It’s something we live with. It can be healthy, but it can also be devastating. I mean, doubt can inspire us to see through paradigms, structures, institutions, etc. It can help us see through our own darkness, but it can also create more darkness in us. I suppose here I am talking about self-doubt—doubt in my value, my worth. And aren’t these things hard to define sometimes: value, worth? What do we place value in, how do we define our own worth? Is it materialistic, spiritual? Is it based on how are family sees us, or maybe how our friends see us? It is hard to pin down exactly, and it even seems to shift and change from day to day. This can cause, in my experience, freedom, but it can also cause misery. Freedom in the good days where doubt is directed at the importance of asking myself such questions; that is, I enjoy when I doubt that I need to ask myself questions of about my self-worth. However, misery on the days where I am entangled in the darkness of doubting that I have much of any value.
Is this something that we all wrestle with? And where does this stem from, this self-doubt? Is it ingrained in us from societal influence? Is it merely because I lack self-confidence or a “healthy” self esteem? Or is it something that is more subtle and less able to be articulated? I mean, I’ve been around this community for almost two years, and during this time I’ve seen several threads which reflect people who find themselves under the knife’s edge of doubt. And don’t we sometimes wallow in it with a twisted enjoyment? I mean, we can sometimes really enjoy sliding that blade of self-doubt back and forth against our flesh in a masochistic revelry of loathing! But it can be a tough thing, a cold thing, a disheartening thing, this self-doubt.
Tonight I watched The Last Temptation of Christ again. I hadn’t seen it for a few years. Self-doubt seems to be a motif of this movie. Jesus repeatedly wrestles with doubt in his worth, doubt in his position, doubt in his path. And don’t we all? The character is confronted with doubt to such a degree that he sobs and pleads with God because he knows the course that his life must take, but yet, he finds himself afraid to take it. This extreme doubt is what supplies Satan with the opportunity to provide Jesus’ last temptation, and Jesus jumps at the chance to flee his destiny. Of course, in the end, Jesus conquers his doubt, and gains the courage to face the task that he must fulfill.
I dunno’. Most of us don’t have to worry about being crucified as a messiah, but I think there is something in this for us. I mean, we can, in our throes of doubt, feel as if we are being crucified on the wheel of life. We can feel as if we are being persecuted, slandered, devalued, alienated, ostracized, and a whole host of not very pleasant things to have to be feeling. Again, I wonder if sometimes we don’t enjoy it in a masochistic sense. We humans sometimes seem all too bent on promoting misery in the world, and sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter if we make others miserable or only ourselves: as long as someone is miserable, then we are happy.
A strange conundrum to be sure!
Anyway, I suppose that what I might be getting at is that doubt seems to be something that is faced by even the best of humans, and maybe what is important is not to succumb fully and completely to this doubt, but perhaps let it inspire us and drive us. That is to say, maybe, like in The Last Temptation, our doubt can serve as a vehicle for us to find courage, to find that inner strength that allows us to stand back up again, to raise our voice and say the things that might need to be said, might need to be heard.
Maybe we need only doubt the doubt that doubts.
Shrug. Some late night ramblings I guess. This living sure seems to be a terrible and wonderful balancing act though… |
