Tangled up in Reason

In my opinion

our rational faculties

are best used

to do

something like

reading the stars

in order to navigate

the seas we find ourselves in

When our reason and rationale

are used to create

nothing more than worlds of control

which we lose ourselves in

and constrain ourselves with

we cannot move freely

we cannot be pragmatic

we become well-thought out

well-read, and well-wise

but weighted down

and tangled up

we know the laws of logic

but

we do not know our own hearts

we know the arguments

inside out

but,

we don't really know

what side of those arguments

we want to find ourselves on

I have probably said this

hundreds of times before

but,

I think that rationality

is just a grandiose word to describe

a process of internalising;

and this internalising

is not much more

than knitting and weaving

a security blanket in our minds

that we can retreat to

from the anxieties and frustrations

we experience in a world of others.

we can be fooled into

respecting rationality too much

smart, intellectual, clever, wise, intelligent

who gives a shit if we are

knowledgeable or clever

if we do not know how to live well

or if we cannot figure out what that might look like

at best,

we might use our rational faculties

to help us in the midst of our existence

to know ourselves

to know how to meet our needs

to know how to relate to others,

in ways that are mutually beneficial

to know how to make our way through our everyday,

without falling over or blowing up or burning out

at every unpredicted move of an other

or every unexpected swell of our own feelings

at best,

our rational faculties,

help us to live

rather than hinder us in living

help us to move

rather than paralysing us

What would our society look like if it

respected people who had achieved this

and took them as our model of success

imagine a society that held well-being

as a measure of our success in life

rather than

financial gain, academic gain, vocational gain

and, so, let me end with this seasonal blessing:

"may we use our brains, to find our hearts

like Magi,

searching out

the birth of something promising"