The way we carry our knowledge is important, particularly when living in such uncertain and insecure times. When you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and feel the ground crumble beneath you, your instinct may be to hang on for dear life to anything that seems rooted enough to keep you from sliding away.

But if we hold too tightly and fearfully to what we believe, we become dogmatic and rigid, unable to live the life we meant to save. At the same time, to hold too loosely to what we know is just as mistaken. Whether cynical, nihilist, relativist or ironic, dogmatic disbelief comes across as insincere, irresponsible or just ungrateful.

At any given moment, we can know enough, with enough certainty, to move forward. We needn’t worry that what we know and our confidence in it changes over time. It might even mean we’re gaining in wisdom, even as we know (for sure!) that we’ve still got a way to go.