head or heart?
I must admit, this question tickled me so much I couldn’t wait to answer it.
It has rung in my head so many times; a persistent nag that drove me mad in my early teens, easing now to an occassional whisper.
It seems to presume that there is a strict dichotomy between what your head tells you to do, and what your heart demands: that often they go at odds with one another. While the head is characterized as “rational”, the heart represents “instinct” and “emotion”.
In universal terms, I will never be able to choose one to apply in unconditional precedence. Simply because, I don’t find either one superior to the other. Not every rational decision is compassionate or natural. And likewise, not everything wild and exciting is practical. This I’ve learned from my past tumbles.
Similarly, nor do I think that in a case-by-case basis, we necessarily have to choose to follow one and not the other. I think that this is a matter of blurring the lines of this so called ‘heart-head dichotomy": in other words, the rational-instinctive distinction. I argue that it is possible to rationalise an action as something that ‘your heart wants’. An action initiatied by the heart does not imply irrationality. Choosing to follow your heart can be a rational act, as long as you’ve weighed up every option equally.
So my answer to this question is twofold. If the head and heart are assumed to be mutually exclusive, I would choose neither. But neither am I dissolving the two as one and disregarding the different decision-making forces they symbolize. I am simply pondering on the fact that the answer to the question is far from straightforward.
Apologies for not having a clear-cut answer. The philosopher in me just won’t let me.
♥, Mod
btw, I copied this from her tumblr account :P *peace
