doubt
in a scene in conclave (2025) a cardinal starts addressing other cardinals by reading from something he prepared earlier. it's straightforward and serious, and it is written in latin. he stops and takes off his glasses, and says to them, 'but you know all that,' then he starts speaking to them 'from the heart.'
he speaks of saint paul telling the ephesians to be subject to one another out of reverence for christ. he goes on for a moment, and says,'there is one sin which i have come to fear above all others. certainty. certainty is the great enemy of unity. certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. even christ was not certain at the end. my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? he cried out in his agony in his ninth hour on the cross. our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. if there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith..'
in the past few months i have had momentum build. a stone rolling and gathering sediments until it becomes a big rock. an idea fleshing itself out till it is almost tangible, then a whisper of doubt creeps in and weakens it, and i don't try to save it because i knew anyway, because i was certain it would not work out. i knew the doubt would come, i knew something would come up, i knew the idea would remain an idea, and it would shatter. i would be left with a persistent sense of guilt, a bit of shame, and sometimes inertia.
i have began to do things in spite of this doubt, and it has been great. the hardest part is starting, and when i start i wonder why it was hard. was it just laziness? cowardice? i have tried, and i am no longer interested in naming it. i have began to see doubt not as a force to be resisted, but as something that can just exist. if i focus on it, it fills up my field of vision. if i leave it as it is, i can write a one shot about a boy buying hot rice and stew or a girl killing a small animal. what i am saying is, i am learning not to catastrophize. i am learning to do things anyway. i am learning that inertia can grow and fill you up, and the best course of action is to forge ahead regardless. the sun will rise tomorrow, there is no need to worry about the quality of something that does not exist. making it is more than half the work. there is forever to spend on refinements. i can walk with doubt. i can work with doubt without letting it take up so much space and leading me to baseless assumptions.