered the Great Secret: that the Wheel turns.”

When I get down, I think about that central truth, the most certain I know: Things change. The wheel turns. We’ve just got to wait for it to happen.

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