Call to Courage

In an age of polycrisis, many of us have lost our equilibrium. Multiple forces destabilize us, from trade tensions and political polarization to a housing crisis and inflation and the arrival of artificial intelligence. Research shows that Canadians have adopted what the executive vice-president of Abacus Data, Eddie Sheppard, calls a “precarity mindset,” or the “concern that the rug can be pulled out from us at any point.” Today nine out of ten Canadians believe that instability is here to stay — that this is “the new normal.” Psychologically, Sheppard has told me, that’s “a pretty big shift.”

Gillian Deacon taps into powerful currents, then, with a book that grapples with uncertainty — a project that was sparked by a period of illness. “When a trapdoor opens beneath our feet and what we thought was solid ground falls away, it’s natural and inevitable that we feel rattled,” the former CBC broadcaster writes in A Love Affair with the Unknown. Later, she notes, “These are liminal times: we hover between the beginnings and ends of wars, technological revolutions, climate eras, global pandemics, and cultural transformations. The world feels unstable and the future precarious in so, so many ways.”

Deacon reflects on how “the extraordinarily high levels of uncertainty in modern life are literally at odds with how we’ve historically advanced, adapted, and thrived as human beings.” And if such uncertainty is “our collective lot,” we need a new outlook. Indeed, we need “a whole new way of living, of leading, of learning.”

It turns out Deacon is uniquely positioned to ponder what that might look like. When she got sick several years ago, she was already accustomed to uncommon levels of uncertainty, having lived through two bouts of breast cancer, a melanoma surgery, and, of course, the COVID‑19 pandemic. Significantly, she was also a veteran of live radio. As a long-time host of CBC Toronto’s daily afternoon-drive show (where I worked with her, years ago), Deacon was well versed in the art of rolling with life’s punches. When news broke, she knew how to stay grounded and stay nimble. And when plans went off the rails, she knew how to improvise, endeavouring, as she once memorably joked in the newsroom, to “make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

For all her practice navigating unpredictability, though, she found herself unmoored when she was stricken with a debilitating condition that defied diagnosis. Frail, faced with no clear path to wellness, often unable to summon either energy or hope, Deacon did something unusual: she got curious about her “radical undoing.” The result is this timely book, which offers a kind of hero’s journey into discomfort and disquiet.

Characteristically good-humoured, Deacon brings open-mindedness to the task. From her perch at home on the couch, she lets her imagination roam, touching on the stories of those who’ve faced adversity (Helen Keller, Salman Rushdie, Viktor Frankl) and those who’ve embraced unpredictability (Miles Davis). She sources wisdom from creative geniuses like the hip‑hop producer Rick Rubin, bold daredevils like the magician David Blaine, and Stoic philosophers like Seneca. She quotes comedians and Buddhist nuns and poets and experts on brain neuroplasticity. In all, Deacon attempts to internalize an axiom from Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction method: “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Deacon’s writing voice is as approachable as her on‑air persona, and with A Love Affair with the Unknown, she does a good job of balancing cerebral musings with personal story, stitching together a compelling narrative arc. Thankfully, Deacon sidesteps politics almost entirely, setting aside the specific vexing issues of our age in favour of the broader question of how we can live good lives amid maelstroms.

Given the ambitious scope of the project, and its contemplative tone, it is surprising that there is little investigation into belief. Spirituality is one of the most ancient and enduring methods for coping with uncertainty, and it is telling that our turbulent times have seen a return to worship services among the young. Still, Deacon doesn’t have to tackle the topic head‑on to evoke it. Her meditations on the beauty of the natural world — and on maintaining one’s faith — all gesture toward some kind of benevolence, some sustaining source of strength, some greater mystery. “I behold a shimmering light show, a flickering dance of brightness and shadow playing out in front of me — the morning sunlight, filtered through leafy branches blowing in the breeze outside the window, is screening a short art film on the back of a chair,” she writes. “After a few minutes, shadow fills the space and the moment of grace has passed. But the lift I felt in my heart remains. There it is, waving at me across this small room. The lasting gift of awe.”

All told, A Love Affair with the Unknown offers both comfort and a call to courage. In exploring her unravelling, Deacon shows how she was remade. “I understand how little control I have over what happens next, how precious this whole wild ride is, how much there is to wonder at — all we don’t fully understand about our bodies, our minds, and the world that beckons us each morning,” she writes. “How much strength there is in that uncertainty; its power to make everything more meaningful.” Is there anyone who doesn’t need to hear that right now?