A Commonplace Book

Important as it is to maintain a stable sense of what's true -- or at least a stable set of methods by which we can reliably vet truth claims -- facts have never been enough to unite discordant narratives about the way things are.

[Don Quixote] witnesses the same events as everyone else, but comes away with a completely different set of facts. He reasons soundly from what he sees, but his perception is radically different from how everyone else perceives....

Once Quixote's stories lead him to believe that the chain gang is more likely to be disguised victims of injustice than criminals and cons, the empirical fact of their chains reinforces, rather than undermines, his belief.

We are all quixotic, which is to say we all measure the facts before our eyes by the stories that made us who we are, and shape how we see ourselves and who we want to be. Indeed, as with Quixote, the more facts we witness that affirm those stories, the more formidable is their hold.