“What you were sure of yesterday, you know now to be false, but what you are sure of today is absolutely true.” Mignon McLaughlin
This thought about the folly, the uncertainty, of certainty comes around in my head from time to time – but not often enough. I have too many of those “What was I thinking?” revelations, most of which are best answered by the same reply – “Well, perhaps you weren’t!” But boy, was I certain of them nonetheless!
Maybe certainty is assigned to some thought out of laziness. The quest for truth seems like a lot of trouble when preconceived notions, stereotypes, and prejudices are so readily accessible. I mean, who craves doubt? Who wants uncertainty? That quest for truth can require work! What’s worse, it can require an open mind. And you know what happens when you have an open mind – people keep wanting to put stuff in it.
Perhaps Voltaire has it about right: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” It is [certainly] a good thing to develop and hold on to beliefs. Yet it occurs to me that if past experience is any indicator, some things I am certain of today will, in time, be proven to be incorrect. In fact, some are just rubbish.
It occurs to me... 