The Bogeyman of Doubt

Doubt. It is a very strange concept that is often neglected and taken for granted. We assume we know the meaning of doubt without ever plummeting the depths of its significance. I find that a lot of words in our language, and other languages for that matter, signify a state of things where a certain material is lacking rather than the actual presence of particles, matter, or other mana. In simplified terms, certain words are devoted to expressing a state of absence. For example, cold is the absence of heat. Misery the absence of happiness. Then the absence of now. Death the absence of life.

Similarly, Is doubt an actual element? Or the absence of hope? Heraclitus and Parmenides said that the world is made up of counterparts. If so, then doubt is an element juxtaposing and contrasting hope. But such abstract philosophies make me wonder about other assumed opposites and their existence versus a simple lack thereof. Opposites have always perplexed me. Does everything have an opposite? If so what is the opposite of 13? What is the opposite of wood? Of rigor mortis? Maybe opposites are only adjectival, like fat and skinny, big and small, hungry and full.

Does darkness exist or is it merely the absence of light? Is there a particle of darkness? If so then it would be physically possible to invent a mechanism, a de-light bulb, that released this particle of darkness and obfuscated the vicinity; an invention that makes everything dark just as a freezer makes everything cold. I'm not sure how air conditioning works, but does it create and release frigid air or does it merely extract heat and disperse air free of warmth? There is a difference between the production of element X and the isolation of element Y producing effect X. A parallel is the belief in silence as an object unto itself or silence being the state effected by of a lack of sound.

So is doubt the absence of hope, or a particle of its own? Does doubt exist? Or do we feel doubt when hope has gone on sabbatical? If hope exists but doubt does not, what ostracizes hope, pushes it to the perimeter? What alienates hope? What moves it to the outskirts? Personal psyche? An unseen force? The devil?

If doubt is in fact a physical product, what produces it and what attracts it? Why do we doubt when all evidence points to the contrary? Is there a logical equation for hope and a logical equation for doubt? What adheres particles of doubt to our person? More importantly, why are we afraid of that which can make us happy? Why do we often push away that very thing which we desire? Did Freud or William James or Watson or Skinner ever address this issue? I think not.

In conclusion, remain skeptical. The world doesn't always make sense. And neither do the world's pawns.