Jun 5, 2010

In two minds about changing my mind

I appear to have missed Zadie Smith's new collection of essays, Changing my Mind, although it's not hard to see why. I've never really shared the enthusiasm so many have for ambiguity, ambivalence and other assorted species of mental blur - changing your mind, being of two minds, etc etc. I experience them as much as the next guy but never as anything other than a pain in the arse. Uncertainty is profoundly uncomfortable, to be be born with as much grace as one can muster but certainly not turned into any kind of intellectual fetish to prove the suppleness of one's mind. Someone like Zadie Smith tells me that she's thinking of changing her mind about some important issue of the day and my immediate reaction is to commiserate.

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