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.