But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive… - Carl Sagan

Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.

The theologian Meric Casaubon argued — in his 1668 book, Of Credulity and Incredulity — that witches must exist because, after all, everyone believes in them. Anything that a large number of people believe must be true.

Maturity entails a readiness, painful and wrenching though it may be, to look squarely into the long dark places, into the fearsome shadows.
In this act of ancestral remembrance and acceptance may be found a light by which to see our children safely home.

No question; language can free us of feeling, or almost. Maybe that's one of its functions - so we can understand the world without becoming entirely overwhelmed by it.