They are an indetermination of the mood, a hesitation.
Doubts.
A perpetual hesitancy that has increased with age, hence this reflection.
They say that “when in doubt, abstain”, but I think it would be more appropriate to say, “when in doubt, ask”, because doubt, without a doubt, despite the redundancy, is an instrument for finding certainties and the basic unit of true knowledge.
I believe that, in these times of informational and misinformation noise, doubting is even healthy and the first step to exercise that forgotten muscle, good judgment.
It is not that my current and senile doubts are existential or philosophical, like that methodical doubt of Descartes that led him to his famous cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). I no longer ask myself: Who am I? It’s a little late for that. And, if I ask myself, where am I going? It’s because the GPS failed me. Also, as my husband said, when I finally decide on something, I do the exact opposite.
At a certain age I believe it is no longer so relevant to find safe, tangible or factual truths, but on the contrary, I believe it is even pleasant to live in a state of perennial doubt, challenging and debating multiple alternatives to be epically wrong or gloriously right.
Looking back, I can only identify a single circumstance in my life where I did not have the slightest doubt. The glorious moment when I succumbed to the incandescence of my great love. That which, even in physical absence, left my soul in a state of truth and splendor.
For the rest, today I live in my little domestic dilemmas, doubting even the very act of doubting.
Wine or beer? Cake or ice cream? Book or movie?
No matter how trivial my hesitations may be, I always try to increase my knowledge and enrich my external and internal world.
In the end, I conclude that, if I had doubts before, now, I don’t know.
Leonor Henríquez (Caracas, Venezuela) Civil Engineer by training (UCAB 1985), writer and apprentice poet by vocation. From her time in engineering emerged her Office Stories (1997), another way of seeing the corporate world. Her latest publications include reflections on grief, Hopecrumbs (2020) (www.hopecrumbs.com) and “The Adventures of Chispita” (2021) (www.chispita.ca) an allegory of life inside Mom’s belly.
Today she shares her “impulsive meditations” from Calgary, Canada, where she lives.
leonorcanada@gmail.com