Learning creative confidence comes with being stripped down to a place where we learn not to take chances with merely what the mind alone can conceive or what is possible through the mere physical strength of our bodies. To con-fide is essentially to be “with faith.” But that’s not always easy. We’ve trained our habits to remove all doubt and to come up with answers, quickly and immediately.

It’s interesting to note that the idea of relying on the self as prime arbiter of meaning is a mid-15c pre-Enlightenment development with roots in the humanism of the Renaissance,” and thereby the development of Western literary-intellectual traditions. Humanism was a hybridization of Greek philosophy “man as the measure of all things” and Roman thinking, humanitas—nature, civilization, and kindness. 

What would it take for us to return to this root of creative confidence—utter and hopeful reliance on the creator rather than the creation (e.g, humans and human-centered intellectual development) alone? 

Consider, 

Prayer is a powerful indication of hope in something Other than what the mind alone can entirely conceive or what might be envisioned via human “bias to action” and the strength of humanity alone.

Thanks to Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

©Uday Balasundaram, all rights reserved.