The Missing Ingredient

Much effort goes into the development of a being.  First, there is the issue of deciding what the being wants.  Dreams lay the groundwork for making those decisions but more often than not the dreams seem to form from out in left field.  It must be understood that what I am writing is autobiographical and it is hoped that it may be of some value to others in reaching some understanding of why and how.

My dreams have come from a variety of places, none seem to have been all that premeditated.  The big ones, sailing, ships, horses, Dale Carnegie instructor, manager in a large company, using digital technology, dancing, traveling the world, especially Europe, a business, a house, and now acting, all came from out of nowhere.  A possibility is that they are leftovers from previous lives.

All of them were sourced internally.  Then developed through reading about similar activities, not of others but fiction and nonfiction sources.  These are what embellish the dream, make it seem like it can be achieved.

And, while all of that is important, now I want to dwell on the realization of the dream and what it takes to do that.  There is a developmental period through which one goes as he sets out to realize a dream.  Often starting from just a dream, a statement parsed as, "I want to..." and then thinking, studying, discussing, seeing and taking the necessary steps, identifying the required skills, practicing them, and patiently doing the work.

Along the way, one reaches a point where he knows that he has the capability but lacks the ability to perform successfully.  This is when he must reach an understanding of the skills required, hone that knowledge into the basic parameters of performing, and practice those skills until they are part of him.

This having been done, he reaches a point where mental discipline is required to reach new, and better, performance levels.  And that starts with the rules.  Every endeavor, be it a career, a sport, or a hobby comes with a set of rules.  Following the rules is a matter of integrity and it takes a certain mental discipline to do so.  And the more skilled one becomes in an endeavor, the more important it is to have the mental discipline to follow the rules.  

Then there are aphorisms that describe the way one lives his daily life.  While these are not rules, they are guidelines upon which one can rely to make decisions on how to react to what is happening around him.  Keeping them in mind, perhaps not in the forefront but always there as a framework for actions, is a big part of mental discipline.

Distractions are what take us away from disciplined action and there are several that are described in the Fourth Way and once reading the descriptions, they become readily apparent.  Recognizing them and stopping them in their tracks is also an aspect of mental discipline. In the Fourth Way, mental discipline can be seen as being present, being awake, and being aware instead of our normal state of being asleep (distracted).

One can only develop attention in increments.  It can start with a few moments of concentrated effort on a skill and build to a more sustained amount of time.  It seems that a good target for practicing, and otherwise being involved in a skill, is twenty minutes.  And even this may be difficult to achieve at first, but it is a target.  Once achieved, it can be expanded to whatever time is comfortable.

When successfully employing mental discipline, realizing one's dreams becomes a full-time job.  Just like learning a skill, it can only be developed through practice.  It is not quite the same, however, as the skills to which were we referred above, but practice through realizing when one is, and is not, paying attention to the fulfillment of dreams.

Analogies

 It is interesting to me that we use analogies to help us understand, as in, "sweet as a rose."  For me, the two grand analogies of life are stage and baseball.  In theater, from first read to strike.  In baseball, from Spring training to the last game of the season.  

For both, it is in the myriad of activities that takes place.  Both are "life" as it happens to someone else, often for our enjoyment.  And we learn as we watch, if we watch intelligently.

Electronics, the Internet, and Us (a fable)

Once upon a time, there was a family consisting of a mother and father and some children.  The parents, in thinking they were being kind and loving, provided everything the children needed and wanted, even to the point of tending to their hygiene, dressing them, cutting their meat, feeding them their meals,  and keeping them indoors because they thought they would be safer inside.

The parents, unfortunately, were killed in a freak accident and the children were left on their own to fend for themselves.  It was catastrophic for them.

(Faced with the requirement to find the square root of 123456789 without a calculator, or die, most people would die.)

Enormous Truth

 

In the New Testament is the sentence, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) This is the same author that gave us: "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God." 

Both of these set me off into a maelstrom of thought about what we think of as the truth.  Every civilization for more than 5000 years has had its version of "the truth" and even today there are many versions of the truth: Christian sects, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the way of the monk, the priest, the yoga, and the Fourth Way, plus others.  And there is a trap in each.  

The trap is when the follower of a teaching takes it as the truth without question, without reservation.  We, individually, are like passengers on an ocean ship.  Everything is fine until the ship sinks, and we are afloat on the open ocean.

While the ship was sailing along, we were quite content.  The captain and crew seemed qualified, the accommodations were good, the food was good, and the company was likewise compatible.  The all of a sudden, poof, it was gone, and we were left to make it on our own.  We are lost because relied on what was told to us by others who thought they knew the truth.

There is a distinct possibility that they didn't know the truth, even though they sincerely thought they did.  Same for all of those before, and until now, who preach that what they think is the truth.

Oh, there is truth alright, we just don't know what it is yet.

The truth may be so enormous that we cannot comprehend it.  The Earth, a collective noun, is a good example.  There is so much to it that no one person really understands it.  There are many disciplines of science that deal with it, such as Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc., yet no one person can comprehend the Earth in its entirety, and more is discovered about it every day.  It is the same for God, another collective noun.

What was thought to be the truth turns out to be not quite the truth.  The same can be said for religions.  All three of the Indian blind men were telling the truth as they felt the elephant.

Uncanny Signs

 

During our sojourn in France, my wife and I took a road trip from Chantilly, near Paris and Charles De Gaulle Airport, to the extreme west of France.  We saw the beaches and cemetery at Normandy, and Mont St. Michel.  It was a full day of driving and late when we started back.

My wife is the adventurous type when setting out but loses her confidence and tends to panic when things deteriorate.  So, when it got late and dark, and the roads were unfamiliar and not marked very well, she was getting nervous and concerned that we were lost.

Then the headlights picked up a small, roadside sign, concrete, shaped like an arrow pointing straight up, and crossed with a simple rectangle that said, "Chantilly."  This in the most out-of-the-way place in France.  It restored my confidence that we were going the right way, not necessarily hers, and we continued through the night back to our apartment in Chantilly.

To this day, I'm not sure that the sign even existed.  I saw it, but it was such a rudimentary sign, not official looking at all, weathered and faded, but it said, "Chantilly" and pointed ahead.  (This could be a Twilight Zone episode.)

Now, similar little things happen all the time, mostly with YouTube.  There will be a suggestion and it burrows into my psyche such that I'll try whatever and see how it goes.  

One of these was to take a combination of a drop of lemon juice and a tablespoon of olive oil before eating anything in the morning.  Another was to flatten my back against the wall and do a quarter squat to tone the muscles that control posture.

These are two that I now do routinely.  The olive oil for more than a year and the quarter squat for a few weeks.  They seem to have come onto my radar at the right time.  They' were both beneficial and the clips were not seen again after the one time.

Another, much earlier occasion of a resonant message, was when an engineering cohort said offhandedly, "Now you'll be wearing a suit every day."  This on the occasion of my transfer to a management position in the main office.  

I think I would have figured that out for myself anyway, but his remark hit home somehow, and the suits came off the rack, and home with me, one at a time over the next few months.  And that's all I wore to work for the next 30 years.

I'm not saying anything supernatural is going on.  I am, however, saying that there are, in the thousands of impressions we get every day, some that resonate with us.  Some few carry a message for which we are ready.

The Interface

 

Jeff Hawkins and Max Tegmark, two prominent authors in the field of artificial intelligence, examine the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence in their respective books.  Both of them suggest that the extant brain be somehow be uploaded to a digital artificial intelligence device.  Then the resultant intelligence would be immortal for as long as the device was maintained and workable.  It is their conception of immortality.

This scenario has so many holes in it, it could be used to strain the spaghetti from the boiling water.  While I don't argue the possibility of artificial intelligence becoming an integral part of our daily life, much the same as network devices that we hold in our hand are now, the idea that a manufactured device would replace the human psyche is a bit far-fetched.  There are emotions and dreams that are closely linked to a spiritual world.  A world that both of these fine thinkers don't recognize as even existing.

This is where I think they are wrong. 

There is, however, a middle-ground that very possibly could come to be.  A bio-digital interface between our brain and the assembled store of knowledge that exists on the computers of the world.  An interface that would enable those in whom it is installed to access that store and do all that we are now able to do using our thoughts instead of our voices, hearing, and fingers.  And possibly able to do much more.

Data and information could be added to "the store" as it evolves in the thoughts of the users.  "The store" would be updated by new information as it becomes available.  It is the Wikipedia concept using interfaced human brains as an input device. 

Tegmark, with his bottomless imagination, could write another book using this concept.  My imagination is somewhat limited by my lack of patience, but I can readily see the possibilities of such a scenario.

It also follows that the combined efforts of the sources of digital innovation are already hard at work to build such an interface.  We do it now with our voices and fingertips, we get the output into our minds using our eyes and ears.  Bypassing these would be a great leap forward.

The generation of people that are now pre-teen are imbued with screens and speakers, with phones and computers, with all the data and programs for its use, stored in "the cloud."  The generation following them may have a bio-digital interface implant that will exponentially increase their mental capacities.

Then there may be a great divide, those with the implant and those without.  A divide greater than any cultural, racial or religious divide that we now have.

The bio-digital interface is the next major step in our evolution.  History and our current mental capacity are reaching the point where there is just too much for an individual to have "in mind" so access to it all through a bio-digital interface is the answer.  With it, I could sit here and have philosophy, music, art, literature, history, any and all of the sciences, languages, and my family history come to mind with a proper query.  I could add to "the store" whenever I thought it was proper to do so.

It's big!

Now the thought occurs that we may already be equipped with such an interface.  Not with a digital network but a mental network of biological brains linked to a spiritual world.  The only difficulty is, we don't know how to access it or use it.

Sometimes, we accidentally do and one of those serendipitous events occurs but for the most part we don't understand, or know, how to intentionally do it.  It may be that we stumbled upon it with something we call prayer.

I know there is a spiritual world that influences us in a variety of ways an on a variety of levels.  How to interface and interact with that world is not something I know.

What Will Be Said?

 

The ancient Egyptian culture recognized a spiritual existence as demonstrated through mummification and sending along items for everyday comfort, even mummifying pets for the departed.  Well, from our vantage point 2000 years later we can see it all seems a bit ridiculous.  Yet this belief system was in vogue from 3100 BC to 30 BC; more than three thousand years.  What will be said of Christianity and Islam two thousand years from now? 

In 323 AD, a council of learned religious leaders met in Nicaea and codified Christianity, that was 300 years after the fact, after the principals lived.  It would be as though today, in 2022, a group of theologians got together and gathered texts from the Bible, the Koran, and maybe some from Buddhist and Hindu scripture and delivered a new set of religious doctrine as would have been expounded by the Great Enlightenment of 1700 (or so).  It isn't far-fetched, it happened then and it could again.  The results would be the same as that of the Egyptians, reasonable, logical, consoling but not at all the way it really is.

The truth is, we don't know the truth.  And perhaps we can't handle the truth.  John 8:32:  You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.  We don't and we're not.

Homogenization

 

Marketing uses media, be it television, radio, or print, to manipulate thinking and attempts to influence actions.  We are urged to try, buy, and favorably look upon things that they are promoting.  To wit: count the number of alcoholic drinks in a TV drama, watch old movies and notice the incessant smoking, purveyors pay a lot of money to have their product displayed and used in a movie or TV show.  All of these subtleties are there to influence our acceptance of the idea. 

Lately, there is a subtle, yet profound, influence being peddled, i.e., the homogenization of Americans.  There is a disproportionate representation of inter-racial coupling in the advertising and program content that we see.  One can only wonder what the source is of this initiative. There is a movement on to racially homogenize the American population.

None of this happens accidentally, none of these ads and programs inadvertently contain racially mixed couples, they are being paid to do so and show them as if they were the majority of couples out there.   Someone is behind this.  Someone, or group, is paying for it.  There is a movement on to racially homogenize the American population.

There are many examples of racially mixed couples but not to the extent of what is seen in media nowadays.  One could back this statement with statistics if the time was taken to do so but it would only verify what is being seen.  There is a movement on to racially homogenize the American population.

Who's behind this?  Who is the wizard behind the curtain?  

Daylight Savings Time et al

In the USA, we changed our clocks on Sunday, March 13 at 2AM, to one hour later; two o’clock became three o’clock.  It demonstrates that clocks are a tool that we use to guide our actions. We have harnessed the passing of the present to allow a reference.  It is only for us because everything else doesn’t really care.

Often, I have mused on this, so I won’t belabor the point here.  It does, however, bear notice.  And now I am into it.  Without the clock, we would never be on time.  Without it, the past would be forgotten.  We would live in the present and not be concerned with the future.    It is sad to think that we would not be aware of the rich and wonderful history that has been recorded.  Lifetimes would, in all probability, be shorter and, perhaps, a lot less productive.  Things would not get done unless there was a clear and imminent danger.

The clock has made a big difference for us and a close relative of it is the calendar, sort of a daily clock.  We humans finally figured it out and described it mathematically in terms of days, weeks, months, year and the quadrennial leap year.  What we use has been unchanged since 1582, a reference that couldn’t be made without it.

 Along that timeline there have been only a few proposed changes, e.g., the French, at the time of their revolution, proposed a different calendar but is was short-lived because the rest of the world said no.  So, perfect or not, it is what we use and in so doing we have consistency and this is important for now, then, and ever.

Going larger; the planet Earth is host to life.  As far as we know, from our vantage point on it, it is the only such place.  It may be unique in the universe.  The conditions required for life exist hereon in a band from the deepest trench in the ocean to the highest peak, a band of about 13 miles on a radius of about 4,000 miles.  The orbit around the sun is just the right distance to provide temperatures between -50 degrees Celsius to +50 degrees.  The axis is tilted to allow for large areas to experience life supporting seasonal changes. These conditions and the following  are essential for it to exist.   

The Earth and its moon, now thought to be the result of a planetary collision between two precursors, are locked in orbit.  The moon is in an almost north-south orbit around the Earth that causes oceanic tides, and to a minor extent land tides, that prevent stagnation.  Then there’s the atmosphere that is constantly in flux caused by thermal influences and barometrical fluctuation, which also cause a variety of conditions, always changing.

Going deeper, the planet has a fractured crust that floats on a core of molten material that ranges from a mixture of minerals to iron.  Because it is molten, i.e., plastic, the fractured pieces of crust are in continuous motion allowing their relative positions to change, even with some rising above and diving below each other.  All of this likewise adds to the ever changing, never stagnating, nature of the Earthly environment.  

Life continues in this everchanging habitat and just maybe because of it.  It changes according to a set of reproductive rules that cannot be broken. In this living band, there is enough latitude to allow for evolution and, therefore, changes to biological species. Evolving according to that set of reproductive rules.

And when things get too far out of kilter, a cataclysm occurs to “reset” the stage for the next “act.”  The question may be asked, have humans become such a danger to the planet that a reset might occur?  Don’t say no, it happened to much of life about 16 million years ago.

So, for all of this to happen accidentally is a bit of a stretch.  Ergo a guiding intelligence must be in play; eternal, omniscient, and not governed by mathematics or other physical relationships but at the same time respecting them and never violating them because he/it established these relationships to provide physical harmony.  He/it uses them to affect change and uses all that exists in the physical world to carry out his/its will.  So yes there is a spiritual realm that is intimately involved with life.

So, You Want to be a Star

 

I

Accomplishment has at least six distinct levels of achievement: Skill, Job, Riches, Awards, Medals, and Stardom.

Skill relates to the assimilation of knowledge and enough formative practice that one can perform the endeavor with confidence when performing alone or in a controlled environment, such as a lab or class.  The activities at this level lead to assimilation of the knowledge and techniques necessary to perform the endeavor satisfactorily.

Job is an acid test of the endeavor.  It relates to the willingness and continuing interest to pursue it, rain or sunshine, good times and bad, in times of growth and sideways plodding, and commitment to it for the fulfillment of obligations either to others or to self.

Riches relates to being able to perform the endeavor at a level of proficiency that produces profit.  This refers to being well paid for performance in the marketplace.  Activities at this level relate to the practical application of the skill in a journeyman-like manner that results in utility for which others are willing to pay.

          Awards is where the performer demonstrates his skill to objective others who are superior and knowledgeable in what the endeavor entails and can pass judgment on the performance.  The activities at this level result in achieving a level of performance that is recognized as superior when judged against the accepted standards and norms for the endeavor.

          Medals is the level where the performer is better when compared to others in competition.  The immediate example is sports but it also relates to being successful in auditions, publishing, negotiating, anywhere that the performer rises above other practitioners of the same skill.  The activities at this level relate to building the confidence necessary to compete against other performers who are likewise seeking superiority.

          Stardom is when a wider audience who appreciates his achievement acclaims the performer; an audience who understands what top performance is and acclaims it when they see it.  Activities at this level relate to earning the adulation of people who vicariously participate in the performer’s success.

 

 

II

The relationship of effort (x axis) to accomplishment (y axis) within each level can be plotted as a curve that is asymptotic to a line representing perfection for each level.  Progress through each of these levels is an end in itself.  Since the amount of effort required to reach perfection is infinite, there is a point/ region/ place/ time/ level of achievement where the increase in level is so slight compared to effort that further pursuit of perfection in the endeavor becomes futile. 

Being aware of approaching a level of futility is critical; it requires decision.  One can continue to (a) accomplish with incrementally more effort, (b) abandon the endeavor, or (c) decide to move to the next level.  For example, as the performer approaches futility at the Skill level, he can choose to continue for the fun of it, as a hobby, or go on to the Job level.  If he should choose to go on there is a step function change in the pursuit of the endeavor where he is no longer working to hone his skill but now to earn and make a profit from the application of it.  This has a totally different complexion than the Skill level. 

 This same step function change occurs at each level of futility.  Each new level is built on the previous and some effort has to be spent revisiting those levels to assure that the basic skills haven’t been lost unless they have become obsolete and no longer required. 

One may find he is going in completely different directions from one level to another.  I am reminded of the comic actor who realized a degree of stardom as such, yet his skill was playing the marimba.  In the beginning there was the marimba and in the end there was this clown.  The endeavor turned out to be Performing. A marimba player became a clown because being a clown allowed him to reach stardom in his endeavor, to perform.

III

The movement from one level of accomplishment to another is a process and not a single event.  Innovation is utilized repeatedly to envision desired results and how to accomplish them until the details are sufficiently described to be realized.  A clear and vivid vision of what that is, and what it entails, is fundamental so all of the required personal resources can be focused on the effort.  The vision will never be perfect; it must be made and refined. One can continually refine the vision as he becomes more aware of what it takes to reach this, or the next, level of the endeavor

This vision, no matter how incomplete and unrealistic, is the starting point and it needs to be written because writing requires and records thought processes and allows review and revision.  Then it can be formulated into terse statements that allow one to be quickly reminded of what he is trying to accomplish.

IV

There are different strategies employed as one makes progress through the various levels.  Three that seem obvious are the puzzle, which relates to the rules and framework of an endeavor; the game, achieving successful results within those rules and framework; and the dance, moving in prescribed motions to produce desired results.

 

V

Underlying all of this theory is the discipline required to DO IT, and if failing to succeed, regroup and DO IT again, this time more effectively.   Directed activity is the force of accomplishment.  The best laid plans are for naught unless followed by action.

 

Sans Doute

 The challenge is to have certainty replace doubt and do it earlier in the process in order to avoid the angst that occurs during practice and rehearsal sessions.  I perform well after practice, hard work, and rehearsal. 

Certainty stems from confidence which can be gained through practicing skills and recalling good performances.  Skills can be identified, analyzed, and developed systematically.  Then with the confidence of being able to consistently “make the shot,” one can be certain of his ability at all times, sans doute.

I have written so many words about so many topics and wonder what a 3^rd party objective observer would conclude about them.  I am not even going to take a stab at it.  There are, however, recurring themes, one of which is an engrained sense of doubt which results in fear of not performing to the standards of the other(s).  It is irrational but there just the same.

And here I am 82 going on 83, and even after having realized this for many years, this is one I haven’t been able to slough off or change, until now perhaps.  I masquerade it; often by being in disparate groups of people and exhibit behavior that promotes the reputation of being a proven player in another group.

The sad part of it is that everyone else perceives a person as he feels about himself.  They pick up on these subtleties and, without expressing anything, react to him in accord with those feelings.  If others see one as doubting his ability, they may also.

Doubt occurs during the preparation phase, the skill practice, which often underlines the need for the practice, and rehearsals prior to performance. All of my doubt disappears when I take the stage.  And I use "take the stage" euphemistically for any time I am expected to take the fore.

From where then does this feeling of doubt originate?  It could come from growing up where and when I did; the influence of mother, father, and to some extent my sister; the influence of authority figures at school and church, and other places; the influence of friends and peers; experiences of failures in life.  And there may be many other sources.

Now I am beginning to see something!  All the while I have it in mind to do “it,” whatever “it” is, I doubt that I’ll be able to do it.  I feel awkward, clumsy, incoherent, a complete ass.  And when it is over, I see that it was the opposite, an accomplishment of which to be proud.  All the while I am practicing or rehearsing, and even sometimes while playing, I’m doubting my ability, it is as if I’m losing but then I win.

Another aspect of this doubt is the distractions into which I dissolve.  They include TV, games, surfing, spectating, driving around aimlessly, for a few of the major distractions.  These are ways of mentally escaping a life situation at hand but often they are to allay figuring out what to do to improve the performance. If my attention is on one of them, I am not doubting me and I am avoiding performance.

So, we have two main manifestations of doubt: preparation and distraction.  The former is a trip into the mire, the latter is avoiding it.

I am now in the position of “Physician, heal thyself.”  While I can see that I can deal with the distractions by recognizing them for what they are and diverting my actions towards progress towards a goal.  Doubt, however, is like the tide.  Should I attempt finding the source of it? Or should I accept it as a permanent circumstance, much like the tide.

Using this tidal analogy, one could build emotional dikes and levees in an attempt to contain the flood but these would require construction, maintenance and repair with the ever-present possibility of a breach.  A breach which in all probability would occur at the most inopportune time, a time where the emotional price is high.  It would seem if I could disarm the reaction somehow that it would be resolved permanently.  I may have to reach out to someone for help here; I wonder if my counselor is still out there?

What is the genesis of the feelings of doubt?

The pastor was surreptitiously holding tryouts for the choir; we were in 1^st or 2^nd grade.  It came my turn.  I croaked out a sound that even surprised me as to how bad it was.  Meanwhile, I’d been in the front pews of the church, closest to the choir, and imagined that at least one of the fine voices that I was hearing was mine.  My surprise and disappointment were profound.

Then there are the photos of me as I was growing into adulthood.  My image of me was completely different from the photographic evidence, devastating.

 I have had my share of erroneous self-images.  And I think this doubt may be a leftover set of emotional responses to any portending trip into the spotlight.  There is an unresolved doubt about me and my capabilities in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.  It is like the guy who got hit by a pitch and now has to fight flinching when he is at bat.

Can my older psyche be convinced that I am past all of that?  That I have more than made up for my previous gaffs?  I know intellectually that I am not Mr. Natural, or Wonderful; that I need to work hard to practice and rehearse skills that don’t come to me naturally.  And I must add, there are scant few that do.  I know that when I apply myself to the situation at hand, planning the project, solving the problem, the issue, that I am successful nearly 100% of the time.

Then there are the failures.  Each ended and were painful to endure as they were unfolding.  These were more than mistakes, with which one can deal as it occurs.  The failures occurred when I missed the point entirely and suffered the consequences for it: There were three failures in my professional career.

All of them were hard on me emotionally and there was a common thread that ran through all of them: not seeing the forest for the trees.  Focusing on the minutiae of the situation and not having a guiding dream or aim for it.  Perhaps because I doubted my chance of success.

The missing ingredient in all of my failures was not understanding what the possibilities were for the situation and not getting guidance and perspective from others.  My sensitivity to being seen as not knowing, or not being clever and smart enough to figure it out, was too great for me to overcome so I tended to figure it out for myself; not always successfully.

At Newport News Shipbuilding and my twenty-two years of successful performance there, I was proactive and even, at times, groomed for jobs.  Yet, I didn’t go to anyone for help in figuring out what to do and when.  Often a boss would give me a terse commandment, such as "Don't ever reverse a profit" and I lived by them.  In retrospect this was a good thing for me at the time.  I relied on independently thinking through situations because I didn’t want to be perceived as not smart enough to figure it out for myself.  The success of independently thinking contributed to my later failures when I needed a better understanding of the big picture and I wouldn't ask for it.

Now, it is the audition, the rehearsal, the dialogue, the direction, the perceived opinion others in the cast and the director that lead to a gnawing doubt of my ability to perform.  Strangely, this same gnawing doubt disappears when I perform.  All of the doubt and imagined perceptions of others finally resolve in performance.  It’s just the way it is.  Before I have to perform, the doubt that I have of my ability is emotionally debilitating.  Perhaps now that I understand it better, I can deal with it more rationally; I think so.