I have talked about this subject before, but I feel like taking another swing at it tonight.

Rationality is extremely powerful. It is one of the most powerful factors in the extraordinary and unparalleled success of the human species. Our prefrontal cortexes not only allow us to inhibit our instinctual emotional responses and thus give ourselves a chance to choose our actions instead of merely reacting to stimuli, but they also allow us to recognize patterns in our knowledge of the world and make predictions based on that knowledge. This lets us pursue complex non-immediate goals and opens a world of possibilities unavailable to other animals who cannot “think ahead”.

Because of this extraordinary power, there has historically always been the danger of slipping into believing that rational reasoning is all you need and that you can, in a sense, abdicate your humanity in favour of living in the comfort of the understandable, predictable, and sensible world of rationality.

As far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, there was a feeling that one could deduce absolutely everything about the world and the universe via pure logic alone. This, we can assume, was a great comfort for philosophers, who overwhelmingly tend to be the sort who would rather stay home and think than go out there and actually find things out.

But this sort of rationalist escapism is a terrible trap. It is all too easy to be so dazzled by the wizardry of rational inquiry that one forgets that one is still a living, breathing, incarnate human being who has needs, desires, and fears which have nothing to do with rationality and which cannot simply be wished away or eternally suppressed by force of will.

Clearly, a course of action which involves ignoring all the variables that we don’t like to think about cannot be considered rational, and any human being who attempts to walk around with their head entirely in the clouds should not be surprised to find themselves bumping into things and in general doing very poorly at life.

But still, the siren song of rationalist escapism calls. Throughout the ages, thousands of mystics, monks, scholars, and philosophers have sought to escape the messy, petty details of reality and move into the clouds on a permanent basis. This is, in fact, the entire basis of all forms of asceticism. The idea of trying to “purge” yourself of worldly concerns and attain some sort of state of holy purity via self-denial is solely based on rationalist escapism, whether you’re a Babylonian mystic traveling through the desert in search of wisdom, a self-flagellating monk in a cell praying to God, or a hyper-rationalist philosopher looking for a “higher Truth” that supposedly will set you free.

Free of what? Free of humanity, of course. The rational parts of our mind, quite irrationally, think they can escape the ugliness and messiness of things like emotions and bodily needs. This is an illusion created by the fact that pursuing certain lines of reasoning makes us feel as though we are distancing ourselves from “worldly” concerns, and this makes us feel that it must be possible to complete the process and detach entirely.

But what would that even look like? Without emotion, there is no motivation, and without motivation, there is no action. Even the desire to escape via reasoning is, in itself, an emotion. Without the rest of our mental apparatus, the rational parts of our mind are nothing but computers without operators, gathering dust, waiting for someone to turn them back on.

And no matter how certain lines of logical reasoning make you feel (another emotion), you are still the same limited irrational mysterious human being you were before your flight into rationality. There is no true transcendence, no way to overcome all the non-rational parts of your mind and move entirely to some hypothetical “higher plane” that clearly cannot exist. Transcendentalism lies. You cannot escape the game by playing the game.

The only real transcendence is in self-acceptance, not denial. Spiritual wellbeing requires us to recognize, embrace, accept, and integrate all aspects of ourselves into our conception of ourselves. Only then can we feel whole and complete. Only then can we forgive ourselves for being human and move on in life as strong, confident, happy individuals.

Rationalist escapism keeps this from happening. It blocks the necessary growth. It keeps you pursuing its impossible dream of a purely rational existence and denies you the kind of deep, intuitive, subrational truth about yourself that leads to greater happiness and fulfillment in life.

You can analyze yourself all you like, You can come up with all the plausible sounding explanations for your troubles in the world. You can impress as many people with how bright and insightful you are as you want to. But until you are willing to take a hard look at yourself without the protection of rational make-work and comfortable detachment, you will never understand who you truly are under all that rationalist razzle-dazzle and if you don’t know who you really are, you stand absolutely no chance of becoming who you really want to be.

So ignore the siren song of rationalist escapism. Accept that you are a messy, flawed, imperfect human being with petty desires and self instincts, and learn to love yourself for who you really are instead of hating yourself for not being someone you can never, ever be.

Someone who is no longer human. Someone who never makes mistakes, who never does anything stupid, who is only motivated by the highest and noblest of emotions and who never feels confused, vulnerable, lost, embarrassed, un-confident, or lonely.

Nobody escapes being human. If it seems to you like someone has, then you are merely letting your impression of them overwhelm you. They are as human as you or I or that homeless guy down the street who smells like pee.

We all have tiny areas of competency in the vast sea of human endevour. None of us are anywhere close to perfect and there is no amount of thinking that will make it so.

Now put down that rationalist kaleidoscope, and go out there and have fun.

I will talk to all of you nice people again tomorrow.