Certainty

The best way to be wrong is to be certain.

Western thought and culture have been driven in large part by a search for certainty to the point that it has become perhaps our pinnacle virtue and most powerful idol.

But certainty is not a virtue at all. At best it is a temporary fuel for bold action, and acts like a toddler’s security blanket for the mind. But like that toddler and his blanket, we are designed to mature beyond it.

At worst, certainty is a human corruption. It is a destroyer of relationships and an enemy to virtue. Like all Sirens (think Greek, not ambulance), certainty is beautiful in appearance. It promises comfort, bolster’s reputations, produces the illusion of leadership and even wisdom. But certainty is a liar and like the Sirens, it is a trap.

Certainty is what allows one to denegrate, to divide and to hate. If I hold my ideas loosely, I can accept the wisdom and see the value in others. If I armor my ideas in certainty I can only see the perspective of others as an attack. If I can find comfort in the uknowing and paradox, then I can pour my energy into love. But if my only comfort comes from being certain in my own world view, then all my energy must be reserved for protecting that crutch.

This is a hard lesson and everything I write here is coated with my personal hypocracy. But the only things in this world that are not changing are dead. And even the rocks look different today than they did yesterday. Consider releasing your stranglehold on what you want to be true. Consider listening with the premise that your mind should be regularly changed. Consider giving preference to the frustrating uncertainty of love and hope and the greater virtues.

When you let go of your blanket, you will eventually realize that it never offered the security you believed and you may even find something greater than comfort.

I am not certain, but I am hopeful.

I am not certain, but I have faith.

I am not certain, so I love.