Monday, September 08, 2003
it's been a while since i last updated. but here i am with a very good topic, so i hope this will compensate for my absense.
topic in discussion: mind and heart
before you start to consider this post just another one of those "cliche" essays, i would really like for you to glance through this. it not only talks about how i think about this topic, but also of other people i know. and besides, i want for all of you to find the balance between these two organs anyway. just... give it a chance. and if you find an affinity to what i say, peruse as you wish and then leave a comment. input allows me to brainstorm yet again. okay, let"s start.
let"s say i were to make you pick between the two. "which would you most likely follow? the mind or the heart?" and then, i'd be dealing with two groups, pro-mind and pro-heart (or maybe even, anti-mind and anti-heart). whichever way you look at it, i have here two groups that will react differently in given situations. there's that generalization that the "mind" group is all brains and unromantic. and there's that stereotype for the "herat" group that they are all emotional and tactless. okay... so maybe some people prove these generalizations right, but there are a handful of you who might be thinking, "i am of the 'mind' group, but i am definitely a romantic." and i will not disagree with you. for one, i don't believe in stereotypes, and two, i know a person who's just like that. just for the topic's sake, i will tell you which category i belong in: the mind.
i used to be all heart. "do what your heart says", "what does your heart want?" ... things like that appealed to me. i'd always bring the emotional side into the situation. "if i did this, i'd be successful but would i be happy?" or maybe that grew into something more like, "but if i'm not happy, am i really successful?" and so i always thought about how i would feel. and time started up again from there. mind was second in my order of importance: without my heart picking for me, my mind cannot agree, i thought.
and so i have lived that way for almost eighteen years. it got me this far, whether people like it or not. that made me the person i was, the person i am now. but on this summer day, i decide to switch sides. i am of mind now.
why so, you ask? it's simply complicated, or maybe it's a complicated simplicity. both can work here. i am either seeing it as something insignificant, or making it too important for its own good.
i've been in a rather indifferent mood for the past 2-3 days. daily occurences neither bored me nor stirred me. you could say i was "dead" while alive. and then something dawned on me. my mind finally gave me a clue as to why i had been acting so.
for the past three months, i had been acting solely from the heart. everything i did was based on what my heart wanted, what my heart desired. i look at the numerous scars and i realize i had made such a huge mistake.
"the heart is blind," i thought to myself quietly.
my heart, along with yours and everyone else's, does not have a mind of its own. it cannot think for itself, it only acts upon instinct. while impulsiveness can assure you action, it does not assure a safe one. and though it has eyes to see within, it does not have vision of reality. to see within the dark obscurity means that it cannot see the plain, simple things the mind is so easily capable of seeing. the heart is the most important organ, but is it the wisest?
and my mind noticed the difference, see. it had caught up on the unusual ways of the heart. and it told me this:
you have told me to follow the heart, so i have done as i have been told. but this stirring of composure and security requires that i take over. please, let me lead, even if it is just this once."
so i let it.
i learned a whole lot from that. my great friend vu once told me, "the mind is there so that the heart, when wandering its ways, does not get lost. it is there so that it protects the heart from harm." and i beamed at the new found information. no one has described the connection between the two organs as he had before, and i was bound to let that seep in with my beliefs. robert frost once said, "give all to love," but another wise man said, "never give all to love." now which is true? robert frost must have been in the heart group, because the latter is of the mind group, and i believe in the second.
i have not quite abandoned my heart. as a matter of fact, it still has a huge impact on the things i say and do. but not as much as it used to. my mind, i found out, had to have been placed above all other organs for a reason.
now, i think that i have been able to do the things i have been doing, i had been able to follow my heart, because my mind was willing to go with it. it was supporting everything the heart wanted, good or bad, simply because it had to. but with my mind in lead, my heart realizes the protection it gives. the mind is capable to withstanding more scars that the heart, for the mind has counterattacks while the heart knows not of defense. my mind has willingly become my heart's bodyguard.
i realize now, that for me to have been able to do all the things i had been doing, it needed my mind's consent. with both mind and heart concurring, i moved along. and it goes for heart followers as well as mind followers. without one making way for the other, following the other, or agreeing with the other, nothing will happen. it is the accord of both organs that make for the right decisions and yield the most promising results.
i am experiencing, right now, a dissonance between my mind and my heart. perhaps this is because my mind is new to the leadership position, or because my heart doesn't want to hand over its powers. whichever the case, i am in an unbalanced state. my mind is looking right when my heart stares to the left. i am out-of-step to the music that used to be harmony, before this repelling began. i need to either find the melody again, or make a new one. i don't want this to last. i don't want to fight a war within myself.
mind person or heart person, each have every right to follow their dominant voice. but choose well, and maybe, for once, let the other organ have a chance. they may bring some amazing insights. look at me; i even switched sides.
even if i do go back to following my heart again (and i will if it helps this disagreement within me), i will most definitely give way to my mind. because i believe now, that the mind works for two; itself and the heart.
let both mind and heart listen. agree.
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thought of the day:
"listen and silent are composed of the same letters." -unknown
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