In his book “Adventures in the Screen Trade” William Goldman wrote NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. Literally. The words appear in all caps, twice.

Goldman, who wrote such classics as “Marathon Man” and “The Princess Bride” (novel and screenplay for both), was referring to studio executives. He illustrated his point by citing multiple examples of high-ranking executives who either passed up projects that became smash successes, or gave the green light to box office and critical disasters.

Think about it – somebody thought “Cats”, the movie based on the musical based on the work of TS Eliot was a good idea. Some really talented actors and actresses were cast in it. The play was a smash hit on Broadway. Had to be a surefire money-maker, right? How could it possibly lose more than $20 million?

OK, maybe you saw that coming. But did you know that 1 = 0.99999… (where the “9” continues forever)?

This can demonstrated very easily. Imagine a pizza cut into three equal pieces. Each piece is one-third of the area of the circle.

One-third can be represented as 1/3, or one divided by three, which equals 0.33333…. (where the “3” continues forever).

Since we started with one circle, we should be able to add the pieces to get back to one complete circle.

1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 3/3 = 1

But when we divide the ones by the threes and add them, we get:

0.33333… + 0.33333… + 0.33333… = 0.99999…

Therefore, 1 = 0.99999…

Go ahead, call it a trick. Work it out on your smartphone’s calculator and watch the software make the logical adjustment. Argue that there is no meaningful difference between the results.

Or consider for a moment the possibility that something as basic as “1” is not always what we think it is.

It may be impractical to go about our lives questioning everything we do and believe in. But it is in our interest to remind ourselves what Goldman knew, especially when we are absolutely certain that we know a thing to be true.

NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.

If you are still reading this, then you are probably wondering what is the point – how can we live our lives if nobody knows anything?

Simple – understand that anything and everything can be traced back to an assumption. And often, it turns out, an assumption is wrong.

Basic things we don’t even think about, like getting something to drink when we’re thirsty, having a place to sleep when we’re tired, knowing where to go to get what we want.

For many of us, everything seems to come from our smartphone – we just look up what we want, order it, and presto, it arrives within an hour, a day at the latest.

Which is great, assuming we get a signal. And the thing we want is available.

And when things don’t work, we get upset – where’s that pizza I ordered? What about that delivery I expected? Why can’t I find Season 2 of “Barney Miller” on Netflix (or anywhere)?

If you can grasp the beginning of this passage, you can save yourself a lot of stress.

Accept that NOBODY KNOW ANYTHING and you are much better prepared to cope with things that don’t turn out the way you expected, or hoped. You are better able to deal with the reality confronting you, as opposed to the one you assumed would be true.

Or just go back to complaining about how your carrier keeps dropping your calls, and it takes for-ev-uh to get your dinner delivered. Feel free to let me know which strategy works better for you.