A well-meaning friend and I were discussing the untangled web of generational misfortune and poor life choices of what I call family. All of which are easily understood with naturalistic explanations: the predictable cascading dominion of causes and effects.

My friend, on the other hand, cannot help himself from attributing these to a third-party middleman to help make sense of this life. His middleman is most impressive as he’s both a micro-manager and the architect of all things. At one point in our conversation, my friend saw what he said was the pattern emerging from the brackish waters of my circumstances. With certainty, my friend wove a majestic story that explained the architect’s grand plan of using misfortune to bring about positive change in my life.

As he awaited my response, I found that moment most awkward. I didn’t want to devalue his kind attempt to sew in a silver lining. Yet, unbeknownst to him, I bristle with this part of the social contract. So with as much kindness as I could muster, I replied, “Dude, that may have been the most tortured logic I have yet to hear.” What good are lifelong friends if we can’t speak our truths to each other without fear or favor?

Recently, on a different occasion, a second friend offered a different silver lining. Much to my surprise, instead of bristling, I embraced it and made it mine.

The day my life was liberated from the enslaving chains of certainty was the first day of the rest of my life. It was the day I fully accepted that I am wrong about literally everything I think, believe, opine, and hold dear. This leaves me seeking to discover how wrong I am about anything at any given moment, including what I’m writing in this very essay.

One end of the spectrum of always being wrong is where reality becomes fantasy. On the opposite end isn’t truth, as it’s ever elusive, but rather the fewest degrees from truth as mere humans can obtain. Being wrong is rarely binary. Mostly, it’s not having, not understanding, or not accepting information that can lead us to being less wrong.

Take, for instance, back in my days of certainty, her dad actively disapproved and took steps to hinder my dating his daughter. I was certain of it. A very long time later, on a random day having returned to my hometown for a brief visit while living overseas, her dad and I had a nice hallway chat. That exchange put a tiny crack in my certainty. As I was invested in my certainty, I managed to keep the pieces together. Many years later, life disabused me of the folly of certainty. A difficult process that came with the most wonderful reward from a twist of fate that gifted me with the knowledge I was utterly wrong about her father. The joy of that moment was muted by my remembrance of what certainty does: it poisons the heart and mind with less-than-generous thoughts and feelings about others. In my case, about her father.

I love being wrong. I live for it. It means I am ready to hear new information that leads me to being a little less wrong. What I don’t love is having to deal with the fact that most of the world is violently wed to certainty. What brings me sadness is seeing loved ones forever ensnared in the bondage of certainty. For them, they cannot be wrong because it will come with consequences that I fully acknowledge are tantamount to bodily death.

I have given a lot of thought to what I could be wrong about that would have similar consequences. Having taken an inventory, I can confidently say, there’s nothing I could be proved wrong about that would destroy my world. A blow to my ego, pride, and embarrassment, sure, soon healed by knowing that embracing not knowing imbues one with the superpower of becoming evermore unflappable.

The silver lining my second friend offered was, “By the time your caregiving to our mom comes to an end, you will go on having become unflappable.” Unflappability has been a lifelong life-goal of mine. Silver lining accepted.

No other photo I have ever taken better visualizes the vibe of being unflappable, so in this week’s photo, I offer you this gentleman and his glorious beard.

And now… know the photograph.