On Certainty

Certainty is never certain. It is never absolute. You can always question all things you believe to be certain. It only depends on how thoroughly you question it, or how much proof you need, as an individual, to take something as certain.

What people do to be able to endure hardship, or maintain an acceptable level of happiness is to stop questioning once they reach a boundary they dare not cross. To all those who have no boundaries - either they do not achieve a stable state of happiness, or they accept the impossibility of absolute certainty.

Where does the line cross between what can be taken as certain or what should be exhaustively questioned, and thus considered an uncertainty?

Such a question has a different answer for each and every individual. 

I prefer to accept uncertainty. I prefer to stare it right into the face, and embrace its beautiful existence. Without uncertainty, there is boredom. Things are taken for granted, easily known, easily understood. I like to question. It keeps me alive, it keeps my brain going. It reaches out to new possibilities, to different realities to the one I strongly grasp onto.

What I take as certain, in a relative sense, is that which I cannot fathom could be otherwise, and in the emotional realm, what I feel to be right, to be true. I do not spend time wondering if I am just a brain in a jar – because if I am, there is no amount of questioning that will suffice to allow me to reach such conclusion. I accept I cannot know for certain.

Can I be certain that this person loves me? No, I cannot. I like to believe so – I feel it. I gather information that leads me in the direction of that truth. But I can’t ever be certain. And that is okay.

It is acceptable to not be sure. To know, but without absolute proof. Unfortunately, or even fortunately (we cannot know for certain), we are limited in how much we can truly know.

There will always have to be something we take as a given – that is if and only if, we do not want to spend the rest of our days questioning things that can’t possibly be known.