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Certainty Is a Story I Made Up

Certainty is a story.

A mental construct.

An explanation I tell myself

to stop feeling the discomfort of not knowing.

It might be true.

It might not be.

That’s not what makes it appealing.

What makes it appealing

is that it makes sense.

It organizes the chaos.

It answers the question

I wasn’t qualified to ask in the first place:

Why?

That’s the hook.

I don’t want an answer.

I want the answer.

Not a perspective.

A conclusion.

Something final.

Something that feels earned.

That kind of certainty is rarely true.

It’s a well-constructed narrative

I built to feel better.

To protect myself from the weight of ambiguity.

Stories feel good.

Even sad ones.

Even painful ones.

They offer closure.

They wrap it up.

They end the loop.

Truth doesn’t always end the loop.

Sometimes it opens one.

Sometimes it leaves me right where I started

only more honest about what I can’t know.

That’s what I’ve come to see:

I used to think certainty meant strength.

Now I know it means

I stopped asking honest questions.