Doubt and Uncertainty: "It doesn't frighten me"

**I used to think the most important thing in life is finding "ultimates," the absolute truth - as though there's a hidden world that we can crack into and thereby get the answers to all our doubts and fears, and somehow be relieved and happy forever after. Though I tried to live that way a long time, I must also admit that I am an inveterate explorer who accepts no limits on what should be explored. I don't even need to know what's at the end of the line - the journey itself is worth it. In recent years I've come to accept this state of uncertainty and realize that though it can sometimes be stressful, I am not really afraid of being "lost." I know that as long as I'm conscious I'll just work with whatever I have at hand and try to understand it, or at least do something interesting with it.

Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research in quantum electrodynamics. He was also a raconteur, artist, bongo player and safe cracker. A collection of his short works, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out," is a constant source of inspiration for me - and I've quoted from it frequently in this blog. Here's another one about "Doubt and Uncertainty." I don't have Feynman's brain but I have at least a small portion of his spirit:

People say to me, "Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?" No, I'm not, I'm just looking to find out more about the world and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it, that would be very nice to discover...

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don't have to know an answer, I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me.