I went to see a play in the Abbey last week. It was called Doubt. I was sitting two rows behind the play's writer John Patrick Shanley. I couldn't help noticing that he was having a blast at the production, directed by Gerry Stembridge. He threw his head back and laughed at the funny bits with more abandon than most members of the audience. He leaned closer, the better to hear, when events took a more serious turn. The man from Brooklyn was clearly enjoying himself.
I know I should have been watching the stage, not him, but I couldn't help marvelling at the ease with which he observed the actors speak his words. It would be foolish to assume he felt no doubt about his theatrical creation, but he was managing those doubts well enough to be able to relax. Both the play and the writer got me thinking about the concept of doubt. About how healthy it is when managed properly and how damaging if it casts too long a shadow over your life.
Imagine, for example, what it would be like to approach your working life without doubt. To arrive at your desk or your building site or your easel or your nappy-changing area with a cast-iron surety that what you were about to do for the next eight hours would be exactly what you should be doing. That you would do it the way it should be done. That even if other people said you messed up, you would still not doubt yourself. You would be sure. To be sure, to be sure.
It's neither possible, nor healthy. An old proverb says: "Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty ridiculous." Everything is in doubt at every moment, and as we get older it begins to dawn that this is the only way it can be.
I started thinking about doubt again after checking my e-mails. A woman called Sinéad had fired off an e-mail. On a Saturday. Even though it was the Bank Holiday weekend and she must have had something better to do, she felt the need to vent. "Oi Ingle, you and your bloody chocolates, feng shui, beetroot salads and pointless self-obsessed rants about buying designer handbags . . . blah, blah, blah. Please start writing about something that is actually interesting or else just stop."
At first, I laughed. After writing this kind of personal column for more than four years, you grow a skin just thick enough to deflect the negative stuff, a skin which doubles handily as a barrier to letting the positive stuff go to your head. The funny thing about Sinéad's e-mail was that she had clearly read several columns, enough to be enormously irritated by them, and yet she continues to read them. She's doubtless reading this now. I generally find that if you don't like a columnist or an author or a musician the best thing is to avoid their work. There's a tip, gratis, for the Sinéads of this parish.
Anyway, my first reaction was to laugh. Then, almost immediately afterwards, I felt sad for Sinéad. Perhaps she really had nothing better in her life with which to fill those Bank Holiday moments than a hectoring e-mail to a stranger. And yet, following hot on the heels of those emotions, there it was: that hideous internal shudder. The heart beating just that little bit faster. The clammy hands. That empty feeling. Before I knew it, I was riding the Doubt Express, clinging on for dear life.
The questions to self came thick and fast. Was this Sinéad character right? Should I be thinking of people like her when I sit down to write a column? Should I be trying to ensure each and every word is worthy, righteous and most importantly interesting to Sinéads? Am I wrong to be doing what I am doing? Should I give it up? If so, when? What could I do instead? I quite liked waitressing and managing a restaurant in a previous life, but would it pay the mortgage? Perhaps I should cash in my chips, get that cottage in the French countryside, grow courgettes and get a tan? Or wait, what if I started writing about the Middle East and carbon guzzling and the likely legacy of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan? Would that be enough?
Or maybe if I stopped navel-gazing then the Sinéads of this world would be happy? Bloody feng shui. Bloody beetroot. Bloody designer bags. Blah, blah, blah. What makes you think anyone cares? Who do you think you are kidding? Perhaps I'll ask Sinéad what to write about. Or would she even reply?
As you can see it took only a few minutes, the briefest "Oi Ingle", for the spiral of doubt to take hold, bringing me to places I usually visit only in nightmares. It lasted maybe 10 minutes. And then, as I knew would happen, a kind of peace descended. It's like Shanley says. "Doubt has gotten a bad reputation. People who are utterly certain are vulnerable to a brand of foolishness that people who maintain a level of doubt are not."
Of that I have little doubt.
roisiningle@irish-times.ie