03 January, 2009

Of rationality in matters of the heart


In one’s quest towards happiness always, one always ends up being in situations that creates further dilemmas for them. Tricky as they can get; can we ever solve them rationally?

Our mind never tends to rule the heart, especially in cases of emotional acknowledgement and retribution and one never even realises that this happens. I often wonder why we never understand this. Is being rational in matters of the heart such a bad idea? Is trying to make sure that we don’t hurt ourselves with the mistakes that we have made before, a wrong choice? How do we justify such choices for our own mind, let alone make our own heart understand these choices?

We often do not understand beyond the choices that we make; however we always avoid making the right choices to keep our hearts happy. We often tend to wonder why we refuse automatic detachment from attachments that were great in the past, just so that we would lose the comfort level that it has created, for us to be useful in the future.

‘My Best Friend’; is a term clichéd for me. We grow up and mature everyday altering our requirements, priorities and emotional attachments. A friend or partner who fulfils these criteria in a certain part of my life does not fulfil the altered needs in another part of my life. So then is it wrong to move on and feel attached to someone who can? If we do move on and find someone else we are often condemned for reducing our previous friend’s importance in our life. His ego bruised, he turns his back on you not realising that he does and feels the same in various parts of his life, or maybe he has done that you at some times in his life. As ironic as this situation gets, we still never understand that we can still be friends and still have more around us, than being stuck on one, who may not be able to fulfil all our criteria.

It is often considered ill behaviour for revolving our friendships and relations around our own needs, but we never realise, that if it wasn’t for those needs, we would have never been friends with those people. We subconsciously attach ourselves to people who can fulfil such needs and desires, fulfil those criteria where we can reciprocate, based on how happy we were kept through our constant interactions with them; how well our emotional needs were met with; and yet we condemn those who follow logic and rationality.

And I ask again… Is being rational in matters of the heart such a bad idea? Is trying to make sure that we don’t hurt ourselves with the mistakes that we have made before, a wrong choice? Is trying to accept change as a constant, a radical decision?

I do not have answers to these questions, though I am searching for them myself.

And I am not interested in giving answers to all of you who read this as well. It’s just an awareness I want to try and create in my mind and in the mind of those others who read and connect with this thought.

After all, awareness of a correction needed, is the first step towards that correction, isn’t it?