Like the body craves oxygen, the mind is desperate for certainty. It believes that without a safe foothold on reality, it will die. But the fascinating thing is that the illusion of certainty is exactly the opposite of safety because it hardens and narrows the vision to make everything fit its own scope. Then when new information arrives which would be its ally, the mind pushes it away in favor of the leaky life raft to which it clings, sinking all the while beneath the waves of change. In fact, the only antidote for this is to embrace 'I don’t know' so deeply that a powerful, dynamic safety emerges. This is like learning to surf so well that a tsunami wave shows up as a challenge to test our mastery. Jacob Nordby
About This Quote

This quote by David Whyte is about the minds need for certainty. The mind craves certainty because without it we would not be able to function properly. We would not be able to do anything effectively, and we could honestly say that we are not capable of doing anything at all. The mind is like a waterfall that goes down into the depths of our being, but it is also like a bird that soars above us. It is necessary for life, but it can also keep us trapped in the prison of our own inner demons.

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