Skip to main content

Machinery

In Spain, K and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: There's this situation in my life - (insert details here). I don't know what to do.

K: Well, how do you feel about it? What do you want?

Me: Good question... Logical-Beth understands that blah blah blah, so although I feel x, y, and z, I'd like to see etc etc happen.

K: And how much of you is Logical-Beth?

Me: (pause) About 10%.



This is a reoccurring problem in my life. Try as I may, I can't manage to be rational and logical as often as I want. I don't believe that my life should be ruled by my emotions; but I have realized it cannot and should not be ruled by reason alone either.

The problem is, Emotional-Beth and Logical-Beth have trouble getting along. They both like to assert their right-to-rule at the same time.

Today I woke up with this song in my head. I think it was a not-so-subtle manifestation of my ongoing internal conflict.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Laura1:01 AM

    My question is why do you believe being logical and rational superior to being emotional? Being emotional doesn't mean being unstable it just means having feelings. Being emotionally unstable is absolutely detrimental but so is being logical without any feeling. From what I know of you, your emotions drive you to think, pray and process which always lend logic to an emotional experience. I think you are actually a good balance of both. Don't give in to the lie that being logical and rational trump emotion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beth7:07 PM

    Laura - I don't believe reason is superior to emotion - anymore. I'm not sure I could explain why I've believed that - something I internalized as a child or teenager? Maybe it's related to the fact that I've not known what to _do_ with emotions. I totally agree that there needs to be a balance ... having that play out in life is always a bit tricky though. And thanks for the encouragement :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st...
Post a Comment
Read more