Those who do good science do so because they choose problems that are suited to them.
Surprise is inherent in the structure of the world.
One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself.
There is nothing outside the universe.
The revolution which began with the creation of quantum theory and relativity theory can only be finished with their unification into a single theory that can give us a single, comprehensive picture of nature.
Just like an ordinary guitar string, a fundamental string can vibrate in different modes. And it is these different modes of vibration of the string that are understood in string theory as being the different elementary particles.