The Curse of Doubt
And thus the worst curse was created.
The worst curse was not a bodily affliction — not an endless growth of boils, incontinence, or sharp, unidentifiable pains in the middle of the night — but a barely audible whisper that questions everything you think. It was the curse of endless doubt.
When you think “This is A,” the second voice whispers “but is not also B?” When you decide to go up, the second voice nudges you and says “but going down is so much easier.” When you’re sure something is black, the voice chirps “but look, here, there are also tiny spots of white.”
On and on, until your voice, the first voice, is no longer certain of anything.
Your every belief and statement becomes dotted with little words like “perhaps” and “maybe,” riddled with confessions of ignorance and doubt, and fully aware of the sheer “complexity” and “subtlety” of every situation that you are asked to assess or evaluate. Under this curse, your head is no longer your own — it has been colonized by a professional doubter, hedger, and your first, original internal voice becomes a limp doormat. Firm and resolute claims to belief are of the past.
What is certainty, after all? How can anyone ever be certain of anything?
There is an upside, however — you no longer engage in debates. Or rather, you can’t sustain one for long. Your arguments dissolve into a lukewarm puddle. It’s only a matter of time, in pursuing any line of reasoning, until you stop and just marvel at the inherent and ultimate unknowability of the universe. The mysteries of the physical world, the social world, and each and every human individual — are we not little, infinite puzzles ourselves? The id and the unconscious, have and will forever reign supreme in all of our mental worlds.
So you chew on your own tail, spinning round and round again.
There is no cure for this condition.
Once the curse is cast, you have but six months after the first whisper of “but is that really so?” until you overhear yourself saying, “I think that A, but perhaps not also A, but maybe A and not A, it depends, well, how can we really ever know?”
This is a sentence structure you shall repeat, in ever more elaborate formulations, for the rest of your unknowable life. Your favorite adjective will be “subtle,” your favorite noun “nuance,” and your favorite phrase “but at the same time.”
The people around you — your classmates, colleagues, friends — will appreciate your nuanced thinking, your knack for suggesting opposing views, your openmindedness. Your presence and contributions deepen every discussion.
“I thought they said it was a curse,” you chuckle, as you glide through promotions at work, degrees in school, and referrals by your clients as a rising expert in your field. You smile to yourself. “Clearly it’s really been a blessing all along!”
But then your smile begins to fade. “Then again, I suppose it is quite annoying and tiresome to be constantly correcting myself…but when the topic at hand is as complex as this curse-blessing distinction, it is, after all, difficult to know for sure, and quite frankly, dare I say, impossible…And of course, it all depends on your perspective, doesn’t it…”
Whoever named this condition “the second voice” is a clever one indeed. For when the six months have run their course, you no longer hear two voices arguing with each other, but only one: the voice that trusts nothing, is sure of nothing, and knows nothing.
