Simone Stolzoff — How to Not Know
Author Simone Stolzoff and journalist Rhaina Cohen discuss what uncertainty can teach us — and why the drive to eliminate ambiguity may be making us worse at living.
Why we picked this
Stolzoff's first book challenged hustle culture's hold on identity; this one takes on our relationship with certainty — a more foundational problem, and one the data-saturated present keeps making worse.
Simone Stolzoff, author of the acclaimed The Good Enough Job, returns with How to Not Know, a guide to navigating life’s irreducible uncertainties. In conversation with Rhaina Cohen, a reporter and podcast producer at NPR, Stolzoff draws on psychology, philosophy, and interviews with people who have made peace with not having answers to explore how our frantic pursuit of certainty distorts decisions, relationships, and wellbeing.
The book arrives as AI tools promise to eliminate ambiguity from work and decision-making — a cultural moment Stolzoff is well-positioned to interrogate. His previous work resonated precisely because it named something people felt but couldn’t articulate about the hollowness of productivity-as-identity; this new book applies similar rigor to the anxiety that drives people toward those tools in the first place.
Cohen brings her own journalist’s perspective on how to sit with open questions, making this a genuine two-way conversation rather than a promotional appearance. For anyone who finds themselves compulsively seeking resolution — whether in the news, in work, or in relationships — this evening offers a different framework.