in con­ver­sa­tion with my girl­friend dur­ing a car ride to a local eatery, the topic of emo­tion & logic came about. in an attempt to be more con­tem­pla­tive indi­vid­u­als, we explored this; your wel­come, socrates. LOL

emo­tion & reason

emo­tion can be a very con­vinc­ing agent. both social and cor­po­rate media under­stand this just about as well as any­body does. when the magic made the finals in ’09 own­er­ship spent well over 10mill in lux­ury tax in ros­ter changes in excite­ment of cre­at­ing a dynasty that breeds cham­pi­onships, an excite­ment that led to sell­ing out sea­son tick­ets the fol­low­ing year. or when feb­ru­ary 14 comes around, soci­ety sells the emo­tion of ‘love’ and ‘romance’ in the air, an excite­ment that causes many men to go broke (just kid­ding). emo­tion though at times can lead peo­ple to pas­sions that are not well directed. ‘snap­ping’ or ‘blowing-up’ at an indi­vid­ual is emo­tion in its full-on pas­sion­ate form, it lacks the acknowl­edge­ment in that moment because it is dri­ven by emo­tion alone. the thing about emo­tion is that it is short term. it acts on impulses. it acts on desires. it acts on now.

rea­son on the other hand, is smart. it ana­lyzes. it knows its not the end of the world, or if it is, its prob­a­bly true LOL. rea­son allows for cities to be built. orga­ni­za­tions to be ran. when the magic made the finals in ’09 own­er­ship brought in vince carter to deliver a clutch time shot maker to bury the celtics, cavs and lak­ers (in that order). it did so because it felt it was the best chance of win­ning. log­i­cally, it makes sense, it is also a fact they most cer­tainly will. rea­son, as with emo­tion, can be erro­neous. a busi­ness­man who seeks only profit will never invest in the good of soci­ety if invest­ments in other indus­tries yield a more prof­itable account. in this sense, rea­son in its full-on log­i­cal form can­not see what’s to his left, or to his right, but only means to an end. rea­son seeks long term. rea­son sees facts.

heart & mind

emo­tion is the expres­sion of the heart. rea­son is the seek­ing of truth. emo­tion seeks to Love. rea­son seeks to Know. these two enti­ties of are not called to be received in a dom­i­na­tion of one over the other, for we know the pit­falls of each. but in a har­mony to please God. Eros seek­ing Agape. the Word being fath­omed. this is the great­est and most impor­tant request of Christ of us: Mt 22:37–38.

‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.

under­stand­ing how much empha­sis and care­ful detail Jesus put into His words when He spoke, i love how this piece of scrip­ture doesnt say to love with ONLY your mind, or with ONLY your heart. the empha­sis on the bal­ance of these two, not plac­ing one over the other reveals to us; actions lead only by heart alone, or by mind alone, does not bring our utmost to Him.

for this lenten sea­son i hope to be a more bal­anced indi­vid­ual. not so much emo­tion so when i fail a fast i don’t lose sight of the rea­son for the sea­son. or too much logic where i ratio­nal­ize or even lose touch of the heart of lent. but a bal­ance of when i fail on one, the other would keep me bal­anced. that through any chal­lenge gone bad, i could lean on my foothold of my mind for God, and my heart for God.