August 1, 2006

• Reason and Passion ...

  
  

  “I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.’’ Terry Pratchett
  

  
  

  Continuing a bit along the thread of things I've discovered since I turned forty, I must include Sudoku.  Which in fact, I only really discovered in June, so I'm way behind the curve on this one, but that's okay.  Better late than never.

  
  

  I'm not sure why Sudoku appeals to people in general but I know exactly why it appeals to me.  It's basic logic.   I learned to love logic puzzles when I was a child and my dad would bring them home to me.  He used to subscribe to a magazine called "Puzzle" or something like that.  And he would bring home all kinds of interesting thought problems and put them on the table.

  
  

  Sudoku is a game of elimination.  Sherlock Holmes is the most famous eliminator I can think of and his maxim, "when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"  has the comfortable ring of certainty.  It has been demonstrated repeatedly by people who want to be nitpicky that Holmes eliminated things which were not impossible and that his logic in many cases was weak, but still you gotta admire that certainty.

  
  

  At least I do.  I like being certain.  I think I've lightened up a little over the years.  I'm very proud of myself right now because I am still in a waiting pattern for the new job to start and things are on the uncertain side of the scale right now, but I'm not freaking out.  I slept well last night.  I'm neither eating everything in sight nor going days on end without consuming anything. 

  
  

  So what does this have to do with being forty?  Well, I've learned another thing that many people (whom I admire) seem to have grasped early in life.  "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." -Blaise Pascal.  I was unhappy in my job.  Therefore, the thing to do was follow my heart and leave it.  I made effort to prepare for this by increasing my savings and I have a job offer.  So I am now in the position of exercising a little faith in my heart.  That one way or the other it will be right, that my heart hasn't steered me wrong.

  
  

  I've confessed here that I still have very mixed feelings about the end of this transition.  I had expected to leave that job and return to school.  That's something that I've wanted to do for twenty years, and well, I'm not getting any younger.  But that's on the back burner for at least another year and we'll just have to see what happens next.  Maybe my heart has another idea ...

  
  

  Kahlil Gibran, whom I quoted yesterday on friendship, has something to say about this tug between Reason and Passion...

  
  

  
  

  On Reason and Passion
   Kahlil Gibran

  
  

  Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
  Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
  But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
  
  
  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 its own destruction.
  Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
  And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
  
  
  I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
  Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
  
  
  Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
  And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
  And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
  

  
  

   

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