Stay doubtful-Reflections from a conversation.

Stay doubtful

I remember Johnny we came to this expression while analyzing the role and pitfalls that self-doubt imbues onto the creative process.

Doubt can be a discouraging thing, that can try and stem the energy that propels us into action, but very much how silence works in conjunction with sound to produce rhythm, a similar process must take place in the creative process when we alternate between confidence and doubt in our own work. At least in the process I’ve come to experience, which I hope, but am not sure, all creatives share.

Doubt provides a pause, encourages a 2nd look and helps us direct our gaze to different things. It produces a certain kind of discouragement, that makes you look at your work without “beer goggles” so to speak. A lull that provides a different emotional context to our perception and can exaggerate reality to a darker shade.

One can say inspiration works similarly, but in a different direction. Inspiration can make us perceive things in a more magical and beautiful way, so it can also exaggerate reality in a similar but opposite way.

I remember we talked how one foolishly hopes to stay on the inspiration train indefinitely, as the emotional tones it provides us are far more enjoyable than the ones doubt offers us, but how staying long on this path leads to stagnation.

Thus it seems we’re equipped with an emotional compass that promotes movement and change, and that doubt plays a key role in this. Personally I can’t ride the hype train long before my emotions start reacting to its complacency, throwing me off and I start doubting. It may be that inspiration is renewed by these spells of doubt.

There seems to be different things that concur inside this doubting phase, some I believe help us refine our creative voice, but at the same time these can actually stifle it if we indulge in them too much. Inside this phase, there’s a lot of comparing going around. Comparison with your own previous work and with the work of others. There’s a lot of expectations as well, of what we’ve come to expect from ourselves, what type of outcome we would like, etc.

I’ve found true beautiful gems inside these phases that propel me into creative action, but it can hurt and we must take care not to hurt to deep. So far, I have avoided getting lost in these phases mainly by keep working at my craft regardless of the phase I’m in. Action provokes action. This seems to keep the wheels turning and allows me to not linger much in doubt.

Other things I have started to understand, is that all the insecurities we experience during doubt, are actually hiding useful facts about ourselves. If we fear something, it’s because we care about something, so focusing on the caring part can allow me to assimilate it. If I’m comparing myself with others, then there’s something I truly appreciate in someone else’s work and if I focus on that (instead of the differences) I can learn something new about my interests and passions.

A constant alternation between finding your voice, to feeling you’ve lost it, only to afterwards realize you never lost it, and so on.....

I can't say for sure, how much of this we discussed and how much of this I continued musing about after our conversation. Perhaps we both continued the conversation in our own way, exploring the concept further, blurring the lines between experience (the conversation) and thought (the consequent musings).

Andres Gonzalez