Everything seems simpler when one is young. I was driven in my youth by a pursuit of moral truths that I believed could be applied to all absolutely and unilaterally, equalizing all injustices and eliminating all suffering. I was certain I was capable of understanding these truths and that I had already accomplished much in finding them. It did seem coincidentally beneficial that these moral truths were so well in line with my own preconceived mental models and cultural background, but I assumed more that I was being transformed to the truths rather than they were being formed from my own worldview and experiences.

In my efforts to gain more knowledge of objective truth I began to seek out deeper understanding from my peers. I first started with family and friends who I knew to have spent time considering the philosophical and moral issues of the day. The answers I received did regularly challenge me but still largely conformed to my preexisting understanding of the world. Still not sated, I went beyond to apologists and philosophers within my community. The answers I found there were more convoluted and figurative which made them feel more impressive and rational, satisfying an underlying anxiety about being able to have a convincing answer to every question. Believing that I had found the panacea, I ruminated on their answers (and my new-found intellectual superiority), deeply pondering the variety of my reactions to what I heard.

The answers certainly sounded good in repetition in my mind, but they felt weak and embarrassing whenever I found the opportunity to share them in conversation. So much discussion and defining of terms had to be performed before reaching the answer to help make sense of them, and even then the listener was not likely to be convinced. The answers began to feel hollow and speculative to me. I knew then that I needed to question an even wider source, one willing to more fully criticize itself.

So it was to the people who challenged every answer in the tree down to the root that I turned. What I learned frightened and angered me at the same time: I discovered that my previous sources for answers had failed to ask the important question, “What if I’m wrong?” — not of just the supposed answer to the question, but of the mental framework that supplied the answers, which I was discovering with worrying regularity were more based on presuppositions than with well-researched explanations. The previous answers to my questions therefore worked as long as the sources of the answers never were challenged, which was disquieting to me because I wasn’t seeking a panacea for my curiosity but rather for absolute truth on which to align my worldview.

The process of questioning myself was agonizing. I felt furious that these self-criticisms were not encouraged within my denser social network and that I had never been exposed to this type of consideration before. I recalled every time in my life where this sort of questioning was seen as dangerous to truth, yet I was discovering more solid foundations for my worldview in this harrowing process.

I learned that I was not alone in this particular journey: I found that others had asked these same questions generations before. People far more educated and experienced than me had spent years of their lives researching and discussing possibilities that I had never even considered as answers to my questions. I saw that where I had charted myself on my search for absolute truth was grossly over-calculated. I watched my universe of understanding become dwarfed by the breadth of what could be learned and realized with a mixture of dread and resignation that I was nowhere near the end of my journey; in fact, I began to accept that I would likely never unearth some answers within my lifetime.

But I had more answers than ever before, with explanations that made sense and that could be shared without feeling a sense of discomfort or fear. The answers that could not be given made more sense as to why they were unanswerable. My anxiety disappeared; I no longer felt foolish for not knowing something, for admitting ignorance was the first step to learning. Instead of feeling a deep need to have all the answers about what was true, I could instead stay quiet and listen for potential better truths.

Accepting all of this greatly eased my anxieties and calmed me in ways that I hadn’t felt in years. I finally began to understand the book of the Bible often titled Ecclesiastes, which before often depressed me due to its nihilistic tones. Before now I never could grasp the dissonace of the author’s intent to cheapen the life of a person while also claiming that joy could be found within it. I comprehend its message more clearly now: by admitting my ignorance of some things I can turn my focus to the present experiences of life, gaining meaning from the moments that I can understand.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Ecclesiastes 9:9–10 (New Revised Standard Version)

Instead of tying myself up trying to understand the things that I cannot know, I can see now the meaning to be found in the things that can be understood — and those things are all around me right now. I am no longer ashamed to be ignorant of the things that I cannot know for I am working to be too busy enjoying the things that I can.