I Am Rational

 "People aren't rational.  We're not thinking machines, we're feeling machines that happen to think."

                                                                                    -Peter Watts

As much as I agree with the above quote, I know the dangers of leaving one's emotions unchecked; hence why rational thought is needed.  If we were to act on pure emotion, the consequences we would have could be dangerous.  Imagine a Black Belt, a master of control, using their knowledge on a whim or spur of the moment decision, it would be devastating for all parties involved.  Same goes for anything in this world, we need rational thought to tame the wildness of our emotions.  It's not that emotions are innately dangerous, or harmful; in fact they can be quite beautiful and create great works of art, but left unchecked they become hazardous.

I am at my core an emotional person.  I use my rational thought in conjunction with my emotions, especially my intuition.  I rely on my intuition a lot, especially for big life choices, but that is not to say that it isn't rational.  I still weigh pros and cons, but at the end of the day, I need to listen to what my heart says, and it is always the right decision.  May not be an easy decision, but it is the right one.  I think marrying the two sides, rationality and emotion based intuition has been my greatest gift to myself.  I've been on both ends of the spectrum.  I've lived my life ruled by my emotions, experiencing the high highs and the very low lows.  I've also lived life void of emotion, and not really living.  I adapted at the time, feeling emotions was too much, so I simply shut them off.  It took me a while, but I found a nice balance between the two.  Not that I don't still experience highs and lows, there are things that are in there nature appropriate to have big emotions about good and bad.  I just try not let the pendulum swing too far in either direction, because you get attached to those feelings.  You can get attached to the really good feeling emotions and you can get really attached to the negative emotions.  It's about finding a place where you can still experience what your feeling, and at the same time see the moment pass by and let it go, knowing that you'll experience it again in a different manner.

Kung Fu is an interesting paradigm, because we learn to be control freaks.  We do drills over and over again to train ourselves possible ways of reacting in the moment.  We normalize stressful situations.  Yet when we spar for example, I'd say it is safe to say that we go back to reacting and using our instincts.  The training is there of course and it comes out, but like me marrying my rational mind with my emotions and intuition, I think Kung Fu is similar.  It takes our core reactions and mixes it with the knowledge of the drills we put ourselves through over and over.  We still have a sense of control, even though we are reacting.  Kung Fu is a martial art, and it is because of the "art" part that emotions are allowed, it is our core personality that shines through in our technique and the way we react to situations.  

I am a rational person, but I'm also an emotional person, and that's okay.  We are meant to feel.  Sometimes the rational thing to do, is to relinquish the control of rational thought and experience the feeling of our emotions.

Nigel Bauer