There’s a saying, “The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know.” This is sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein, sometimes to Aristotle: this in itself proving the point.
Regardless, this sentiment summarises the past year for me. In truth, the more I learn about the effects of an anomaly in my genetic make up, the more I doubt my understanding of events in my youth.
Actually, I now doubt everything. I could say that it’s an advantage that I wrote about my feelings back then. Even if my interpretation of events was mistaken, at least memories can be supplemented by what I wrote at the time.
My understanding of events at the time had a massive and profound impact on me, that in many ways changed the entire direction of my life. But two and three decades on, I can no longer say with any certainty if those understandings were correct or well-founded. I just don’t know.
So, of course, there can be no closure, only an attempt to let go. Ordinary people would have done so long ago anyway. I would have done so too, had I not returned to writing two years ago and stirred everything up again. My fault.
What is true, what is false? The further we get from events, the less we can say with any certainty. Actually the truth is this: “I know nothing.”
Last modified: 28 December 2022
