Being Logical

I think I tend to be a person of extremes and I'm high in plasticity -- highly attributable to my age, I think -- in that I can change easily. I can entertain new viewpoints too easily and get lost in considering them. I went from a radically logical teenager to an idealistic and "follow your intuition" young adult. Both have been wrong approaches to life. The former led me to shun emotion and praise rationality and had me ignoring this deep inner feeling of sadness/emptiness brought about my incompetence in the ways of managing my life. If, as a premise, emotion is considered an invalid entry, logical systems cannot navigate how to correct emotional problems. However, if I'm being honest, it was ignoring logic that had worse overall results because I would get so lost in an emotion that I couldn't deal with life. And I would also start thinking (feeling) real strange ideas that were not tempered by intellectual discernment. This actually went embarrassingly far.

So I'm sure anyone reading this can see where I'm going with this: it's all about balance. Logic and emotion have to be married to create a way of thinking that can consistently discern the right course of action. Either one alone will run you right into a brick wall. But if you can be logically emotional and emotionally logical, you can find your way around. I know this is so inherently obvious to many as to be laughable, but like I said: I can be very all or nothing in my approach. Even in being mindful and meditative where the point is to relax, I put way too much energy into that and for a brief time started to "stink of zen" as Alan Watts said once.

But still, I would say logic is first. It should never ignore emotion, but it should be able to tell an emotion that it is just wrong. Like, if I feel like getting up in the middle of trying to write something or like arguing when there's no gain to be had of any kind but plenty of pain, my logic should be able to just veto that impulse. And this is taking emotion into account because I'll feel a lot better in the long term if I stick to these things. Likewise, if I start to logically consider a situation and veer into heartless territory, my emotion should be able to veto that line of thinking. Balance. That's the ideal I want to follow in the coming months and I hope anyone reading this who might be struggling in a similar issue as it relates to balance could take something from this post. If not, it's still nice to just organize my thoughts and put them out there.