By David Keppel
Creative Uncertainty
A New Philosophy for a World Out of Balance
The world around us is exploding in complexity. The COVID 19 pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down as it mutates and reappears in a deadly new Delta variant. The global climate is in “red alert,” and unless we make drastic changes will cross a fateful tipping point with dire implications for future generations.
The Necessity of Philosophy
At one point in the development of Creative Uncertainty, my father and I took scissors to the manuscript and laid the scraps, sentence by sentence, on the living room sofa. Then we assembled it in reverse order. One version went from...
Uncertainty is Not Just a State of Mind
We associate uncertainty with a state of mind: the inability to decide. Actually, however, uncertainty has its roots in a state of the world, not just a state of mind, as when the outcome is balanced between two or more points. We have...
Father & Son
Reflections on my Collaboration with John Keppel My life – or at least my memory – begins on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Our family lived in Rio de Janeiro, where my father was Political...
This is not a book of pat answers or magic formulas. The Zen saying goes: “Before enlightenment, hewing wood and carrying water; after enlightenment, hewing wood and carrying water.” What emerges is rather a philosophy, an outlook, that can help us to live with inescapable uncertainties and work together to make them creative, in a time which offers no guarantees.
About David
DAVID KEPPEL is a writer and peace activist. Born in Rome, Italy, he is the son of a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. He grew up in Washington, DC, Rio de Janeiro, and New York City. He was educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy, Winchester College (the English public school) and New College, Oxford. He received a B.A., M.A. with First Class Honors in English Language and Literature from Oxford.
