The Good Fight; Sentiments and Rationality

There's a sinking, despondent feeling in and around my chest. I do not feel well. There is this recurring sense of things being unreal that occasionally comes to me, and it is often accompanied by the stark desire for some kind of change in my life. I don't know what it is. I think I just didn't have such a great day, but it has affected me far more profoundly than it should have. It's disgusting. I don't know what's the matter with me. I wish I could just get over myself. Writing always helps, though; as I pour these words out right now, I feel less bad about the situation, but I'm not entirely healed.

Within me I often battle with this notion of sentiments and rationality, and which is more important or which comes first. I realise that thinking rationally can effectively affect your sentiments, and so I often think that rationality is the greater of the two, but then I also realise sentiments often spring forth wildly, untamed, and efforts to control them are futile. 

I think sentiments are primary. Sentiments are the earth, the stars, the rivers, fire, wind, forests; sentiments are natural; the internal passions exist first. Rationality, while scientifically natural, seems intuitively artificial. Rationality is a tool. Rationality is a microscope, a telescope, a magnifying glass, a drill, a hammer, a glue gun; rationality serves to analyse what is there already, as do those tools.

So the trick is to accept your sentiments, your emotions, your feelings; accept them as a fact, and then analyse them with rationality, the tool. But first you must lay your emotions bare, at least to yourself. Don't be in denial about them. What a tragic thing it is to be unable to think the truth! Let your thoughts, your sentiments, run wild and passionate, and observe with reverence, but at the most opportune moment, draw reason, and attempt to tame them. They won't always be tameable, but in those moments, recall with your reason that some sentiments are so deeply rooted within you that they are almost animalistic; the passions untameable by reason. When you are faced with one of those, remember that they exist for a reason; no emotion exists within you for destructive reasons; they wouldn't exist if they were purely destructive. All emotion hints towards positivity -- the pleasurable sentiments exist in order for you to continue doing what brought about those sentiments, and the odious sentiments, the horrid, the painful exist in order to indicate you away from what is causing them, as a signal back towards the pleasurable sentiments. So, at this moment, your loneliness may seem profound and unending, but recall that it points back to companionship; that the existence of loneliness within you is imploring you to examine your life and consider why you feel that way. That is the most important thing: when faced with some powerful sentiment, first accept it, then ask yourself why you have it, and if it is a positive sentiment, revel in it, be joyous, make art, share it with friends; and if it is negative, pursue the why, look into your life and think of ways that you might change it. If you think change is impossible, remind yourself that you've just conceived a contradiction, and that in time, everything changes. Time heals or destroys all, and remember that if you feel a certain negative emotion is too forceful for you. All of life is a race against Time, and if you can't change something, Time eventually will. Your task is to do it under your volition, under your will. Do it happily and with liberty, not strained and forced by the hand of Time. But don't feel too beat up if you cannot do anything; release personal responsibility then to Time and fate, and attempt to relax.

And with that in mind, I remind myself that this sadness that I feel today will be removed in time. I'm being untruthful to myself, though. I'm telling myself that this sadness is more profound than it really is, and the truth is it's a superficial sadness. It's a petty sadness. I cannot blame myself for having it, but I can blame myself for not acting to change it, which I didn't do. I wallowed in it and it got worse, to the point where it felt more profound than it really was. But after some reflection, I'm okay now. I'll let this pass, and I'll redouble my efforts to -- in the words of the great John Darnielle -- keep up the good fight, to keep my spirits lights.