One of the qualities that always bugs me when I see it in other people is certainty. Some people are so sure they are right. They are absolutely sure that they are right. They are certain they are right. The corollary of this is these same people's certainty that people who disagree with them are completely wrong. They are sure about this too. Can't be any other way, they say. I do not agree with such certainty.
One of the strange things about myself is that I like to be proven wrong. Oh, I did not always use to be this way. But one day I had a little epiphany (epiphanies come in small sizes too) that allowed me to see that if I am going to continue to be wrong about so much in life then I might as well have some fun with my mistakes. Looking back at the many mistakes I have made in my life has provided me many, many laughs. One of my most consistent laugh lines is when I say, "Remember when I (insert some stupid incident here)? How silly was I?" That I can admit mistakes and laugh at them later has ingratiated me to many (now) good friends over the years.
Yet admitting mistakes is seen as a bad thing in certain circles. It shows weakness. It shows a lack of intelligence. It shows cowardice. You know what else admitting a mistake shows? Humility. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The lack of ego. The ability to walk in the shoes of someone completely different than you. Also qualities worth having.
I am disheartened by politics now because our political leaders are so damn certain that they are right. I used to be really certain about my beliefs when I was a kid. As I got older, I realized that the world is a very complicated place where grave problems don't have just one solution. There might be many possible solutions or no solution at all. That politicians try to act simply in a complicated world means either of two different things to me - either they think they can b.s. us or they really see the world in their stated simple terms.
I don't know which one is worse.
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Audacity of Certainty
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3 comments:
That is so true. Whenever I think I am right to the extent where no one can prove me wrong, I'm usually wrong in the end!
Good post. It is a burden always being right.... I'm joking of course. The smug politicians do get to me.
As a dyed-in-the-wool-republican with selective liberal leanings, and the daughter of a dyed-in-the-wool-democrat-mother with no republican leanings whatsoever AND a penchant for insisting that she is always, and completely, right, I am suspicious of anyone claiming certainty on anything. Wow, that might qualify as a rant. And a run-on sentence.
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