A nerve, a verve, a…willingness to do and be. A fear, a sense of fear kept in tow, if not exactly conquered. A question of why the issue of being confident should even arise.

A loss…of confidence? – more clearly the issue; the disappearance of nerve, of verve, of the fright of the willingness to do, leaves me almost breathless. Perhaps it is only a feeling, located somewhere in the depths of my bowels, but nonetheless a power in my life which determines much of what I will never think of doing…less of what I might actually do.

Confidence – that when I get up to play the violin (if I have prepared sufficiently), that when I perform or lecture, that I can depend on my knees not shaking so wildly that I will be forced to sit down or sit out; that my voice will not fail, that my mind will not blank, that my thinking will be fast enough, that words will be found in my thinking’s machinations; that whatever happens I will not lose my control, my coolness of mind…that I will be able to smooth over whatever anger or anguish may arise: others and my own.

Confidence in balance with wanting new experiences, to learn from and while doing, so I can move on toward new ideas. Confidence in some balance with the variety of fears which motivate and which obscure, which turn thinking aside, away from, toward the past and gaining ascendance over what I may do or will do in actuality.