I was raised in a belief-rich environment. They were piled on me from an early age, as a well-intentioned gift, no doubt. Living and growing has been one long, ongoing process of shedding beliefs, sometimes in little flakes, sometimes in bloody heaps. I’ve found all of those purges to be a little painful at the time—a kind of exorcism—but ultimately clarifying and helpful.
I’ve also been careful to resist replacing old beliefs with new ones. Instead, I’ve made my peace with the uncertainty that’s left when a belief falls away. I’ve come to see truth as being incompatible with “knowing”. Knowledge so often turns out to be belief wearing a good disguise. Truth, insofar as we can think of it as a noun, has more to do with uncertainty than with certainty; with questions more than answers.