Doubt and Confidence
// October 27th, 2006 // Leadership Development, My Personal Journey
Sitting in an Indian restaurant last night, as the sound of a sitar gently beckoned the falling dusk on my street outside. I decide to pen some thoughts on doubt and confidence concepts that have been frequently bubbling up into contemplation. Below is the transcript from my notebook.
What is the role of confidence if all knowledge is fallible?
Confidence in what is, the confidence that our beliefs and the world-view model they form is. Just that, with all it’s inherent imperfections and most definitely not to be relied upon as absolute reality. To be closed to confidence is to to deny what is clearly manifest, though illusory, to deny this illusion as part of reality is to refute consciousness itself.
Then what is the role of doubt?
Doubt is the reminder that our experience is illusory, that there exists a deeper reality that is the source of our illusion, but closed to us- unknowable. Doubt propels us to an ever closer approximation- freeing us from false ends. To be closed to doubt is to be lost in a sea of illusion.
Both doubt and confidence should be cultivated, this means both should be nourished and pruned- depending on the season. These are the twins from which the art of our consciousness is born; doubt the tool that shapes the clay of confidence.
