I enjoyed this paragraph from Tim Harford’s Financial Times piece on the reasons for, and consequences of, politicians’ love of certitude:
It is not clear why we enjoy certitude so much – certitude being the subjective experience of feeling certain. In contrast – as Kathryn Schulz observes in her wonderful book Being Wrong – there is simply no psychological experience of “being wrong” at all, only the lurching realisation of having been wrong until a moment ago.
I’ve never been a huge fan of being wrong. Now I can claim that I’ve never experienced it.
I don’t like being wrong, or having been wrong and when someone proves me wrong, it initially hurts; but afterwards I enjoy the growth that comes with it. If I am proved wrong enough times, I’ll be perfect!