Certainty ate my intuition
When I was younger, music was such a huge part of my life. One of my favorite things about playing music had less to do with following the sheet music and more about letting the music take me somewhere. And this was only exponentially more fulfilling when done with a group of other musicians. Yes, I was once in a band—several, over time—but one really stands out. The level of creativity, flow, and mutual trust allowed for some of the deepest experienfces of intuition I have ever felt. It’s also where I learned to trust the intuition of others, and how that collective trust created something far greater than my singular ability.y.
Somewhere along the way, after moving to a different state and prioritizing my career and raising my family, I stopped practicing that intuition. I started relying more on my ability to reason, to use logic and systems to create reliable outcomes. And while I am deeply grateful for those skills and mindsets, I recognize that my intuition got quieter and quieter—until I stopped listening to it altogether and could barely recognize its voice.
The Art We Lost
There was a time when we trusted the unseen. When we leaned into instinct, followed curiosity for its own sake, and let intuition guide us before logic could catch up. But somewhere along the way, we traded that in. We gave up art—true, raw, unfiltered creative instinct—in favor of cold, hard, measurable certainty. And now for many of us, the pendulum has swung so far in that direction that we barely recognize the loss.
We’ve been conditioned to crave certainty. It starts early—schools reward the right answer, not the right question. Businesses thrive on predictability. The almighty dollar depends on certainty, on outcomes that can be forecasted, on risk that is measured and mitigated. And so, we become all science, no art. We stop trusting our gut, stop following ideas that can’t be immediately justified by data, and start treating intuition like a reckless fool rather than the trusted guide it once was.
But intuition is not the enemy of reason. Science and art are not at war. In fact, they are necessary to each other. The greatest scientists were artists first. Einstein played the violin as he unlocked the mysteries of relativity. Da Vinci sketched human anatomy with an artist’s eye before he could grasp it as an engineer. John Coltrane used mathematical precision to compose his chaotic, soul-shaking jazz.
We are not either/or creatures. We contain both.
The Slow Death of Instinct
We are all born with an innate sense of what is true. A deep, primal knowing that doesn’t need a spreadsheet or a double-blind study to validate it. We feel it. But over time, that feeling gets quieter. We override it with logic. We justify our decisions with facts instead of trusting the whisper in our gut. Why? Because intuition is risky. It’s not always measurable, and we live in a world where certainty is currency.
Several factors contribute to the erosion of our intuitive trust:
Repeated Failure – When our gut steers us wrong, we hesitate to listen again.
Over-Reliance on Data – When every decision must be provable, we abandon what can’t be quantified.
External Conditioning – We are taught that intuition is unreliable, childish, or dangerous.
Trauma & Self-Doubt – If we’ve been burned before, we second-guess ourselves into paralysis.
When we abandon intuition, we don’t just lose a skill—we lose the ability to move fluidly through the world. We become stuck in hyper-rationality, analyzing endlessly, waiting for certainty before taking a step. And in doing so, we sacrifice the very thing that makes us human: the ability to create without knowing exactly where it’s going.
Out of Art
Gordon McKenzie, in Orbiting the Giant Hairball, describes his experience visiting schools and asking, "How many artists are in the room?" In kindergarten, every hand shoots up. By fourth grade, fewer than half. By eighth grade, maybe one student dares. The shift is stark.
What happened? We taught them that art wasn’t serious. That play had no place in productivity. That creativity was a hobby, not a skill. And eventually, they believed us.
Seth Godin asks in his talk, What Is School For?, whether we are educating children to fit into a system or to create new ones. The answer, for most, is obvious. We’ve optimized for compliance, efficiency, and predictability. That’s great for an industrial workforce. It’s not so great for innovators, thinkers, and artists we need today to shape the future.
Don't get me wrong, we need discipline and structure. We need rigor. But we also need intuition, curiosity, and the willingness to venture into the unknown.
From an early age, we are subtly encouraged to value certainty. The first few years of school focus on finding the right answers rather than exploring possibilities. Raise your hand only if you’re sure. Follow the formula. Stick to the script. Mistakes are corrected rather than seen as learning opportunities, and creativity often takes a backseat to structured learning. Exploration is welcomed, but often within predefined boundaries.
The system rewards those who get all the answers right and punishes those who take creative leaps. It’s a framework built on efficiency, repetition, and systematization—because those are the qualities that fit neatly into a workforce driven by productivity, not by imagination. As students, we learn that ambiguous answers don’t earn points, that coloring outside the lines doesn’t lead to success, and that questioning the system too much is risky. Over time, we stop experimenting, we stop trusting our instincts, and we start waiting for permission before taking action. And the reward? Predictability. Safety. The illusion of control.
Finding your way home
So how do we reclaim the part of us that was taught to stay quiet? How do we reawaken the art inside of us—the instinct, the curiosity, the deep knowing that lives beneath the data?
1. Find a Community
Not everyone will understand this journey. That’s okay. But you don’t have to go at it alone. We live in a time where finding like-minded people is easier than ever. Seek out artists, creatives, and those who move through life guided by instinct. Engage with them. Watch how they navigate decisions. Ask them questions. Most importantly, start relearning what it feels like to trust that part of yourself again.
2. Reintroduce Yourself to Your Inner Child
Think back to when you were a kid—what captivated you? What activities made time disappear? Was it drawing, building, telling stories, or simply playing outside, lost in imagination? These weren’t just distractions; they were expressions of your natural inclinations. Over time, responsibilities and external expectations may have dulled that connection to your creative core.
Reawakening this part of yourself isn’t about regression—it’s about rediscovering what inherently drives you. Start small. Revisit an old hobby, or allow yourself unstructured time to explore new creative outlets. Approach it with the same playfulness you had as a child. The goal isn’t mastery; it’s reconnection.
That part of you still exists—it just needs an invitation back to the table.
3. Practice Curiosity Without the Need for Application
Set an alarm twice a day. When it goes off, pause whatever you're doing and find something in your immediate environment to explore with curiosity. It could be an object on your desk, a chair on the other side of the room, a pattern in the way shadows intersect light, or a sound in the background. Ask yourself: What is it made of? How does it work? Where did it come from? What are all the ways it could be used beyond its intended purpose?
The key is to let go of the need for usefulness. This isn't about finding an answer, solving a problem, or turning curiosity into productivity. It’s about rekindling the natural, playful wonder you once had as a child—before every question needed a purpose and every moment needed to be optimized. You might feel silly at first, but over time, you’ll start noticing the world in a way you haven’t in years. The goal isn’t to gain knowledge; it’s to regain a way of seeing.
4. Relearn to Listen to Your Body
Your body often knows before your mind does. It sends subtle but powerful signals—tightness in your chest when something feels off, a sense of ease when something aligns with your true path. Yet, many of us have been trained to ignore these cues in favor of rational analysis.
To rebuild this connection, start by noticing physical sensations when making decisions. Does a choice bring relaxation or tension? Warmth or unease? Begin small: pause before answering an email, making a purchase, or saying yes to an invitation. Observe the physical response before engaging the logical mind.
Practices like meditation, breathwork, and yoga help strengthen this awareness. Even something as simple as deep breathing before a decision can quiet external noise and tune you into your internal compass. The more you listen, the louder this intuition becomes, guiding you toward choices that truly align with your values and desires.
5. Rebuild Trust Through Small Experiments
Keep an intuition journal. Write down gut feelings and later check if they were right. Over time, patterns will emerge. Start making small, instinct-driven choices—what to eat, where to go, who to talk to. Watch what happens.
6. Engage in Creative Work
Play music. Paint badly. Free-write. Improvise. Do something that forces you to move without a plan. The goal isn’t to be good—it’s to rebuild the b between your gut and your actions.
Art & Science
This isn’t about rejecting data. It’s about integration.
Too much science? Paralysis, over-reliance on external validation.
Too much intuition? Impulsivity, delusion, risk blindness.
Balanced approach? Data informs intuition; intuition fills gaps where data cannot.
Think of it this way: Use logic to measure the world, but intuition to navigate it.
We’ve been trained to distrust our instincts, but they were never meant to replace logic—they were meant to work alongside it. And when we remember that, we unlock something powerful. A way of thinking that isn’t bound by spreadsheets and certainty, but by the same thing that led Einstein to relativity, Da Vinci to invention, and Coltrane to jazz.
The answer isn’t art or science. It’s both.
