Doubt is the fact that you don’t know anything with absolute certainty. Actually, I am not sure. I guess it is maybe not really like this. In fact, there are some things you can know without any doubt, don’t you think? The one that two plus two result four or the other that earth is doing a complete revolution in one year, for example. Exact sciences are the only things which seem to escape from the principle of doubt. But they are also the only things which opened the door to doubt in times where people used to explain everything by the irrefutable laws of God. So that fact could tell us that doubt is at the origin of Astronomy, Mathematic, Geometry, Philosophy… Doubt is at the origin of great changes. Certitude freezes, doubt is movement. Doubt is the first step toward the truth; if such a thing exists! The principle of doubt is inherent to the principle of life. You are born and the only thing you know is that you don’t know. Every minute ticks away and you can’t remember exactly what it was made of – doubt – you live in the present moment without knowing what will happen next – doubt – you spend time with people, you talk, you laugh with them, sometimes you cry in their arms, sometimes you hug them and kiss them and make love with them; with some of them, you become deeply intimate but there always remains a little fragment from them that you can’t grab, there always persists a doubt because you can’t be in other people’s minds, hearts or blood, in other people’s souls. You can’t know what they feel; you can’t know what they think.
Each one stands with his proper and sensitive perception of the world, each one, full of doubts. You may have the impression to be alone like every other human being on earth, each one closed in his own personal little prison, or you can trust your instinct and make it a fellow traveler of your doubts. Only like this you can live without certitude. Because now, we know that reality is multiple, that life is unpredictable, that there are things still unexplained, that there is always an exception to confirm the rule. Doubt opens the door to an infinity of possibilities – maybe this is the right thing to do, or might be that other a better option? – The human capacity to think, to evaluate, to compare creates then a space for the doubts, always larger and larger. But if making a choice is, sometimes, a scaring decision, staying in this blurred area for too long is dangerous. It is like remaining for too long in a huge labyrinth looking for the issue without ever finding one. At the beginning you are excited, then, you tire yourself out, and at the end you are completely exhausted and lost. Refusing to make a choice implies a similar risk.
You may think: “and what if I make the wrong choice? What if I choose the wrong path?” But does the fact that it’s a wrong or a good call really matter? And, especially, in relation to what are you describing it as wrong or good? I am not so sure. Even here a doubt is persisting “So what?” You are thinking, “Have we then to pretend that the doubt doesn’t run permanently under our human and highly sensitive skin? Have we to live in a reassuring pack of lies?” To Face your doubts, your fears, to make decisions and to take the responsibility for your choices, is not to live pretending you are sure about everything you do but it means accepting your human condition, accepting to give up some options to give life to the others, accepting to take risks. After all, doubt is like the discomfort of the Man or the Woman finding themselves in the position of the bird. That moment of suspension where human nature is measuring up to the promptness with which human feet are looking for dry land. If the Man or the Woman maybe, receive the doubt as the only truth, they would fly. And this then makes a peaceful man or a peaceful woman of you.