Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Last week my bike was stolen by an imaginary thief. Like something out of Memento, I 'forgot' which particular rack I had latched my bike to and somberly took the bus home, no doubt in my mind that it was gone. Forever.
But the bike hadn't moved at all. In my mind, it had traveled to a distant, shadowy Seattle neighborhood and was promptly sold on Craigslist (for which $50 would be pushing it ~ really pushing it). In my mind, it was already in another state. I grieved and moved on.
When, weeks later, a friend called me to say she had seen my bike locked outside a bookstore I frequent, I still wasn't ready for the truth: my first thought was that the thief happened to visit the same used bookstore I did. Then, after a moment, things came into rapid focus.
Certainty is simply certainty and has no innate bearing on the actual state of affairs. A mind fixated victim to certainty will have its bike stolen by imaginary thieves, its ailments caused by imaginary spirits, and its life inhibited by imaginary barriers. Skepticism is not, like many say, a door that locks out beauty; it's more of a net that captures foolishness and holds it accountable.
