Every human position has a problem with it. Believed in too much, it slides into error. It’s not that no position is correct; it’s that no position is correct for long.

We’re perpetually slipping out of absolute virtue and failing to notice, blinded by our desire to settle in—to finally stop fretting about things and relax forever and just be correct; to find an agenda and stick with it.

In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious).

“Am I sure? Is it really so? Is my preexisting opinion causing me to omit anything?”

Reconsideration is hard: it takes courage. We have to deny ourselves the comfort of always being the same person, one who arrived at an answer some time ago and has never had any reason to doubt it.

In other words, we have to stay open.

George Saunders, Swim In Pond In Rain