Image: Paul Bielaczyc, Yin Lang (charcoal drawing), private collection.
Last week, I wrote an essay arguing that education should prepare students for a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous world. This “VUCA” world is inevitable, and refusing to prepare students for it is tantamount to educational malpractice. We need VUCA education focused on the concept of Kairos and the cultivation of a “kairotic disposition”: a temperament that is comfortable with Kairos and could be said to be the embodiment of kairos.1 The constituent parts of any Kairos tend to be products of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. Acquiring a kairotic disposition is ideal for such a world; it is tantamount to inoculating oneself against chaos. It is like VUCA-proofing one’s life. But this entails acknowledging the good and the bad.
The Challenge of a Kairotic Disposition
Kairos is the amalgamation of all perceived aspects of a situation; it is an embrace of VUCA. There is an intrinsic openness to Kairos—it takes in all aspects of an experience. It does not curate one’s existence to see only what induces positive thoughts and emotions. Those who do so are not thinking kairotically. Kairos takes it all: the good and the bad, the light and the dark. If one is to achieve a kairotic disposition in hopes of better navigating a VUCA world, one has to acknowledge this and be ready for it. Taking in the light of Kairos is easy for obvious reasons, but Kairos is also about the dark. A kairotic disposition, then, needs to be as comfortable as possible with both.
Someone with a kairotic disposition confronts emotions like disgust, abhorrence, hate, and an overall detestation of anything considered morally repugnant. A kairotic disposition does not cherry-pick what it wants to acknowledge or accept in a given situation; it rises to meet it all. Thus, a kairotic disposition includes a tolerance for contradiction, the acceptance of uncomfortable truths, and an acknowledgment of ambiguity and uncertainty of meaning. Cultivating and maintaining a kairotic disposition is a way to stay present with suffering, ambiguity, fear, or greed without fleeing them or turning them into stories of martyrdom and moral purity.
A kairotic disposition can “hold the dark.”
Holding the Dark
The novel “Hold the Dark,” by William Giraldi, which Netflix made into a film in 2018, revolves around a wildlife expert charged to track and kill a wolf believed to have taken a small child, but his understanding of nature as indifferent and innocent stills his hand. The wolves did not kill because they were evil; they killed because they were wolves. Their tragic acts were not personal, but natural. Likewise, the world is not volatile, uncertain, complex, or ambiguous because of some sinister actors or forces. It is VUCA because it has to be. The world is full of individuals with their own unique perspectives, and this is exacerbated significantly in a society made to be free and pluralistic. If we can sit with discomfort and the reality of discomfort (i.e., realize that human discomfort isn’t going away), we may be able to stabilize ourselves enough to move ourselves and our society in generative directions.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Below is an autobiographical excerpt from an essay I wrote on writing pedagogy. When I was a graduate student, I once tutored a student whose thesis was explicit and offensive: black people were taking over and ruining the country. He wrote that White people were the new oppressed class and that Black people must be stopped before it’s too late. After getting over the shock and wondering if the student knew I was black, I realized that if I reacted angrily, the student may shut down and not take my advice and probably see me as some kind of proof of his argument or at least someone who would probably try to sabotage his paper. I decided to face this student’s ideas without letting my shock and anger get the best of me. I even found myself morbidly amused by the student’s audacity. I proceeded to point out several logical fallacies in the argument and explain why they were fallacious. I told him many of his arguments needed proof and appropriate citation. When the session was over, he thanked me and left.2
In this situation, I was able to successfully hold the dark. I did not let his explicitly racist thoughts send me into a downward spiral of anger, hurt, and grievance, although I was entirely justified in doing so. I saw this student the way the narrator of Hold the Dark saw wolves: part of the inevitable dangers and misfortunes of the world. Accepting the wolves did not mean tolerating their dangerous behavior. It meant that their mitigation need not be accompanied by resentment. Because of this mindset, I could discern the best course of action within that particular kairotic moment and realize I did not have to choose between righteous refutation and my job; I could refute his statements precisely by doing my job. Both my overall goal as a tutor and my self-respect remained intact. I will never know if it had a positive impact, but this experience aligns with my point: holding the dark can get us through the dark.
Life is Kairotic; Life is VUCA
The adaptability, openness, and complexity of a kairotic disposition will better prepare us for success and fulfillment in a VUCA world. To have these qualities is to harbor the ability to dance with VUCA, to work with it and not against it. It allows one to improve in a variety of yet to be experienced experiences. Those who lack the ability to ride the existential wave of Kairos have their options narrowed significantly.
The culture wars of contemporary American society rage on because many people cannot hold the dark. They would rather flee from, ignore, silence, or even kill those who voice opinions we deem unacceptable. We see this play out in a variety of arenas (academia and political activism most prominently). Thus, as long as we are in this world, especially a free and pluralistic one, we would do well to cultivate a kairotic disposition. The ability to handle the good with the bad, holding both the light and the darkness, is tantamount to a superpower in a VUCA world. It behooves us to cultivate it in ourselves and help others do the same.
For a more thorough explanation of this, see Smith, Erec, "Buddhism’s Pedagogical Contribution to Mindfulness," The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning: Vol. 21.7 (2016).
Smith, Erec. “Writing Under the Bodhi Tree,” Academic Exchange Quarterly, 9.2 (2005)