Trust. Any feat of creativity or greatness in general requires an implicit trust in what we’re doing. It’s a leap into one’s potential. You are moving from one state to another without fully understanding what the result of that leap will be. It’s a secular form of faith. A belief that what you’re working on is worth executing despite not fully knowing what it even is. You must believe that, because the alternative is convincing yourself that things need to make sense before you begin, and this is obviously a trap.
Trust and doubt are simply two sides of the same coin, pointing toward the same thing: total uncertainty. Trust tells us that something good waits at the end of the tunnel. Doubt reminds us that we don’t know what’s on the other side.
It’s not that doubt is bad. It’s our brain’s way of telling us to keep our wits about us. To keep our guards up because back then, uncertainty often meant the difference between life and death.
That fight or flight anxiety is biologically ingrained in us. It evolved inside us for approximately 300 million years, and it was originally designed to ward off predators in the midst of night. It’s a bit overtuned for the modern age. Same hardware, different times.
That’s why the fear is so palpable. It’s tapping into those same ancient pathways in the human mind. The kind our ancestors would feel when they were faced with the literal possibility of death.
Taking a creative stake rubs against our biology in another crucial way. When we express ourselves in any creative capacity, we’re making an attempt at distinction.
When we do this, it makes us feel as though we are exposing ourselves in the crowd. It threatens the conformity of the herd. Something that could get you exiled at best, and killed at worst.
Drawing a picture is rubbing shoulders with death. In that simple act, you confront the same raw mixture of curiosity and terror our ancestors felt while staring into the black of night.
You’re tapping into something primal. Something sublime. It’s the same feeling that staring at the night sky might evoke in you. The possibilities are overwhelming, terrifying even.
When we choose to create, we are dancing on a fine line between wonder and fear. It’s the uncertainty of the act that brings out this odd concoction inside us. Recognizing it becomes a sort of creative currency. Legal tender in the imagination.
There is strength and even virtue in the ability to sit inside these emotions voluntarily. There is a known concept that talks about this called “negative capability.” It was coined in a letter written by an English Romantic poet by the name John Keats in December 1817. He defined negative capability in the following way:
“...when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”
Keats pointed to Shakespeare as a quintessential example of this trait. His characters had many dimensions to them and they didn’t fit neatly into a single moral framework. This made each of them complex, and it’s why they felt like real people, not just caricatures for the stories he would write.
Reality is messy, ambiguous, and generally open ended. Shakespeare knew this better than anyone. And Keats understood that embracing this made for the best possible creative work. Those who didn’t arrive prematurely at their conclusions could sit inside the discomfort of uncertainty and make truly boundary pushing work.
In order to get the best from ourselves, we must actively pursue that which is uncertain. Naturally, this is a very uncomfortable process because our brains seek the comfort of certainty. We like to see patterns that we’re used to because it subconsciously resembles safety. The lizard brain enjoys safety. It’s that ancient survival instinct kicking in for us when we need it least. It’s a vestigial instinct for us now. The world is still dangerous today, but fear paralyzes more people than it saves in our modern lives. It’s necessary, but overcalibrated.
While it may seem like a hindrance, we can actually use this instinct to our advantage. Negative capability can be tapped into intentionally when we notice ourselves pushing up against the boundary of our own potential. David Bowie understood this intuitively. In 1997, he had this to say during an interview:
“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
Bowie thrived in uncertainty. He adopted all different kinds of personas, identities, and alter-egos. His most notable character was Ziggy Stardust. He constantly shredded his own identity to see what else he was capable of becoming. What some people would consider “detours” in his career were actually his bread and butter. In another interview in 2002, he said this:
“We create so many circles on this straight line we’re told we’re traveling. The truth is, of course, that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”
Negative capability was a bedrock philosophy for Bowie. He well and truly embodied what it means to embrace uncertainty and become changed by it. The phrase, “arriving and departing at the same time” sounds like death and rebirth. The “...rubbing shoulders with death…” line from earlier in the essay feels a little less hyperbolic now. Death is the ultimate question mark. When we change ourselves, we’re essentially experiencing a micro death. We shed our old identities and confront the unknown.
The uncertainty of life itself is transformative. It seems that all we really need to do is make way for that observation without grasping at false certainty. To sit with the discomfort of honest doubt and be changed by whatever comes of it.
This means letting go of old ideas, deeply held beliefs, and even identities that no longer serve us. There’s no sense in whiteknuckling an answer if it may not be the right answer. We must be open to the truth even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially when it’s uncomfortable.
This willingness to reject certainty isn’t exclusive to art; it is the fundamental engine of scientific discovery. Legendary physicist Richard Feynman honored this philosophy not only in his work, but in his own life as well. He said this during an interview with BBC which aired in 1982:
“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”
This is someone who has not only mastered negative capability, but sees uncertainty and ambiguity as his personal playground. He revels in the idea that he doesn’t stake any strict and dogmatic claim on reality. If life reveals something to him, he’s open to experiencing it, even if it contradicts his entire model of existence at that moment. His worldview is flexible.
Doubt isn’t just part of the creative process, it’s part of life itself. When we attempt to root this out in favor of false certainty, we deny a part of ourselves that makes us human. There is virtue in wonder. It makes for better art, better science, and better writing.
So next time you second guess yourself, just know you’re in good company.