I see it on his face. I hear it when he talks. We look out at the world and we see the same thing: Not Fair. And the only difference between us is Ricky's out there trying to get even. And he knows not trust anybody and he got it straight from me. And he knows not to try and get work, and guess where he got that. He walks around like there's loose boards in the floor, and you know who laid that floor, I did.
From that first moment of doubt, there was no peace for her; from the time she first imagined leaving her forest, she could not stand in one place without wanting to be somewhere else. She trotted up and down beside her pool, restless and unhappy. Unicorns are not meant to make choices. She said no, and yes, and no again, day and night, and for the first time she began to feel the minutes crawling over her like worms.
Don’t you ever get scared?” I ask.“Of what?” She says.“Of not being good enough.”“You mean at writing?” L’il asks.I nod. “What if I’m the only one who thinks I can do it and no one else does? What if I’m fooling myself-““Oh, Carrie.” She smiles. “Don’t you know that every writer feels that way? Fear is part of the job.
After twenty years of unbelief, doubt had become a habit. Doubting was easy, routine; it was my natural, instinctive reaction. Somewhere along the line I had stopped considering any other options. Doubt was my default. So choosing the blessing, the miracle, over coincidence had to be a conscious choice. I had to dismiss doubt as the crutch that it was, dismiss my gut instinct and embrace the more challenging alternative.
The evil in the world must not make me doubt the existence of God. There could be no evil if there were no God. Before there can be a hole in a uniform, there must be a uniform; before there is death, there must be life; before there is error, there must be truth; before there is a crime, there must be liberty and law; before there is a war, there must be peace; before there is a devil, there must be a God, rebellion against whom made the devil.
Belief and confusion are not mutually exclusive; I believe that belief gives you the direction in the confusion. But you don't see the full picture. That's the point. That's what faith is. You can't see it. It comes back to instinct. Faith is just up the street. Faith and instinct, you can't just rely on them. You have to beat them up. You have to pummel them to make sure they can withstand it, to make sure they can be trusted.
You never really know. Lately Kevin has been bothering himself with the idea that nothing is certain, nothing can be proven. Not one thing, not in all the world. The sun will rise tomorrow. Prove it. The sun rose this morning. Prove it. The sun is in the sky. Prove it. There's a sun at all. Prove it. The world is like a box of Kleenex, every doubt pulling another along behind it. You can always find a new reason to distrust the facts.
Most people desperately desire to believe that they are a part of a great mystery, that Creation is a work of grace and glory, not merely the result of random forces colliding. Yet each time that they are given but one reason to doubt, a worm in the apple of the heart makes them turn away from a thousand proofs of the miraculous, whereupon they have a drunkard's thirst for cynicism, and they feed upon despair as a starving man upon a loaf of bread.
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
Doubt has become the veritable wellspring of my creative process and my philosophic explorations. It has equipped me with the temerity and wherewithal to question certain truths deemed ‘fundamental’ by my betters. Defiance has made me stubborn—possibly even arrogant—enough to shrug off rejection and all fears thereof, no matter how lacerating to the self-esteem these could be. It has given me the will to seek only to satisfy myself.
In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings--artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers--to create order. In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption.
Doubt was a giant-sized beast with heavy boots that pounded through the cities of the mind, sparking an occasional life only so Hope could rise again for a splendid recrushing. Doubt reveled in nothing more than destroying Hope. And Hope, being immortal, lived out its days with blithe indifference to its regular obliteration. Neither cared at all about the suffering they caused: Doubt because it enjoyed suffering; Hope because it was too stupid to recognize it.
So it goes for those of us who live in a cul-de-sac, where babies are brought home from the hospital and watched over, where hearts stop and feet slip, where we wonder if there is a hidden road that leads somewhere.We believe and we doubt. Believing and doubting share the same inevitability, but they are not equal. They cannot lay the same claim on our allegiance. They do not share the same power.If there are places beyond the cul-de-sac, doubt cannot take us there.
I follow Plato only with my mindPure beauty strikes me as a little thinA little cold, however beautiful.I am in love with what is mixed and impureDoubtful, dark and hard to disencumberI want beauty I must dig for, search for.Pure beauty is beginning and not endBegin with the sun and drop from sun to cloudFrom cloud to tree, and from tree to earth itselfAnd deeper yet to the earth dark root.I am in love with what resists my lovingWith what I have to labor to make live.
He would not now conduct little Nell to the coast; he would not convey her by a steamer to Port Said, would not surrender her to Mr. Rawlinson; he himself would not fall into his father's arms and would not hear from his lips that he had acted like a true Pole! The end, the end! In a few days the sun would shine only upon the lifeless bodies and afterwards would dry them up into a semblance of those mummies which slumber in an eternal sleep in the museums in Egypt
