Doubt

There is no doubt that doubt is one of my major issues, and it did spoil many possibilities for me. I do not quite know how it all started, but by the time I was fifteen I already doubted my family faith and questioned everything that I had learned up to that point. It was quite a crisis really. I was away from home or what was left of home, tender, vulnerable and badly hurt, and now this big-time dubiety which jerked the rug right from under my feet and left me with nothing to cling to.

But in retrospect it was actually a good thing, shaping my thinking and keeping my mind open ever since. My own conviction in any issue only goes up to ninety-nine per cent at most, the remaining part invariably reserved for doubt. This sort of attitude has been serving me well by keeping ignorance and bigotry at bay, and because of it I feel a distant camaraderie with the brilliant minds of the world. After all, great ideas started as a doubt in the incumbent system of thoughts.

Still, doubt generally seems to be considered a weakness in modern pop culture, where blind positivity is often encouraged by charlatans with magazine space and television time. Back in college I used to know a guy whose massive ignorance was hidden in a tower of solid confidence which caused people to see him in a firmly positive light. Just like in the corporate world, where the gung ho type is usually more appreciated than the thoughtful one.

Anyway, I do not let the fools out there change my hard-earned philosophy, and I will be likely to harbor doubt wherever intellectual matters are concerned. Problem is that doubt also seeps into your heart, wreaks havoc there, then leaves it a painful mess. Even a tiny grain of sagacity comes with a hefty price tag, I suppose.