#94 You Drew a Line—Now You Spend Your Life Guarding It

Watch carefully the next time you hear someone speak with unwavering certainty. It appears as strength, but it is the tremble of a hand holding a fence in the dark, afraid that if one plank gives way, the whole thing will collapse. The mind that has fixed itself to a doctrine cannot rest; it must patrol the perimeter of its own conviction, night after night, repelling doubt like a dog chasing off wolves.

This is why the most certain people are so often the most exhausted—not from the labor of belief, but from the labor of exclusion. To see this is to glimpse a different possibility: a mind that has beliefs, yes, but no fences.