We are amused at the fable of the elephant and the six blind men, each of whom understood the elephant to be a very different animal. But we seem to lose that good-natured perspective just in time to assume that our own point of view on the world is more accurate than that of many of the other human beings on the planet. We avoid ambiguity as much as possible, feeling threatened that it may expose our own point of view as merely an option. - John Langdon