Knowing Right from Wrong

My family is a perfect social experiment for this. None of them has ever felt wrong, while I’ve rarely felt confidently right. And our respective outcomes have diverged drastically. Not at first, though. I started off more confident and more wrong, dutifully following genetics. But then, goddam it, I stumbled into doing something one must never do: I began to clock my wrongness. And I noticed it everywhere. I was soaking in it. Self-delusion requires fortitude I lack—so my way forward was obvious: diligently fill gaps, sharpen dull points, strip lazy bias, and extinguish brash know-it-all propensity—that last because someone requiring sustained and rigorous reconditioning could hardly feel cocky. You can feel smart or you can be smart. One of the other. Smart-feelers are hilariously dumb (in fact, that's the basis for most comedy). Dumb-feelers are often right, but can't enjoy it because, alas, they know better. So the question is: how badly do you want to be right? Do you want it…