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Yes, indeed, there are different perspectives from which come different things "which might be useful and productive." But, given that, maybe the question to ask isn't what story "makes most sense to you" (a skull or a woman looking in a mirror?) but rather "what story seems to offer ways to think about things that might be more useful and productive than what has yet been thought?" All other things being equal, one might in that case choose to further explore a story that, at the moment, makes less sense to one. After all, one already has significant experience with the usefulnesses as well as the problems of stories that make more sense.

Along these lines, I'd be inclined to argue that "there must be something that is which is not contingent but necessary" qualifies as a story with which most people already have substantial experience. A story that everything is contingent might, for many people at the moment, make less sense but prove in the longer run to be more useful and productive. If "we only experience contingent/changing things" perhaps a story that works with that that would be more useful than one that doesn't?

Descartes is interesting in this connection. Yes, we don't have certainty about either the outside world OR our bodies. And we don't have certainty about "the physical properties/workings of our brains." So, if we put inside the brain a self about which we are certain we would indeed be simply be replaying Descartes in a modern guise. But maybe we could put there a self about which we have some uncertainty, just as we do about the body and the outside world? Descartes was a wonderful skeptic, but perhaps was unabe or unwilling to carry his arguments to their limit? See Writing Descartes. Perhaps there is no certainty anywhere, including inside ourselves, but only varying degrees of uncertainty? Which are, in turn, the cracks through which we escape determinism of all kinds, and acquire the capability to bring genuinely new productive/useful things into existence?