doubt is good

Funnily enough I was having a conversation yesterday with a friend about the joy of doubt and how it leaves you open to new ideas and fresh insights, and then vincent t left a comment on my blog, so I checked out his, and found this quote:

Existence is frail and changeable. It is always unpredictable and full of doubt. But this doubt need not be negative. If all things were known about our lives much of the magic would be gone. Doubt brings with it the element of surprise, of continual newness. Sensitive and intelligent people are always full of doubt. They see it as a positive influence for spontaneity and continued growth. It is the element of uncertainty that adds the spice to living. How different life would be if we could predict tomorrow with moment-to-moment accuracy. How dull would be our world. How soon we would lose interest, cease dreaming, become bored. But life is not like that. It is always full of questions. It shows us dramatically that we can be certain of nothing. We cannot be sure of what the next moment will bring. This causes most of us to spend a large portion of our lives engaged in worrying about possible outcomes, most of which are beyond our control. It doesn't seem to matter that much of what we worry about never seems to happen anyway... we continue to choose to worry.

(excerpt from Personhood by Leo F. Buscaglia, PhD.)

What an excellent quote, it sums it up beautifully. Very Taoist, I thought - the Tao Te Ching advises the reader to go with the flow and not try to organise everything. PL Travers makes a similar point in What the Bee Knows - that only by embracing the unknown can we truly experience the numinous. And Joseph Campbell made the same point with regard to serendipity - fortuitous events will occur only if we make space for them in our lives.

I also like it when I have a ocnversation about something, and then stumble upon something relevant to it quite by chance - a nice instance of synchronicity.