There are many things I can write, many things I can say, and yet, I sit here, fingers chipping away at my keyboard. Every thought, every feeling, comes up blank. My mind, an ever-active string of thoughts, seems to have screeched to a halt. And I begin to wonder, will I ever truly reach an audience, not just now, but in the future? Will my writing ever rival that of the greats? Shakespeare, Martin, Tolkien, Orwell, hell, I’d even settle for Hawthorne (though I hope my books are never compared to the torture that was the Scarlet Letter). These names and many more ring within every writer's mind. No matter how hard we strive to rival them, to overcome them, there will always be that doubt. “Am I better? Am I worse? Where do I stack in the grand history of all those who came before me?"
These thoughts are nothing new to me or anyone else. Every one wonders how they stack up to those who came before. Anyone striving for something hopes to become the best. No athlete sets out to be second, they want to be first! No artist sets out to be average, or just good enough, they want to be the greatest. To achieve their maximum potential, and yet those names always hang over people’s heads; the very names who influenced and changed the fields they strive within. Artists look to Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and many more. Even a man as great as Julius Caesar would have wondered if he could ever live up to the legendary Alexander the Great.
Every one of those thoughts is natural. We are always in an ever-extending competition with the past. Always striving to reach the legends and then outdo them, and in turn, take our seat as a legend ourselves. And yet, by giving into those doubts, we begin a losing battle. To say “I’ll never be as good, or grand as…” insert any name you wish. It doesn’t matter what name you list, you have lost. Doubt begets either two things; action or inaction. If you doubt yourself and are moved to prove the doubt wrong, then you will work, strive, and one day, achieve. And yet, if that doubt leads you to spirals of more doubt, and all you do is slump down and bemoan the monolith of past legends towering before you, you will never strive to climb that tower and sit at the top.
At the end of the day, doubt is not inherently a bad thing. It can push you to move, to prove that the doubt is wrong, that you are good enough, and that you are capable of improving. It can also shove you into inaction. Every day, I wonder, "Will I ever be good enough?" And every day, I come up with the answer, “no,” and in turn, I push my laptop aside, look at the ceiling, and stare. No one can tell by looking, but deep down, I am a perfectionist. I want to do everything perfectly, and if I can’t, I don’t see the point in doing it at all. Why? If it’s not the best I can do, then what’s the point? The point is that nothing, not one thing, in life is ever going to turn out perfect. A piece of art, a novel, anything you can think of that you can create, there will always be a lingering of doubt. I’ve grown tired of letting doubt push me into inaction, become more than just bored of the monotony of life. I will never be as great as those who came before, but I will use them, use their influence, to better my own writing. And one day, I will sit from atop the tower, a memorial of a time past, for other writers to look up toward. To wonder toward, and strive to reach. The time of inaction is over, the time of doubt only just begun, but I will use that doubt to climb and not fall anymore.
