What I felt slipping away — as it has been for some time in my life — was the sort of security and clarity that comes from believing you’ve got the answer. It feels good to know things for sure. It makes us feel safer, at least in the short term. But certainty has its limitations. Very rarely, I’ve discovered, is certainty the outgrowth of careful consideration and deep understanding. Far more often, it’s a primitive instinct — a way we defend against uncertainty, which understandably feels unsettling and even dangerous. The problem is that certainty often oversimplifies and trivializes, especially in a world that has grown so immensely complex."
