Close your eyes and think about what you've been missing in your life lately. It could be a person, pet, place, thing, occasion, feeling. Anything at all that you miss dearly.

If I close my eyes to think, I may just drop off to sleep. Yes, I’ve reached that age. So, fully alert and wide-eyed, I say I miss certainty.

I’ve noticed that as one ages, one becomes either more sure of things or less sure. I belong to the latter group.

I think children are traditionalist, very firm in their beliefs. It always comes as a shock to the young that other families are different than one’s own. It’s upsetting to realize that not everyone shares your religion or just as importantly, never butters their toast or watches television. Confronting these things in other people alters one’s world view. Upon reflection, it seems to me that your later outlook on certainty probably forms here. One is intrigued by differences or one isn’t. (Yes, that’s psychologically interesting. I’ll just make some notes to think about this later.)

---Giles opens a notebook, jots for several minutes. Then returns.----

And of course, all adolescents believe firmly that the world started when they arrived. Anything that went before is useless. Certainty is their armour against a confusing world. Later, they usually come to see things differently.

I studied at the Council long and hard in order to identify evil when I saw it. I could rattle off the history of demons, their characteristics, and I was particularly versed in the ways of dispatching them. It was all very clear.

Then I became a Watcher. It turned out to be a grayish-hued world. Long-lived vampires who were champions and killers. Girls made from energy. Slayers who never loved wisely. It was not so easily decided who would live and who would die. I have made decisions that I thought were for the best. And they have broken other people’s hearts. So were they?

Certainty is an illusion but it can also be a comfort.