Does Doubt have any positive uses?
Sometimes it seems that doubt is a totally negative experience with no redeeming qualities. Certainly, it can be so. But.
This post is a follow-up to the original posts The Courage of Doubt and The Use of Doubt.
What is the use of doubt?
However, there is great power and strength in doubt. It depends on how it is used I would say.
I mention that those who wish to control our behaviors, such as political or religious leaders, or those who wish to influence us like those in advertising, all have the tools, and the means and opportunity, to harness our naturally occuring doubt to weaken our individual strength. But it does not need to happen that way.
When we take the focus of doubt from ourselves, onto the world around us, we start to have the tools to understand how doubt can be of great utility in our lives. This takes great courage. Once we accept that the courage of our doubt is at the core of our vitality, we have the solid ground from which to look outward.
We look at the world and ask ourselves, “What Is This?” We are not seeking an answer. Answers can short circuit inquiry, Staying within the question allows us continued investigation, with an ever-widening perspective on perceiving the world.
One of the pitfalls to avoid when engaging with doubt is to understand that the use of doubt involves foregoing quick and simple conclusions. It might be tempting to seek a snap determination, for example, as to why someone behaved in a certain way. Those may be interesting thought exercises, but that is not the point of the use of doubt.
The purpose of the use of doubt is to keep the question open. The question is more often than not more important than any answers. By staying within the question, more and more layers of observation can be available to us, and more and layers of conditioning can wither way.
So we see that doubt can allow us to free ourselves from the conditioning that affects us. This conditioning is all about how we were trained to view the world culturally, politically, economically, religiously, and so on. We normally rarely think about this conditioning, but at its essence, it usually defines us. But it limits us. So doubt can be a mechanism to free ourselves from the bonds of conditioning.
Open
If we keep our eyes and mind open, and watch and see, using doubt as the question “What Is This?”, then we have the tools to investigate the world as it is. We want to see the world as it is, not as we were told it is, not as some leader wishes us to see it as, but as it truly is. By using doubt, and the question “What Is This?”, and keeping our awareness wide and all-encompassing, we are ready to perceive.
We do not ask this question to find reasons, we do not aim to uncover motivations, we are not judging, we are not categorizing, we are not sorting or classifying, we are not grading or characterizing. We are simply looking and watching, and seeing. There is no goal. Our openness to everything is everything.
Do you use doubt? How do you use doubt? Let me know here.
The illustration entitled “Calendar scene for September: Ploughing, sowing and harrowing. (Below): playing with marbles and stilts.” is from The Golf Book, from 1520-1530, Bruges, The Netherlands. Courtesy The British Library.
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