Speak to us of Reason and Passion

Title is from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.

Big V's literary tastes lean towards what I like to call higher/deeper learning. His reading material tends to be sources of enlightenment and knowledge...so poetry, biographies...Kahlil Gibran, the Dalai Lama etc. In the past he has attempted to get me to read parts of these books that in his opinion will be beneficial to me, help me to find that zen like place within that would aid with my health and general well-being. Suffice to say it hasn't worked, probably because he makes his attempts at the most inopportune moments...when I'm slap bang in the midst of a crisis is mos def not the best time to talk meditation and higher planes and rising above the pain, if the words tramadol or oxycodone aren't coming out of your mouth, keep schtum!!!

But I have read some of these books and whilst they may not have aided in helping deal with the physical side of my being, I must confess that in healthier times I have enjoyed and learnt a thing or two from them...at the very least they make me think and contemplate and reflect.

And right now, at this moment, I've got the passage on Reason and Passion from The Prophet on my mind. 

Kahlil Gibran wrote that - 

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite....Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to it's own destruction.

So the idea is we must find some balance between in essence our mind and our desires...I initially typed heart but for me (though most may disagree) I don't believe heart is simply ruled by passion - by love, by compassion, yes - but passion to me denotes the throwing of caution to the wind and I don't necessarily think going purely by heart means throwing all caution away.

Anyway the reason this passage is on my mind is because I am trying to find some of this balance in my life. I am naturally wired to be ruled by my mind, by reason...this doesn't mean that the war with passion is not going on in my soul...

There's this quote from a book that's more my style than Big V's...first of all its fiction and it's romance (Judith McNaught's Double Standards)...Big V I suspect would rather gouge his eyes out...but anyway I think it sums me up...

What I am is the confused product of a semi-puritanical upbringing and a liberal education. Which means I think it's wrong for me to do anything, but I think it's perfectly all right for other people to do whatever they want.

As soon as passion rears it's head in my life and attempts to rule my actions, 8 times out of 10 reason takes over. I would love passion to win more because reason is a confining controlling source. Even better I would like to find the balance Kahlil G speaks of, he says to consider them like 2 house guests, writing - Surely you would not honour one guest above the other.

Here's hoping I find a way :-)

Free will v Destiny

This was the topic of conversation between me and a neighbour on our morning commute yesterday. Its a 15 minute journey so I can't say we really delved into it deeply but before I get into that here's a little background information...

I don't know my neighbour's name, in fact I can't say for sure that he is my neighbour but I assume he lives in the neighbourhood as we have bumped into each other a number of times and he is one of the usual faces I see on my morning commute into work. Mr Neighbour is one of those interesting people you come across in life with whom you tend to have the weirdest conversations. The first time I saw him (a couple of years ago) he stared at my boots, the sweater Uggs, for the entire bus ride..then as we got off asked how I got the smell out when they got damped/soaked in the rain...no hello, no hi...just how do you get them to stop smelling...I smiled and said I hadn't ever noticed them smelling and walked rapidly away. Another time I bumped into him and he started a conversation on home renovations, informing me that he was in the middle of a bathroom renovation, apparently updating the old avocado coloured suite...it was a cold windy wintry day and my eyes began watering...noticing he said he didn't realise I was a huge avocado fan...I must admit I found that funny.

Anyway I bumped into him yesterday and the free will v destiny convo somehow began...I don't know how but I vaguely remember talking about Mills & Boon novels and the concept that it can be argued that they are female empowering in that they depict men being brought down to their knees by women...discussion for another day but rest assured that is not a theory I support and I have read, and not ashamed to admit, I own some old copies of those novels!

So free will v destiny. Mr Neighbour firmly believes or at least implied yesterday that we have absolutely no choice in life but what we operate under is the illusion of free will. I disagree. I accept that to an extent...do not ask me to define how much...but to an extent destiny plays a part in our lives but as humans we make choices and deal with the fall out of those choices. I refuse to accept that we are completely under the mercy of destiny because to me that not only takes away our power to determine our life as we wish it to be but it also helps us cop out and gives us an excuse not to take responsibility for the shitty consequences of the crappy choices we may make and the latter more so than the former is unacceptable to me. There are people in this world who make conscious bad choices and should not be allowed to operate under the notion that they are not responsible for the consequences of said bad choices.

Like I said it was a 15 minute commute so we could not delve deeply into the discussion (or according to other passengers argument) so we decided to shelve it till next time...Mr Neighbour did however leave with the parting shot of calling me an 'existentialist'...haa!!! I think not!!!