Newfield News Article: Understanding Confusion

Newfield News Article: Understanding Confusion

The Art of Ontological Learning:
Understanding Confusion

A Newfield News Article by Dan Newby

Confusion causes our brows to furrow and our stomachs to tighten; our thinking swirls chaotically. It can cause us to act in ways that are unpredictable when compared with previous typical behaviors. It often produces emotions ranging from mild concern to anxiety, fear, or even terror.

We tend to think of confusion as a mental state, but having “mixed emotions” or being physically disoriented when we wake up shows that it is more of a whole being state or that it can occur in different aspects of ourselves.

So, what is confusion? Confusion could be defined as our inability to orient ourselves in time, space or identity. Literally the word confusion means to “pour together.” It implies that things previously ordered now are, to some degree, random or out of place.

Henry Miller, the American playwright, once said, “Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.” In essence, Miller’s conceptualization says that confusion is a natural state of affairs at times and that we can even expect it as part of the process of coming to understanding.

As we move through life, we experience change. Much of it is what we expect and might have even predicted. When life doesn’t happen the way we expect, confusion ensues. We each have a relationship with confusion that I propose is largely the result of our historical experiences.

If, as a child, confusion was associated with the possibility of physical or emotional harm, it is easy to understand how the emotion likely to be produced when we experience confusion might be fear. If, on the other hand, confusion was experienced in play and the gentle teasing of a grandparent, we may well enjoy at least mild confusion.

So, turning these ideas around, we can generate a question about our reaction to confusion as “where, how and when might I have learned what confusion means to me?” “What experiences informed my relationship with confusion?” Not that anyone directly taught me about confusion, but somewhere along the way, I did learn a particular response.

Another area to take a look at in our relationship with confusion is to consider what strategies I use when I encounter it. Do I “try harder to figure it out,” which is the source of many a wrinkled brow, narrowed eyes and clenched fists, or do I observe that which I do not understand and wait, in Miller’s words, for order to emerge. A third strategy is to run from confusion, and a fourth is to become angry and search for a party to blame for “causing” confusion.

When we stop to think about it, the edge between clarity, whether mental, emotional, or physical, and confusion is very thin. One only has to wake up from a nap in the middle of a dream, drink a bit too much wine, tire past the point of clarity, or experience conflicting emotions about another person to experience confusion.

I suggest that, in a typical day, we experience confusion on a subtle level dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Noticing this and noticing our response to those smaller experiences of confusion can tell us a lot about our relationship with it.

It strikes me that if we understand that confusion means that we do not see an “order” we understand and that it is an unavoidable part of change, and if we see the link between change and learning, then a valuable question would be, “What learning would help me create order out of what now seems chaotic and has me in the emotion of confusion?” That question in and of itself begins to create an order that dissolves confusion.

A new understanding of and relationship with confusion offers the possibility of lightness (even silliness sometimes), the possibility to flow with the never-ending changes we encounter and in turn to produce a new experience of ease and grace in life. Following the words of Arthur Miller, we would have created a new order in life that embraces confusion rather than believing that confusion is outside the order of life. He never said an order couldn’t exist, only that we had not yet seen one.

Dan will lead a professional development event, "Why Is Fear So Scary," in Calgary, Alberta, on the evening of Wednesday, November 16. Click to learn more

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Dan Newby is Newfield’s vice president and a Newfield senior leader. He is a past president of the Minnesota Coaches Association and has enjoyed teaching coaching skills to managers and leaders. Having spent his elementary school years living in central Africa and Switzerland, as well as a year in Israel, he has a passion for international and intercultural collaboration.