Mind: Hi there, scaredy-cat!
Brain: Hi there, wise owl!
Mind: How are you today?
Heart: Still beating. And you?
Mind: Still active.
Heart: Poor mind, you are nothing but a tool for thought.
Mind: And you are simply an organ that beats so that I can live. Basically, you work for me.
Heart: I am feelings and senses, pain and joy, poetry and love. For thousands of years people have been writing about me and composing the best poems. Without me there are no feelings, no love, no life.
Mind: I am what makes man a logical being, what separates him from other animals.
The dialogue is long, never-ending… Heart and mind balance on a pair of scales. If the scales lean to one side or the other, then the person becomes unstable. It’s as if he can only see with one eye. I don’t think anyone wants to live without reason, but neither do they want to be emotionally lifeless.
So, the clash happens over and over again.
Every time I pick up my pen to write an article, my heart begins to object to my words, which it doesn’t like. I cross them out and I try to write something more acceptable to my heart.
Then the mind objects, your words aren’t reasonable, it tells me, and this is not something I want to talk about. So here I am, all confused, writing words and titles that are more logical, but they are not those that my heart would like.
The harsh conflict between heart and mind continues, because each one has a different angle for looking at things.
The heart wants an article full of emotion; the mind just wants things that are full of logic and wisdom. The result is that I don’t write what I want and what I do write often ends up cold and stupid.
Life in society is the same. A clash between duty and desire, because that is how things have always been. For example, you often have to accept an invitation and go to a social gathering, even though you don’t want to, thus wasting valuable time, so that people don’t say, “what you did was embarrassing, it is not acceptable!” So, you go in order to be polite, even at the cost of your time and personal interests.
Sometimes, when I am invited to such gatherings, I feel heavy-footed. I hesitate and wonder, “Am I wrong? Might they criticise me for behaving arrogantly?”
I don’t know whether I am right or wrong, but those that know me understand me. Anyone who is going to criticise me will do so anyway, such is life. Let’s live it as we would wish, because it is very hard trying to please other people, even you devote yourself to doing nothing else.
Those are my words and that is how things are. I can feel the conflict inside me and it frightens me.
One last thought: The true challenge is how to control the different situations and clashes between your heart and your mind and how to blend them together. In effect, how to think with your heart and feel with your mind. Try to combine the two, but not to the detriment of one or the other. Live in peace, expect goodness and put your hope in God. He knows.
*This article has been published in issue #9 of “Migratory Birds” newspaper, which was released as an annex with “Efimerida ton Syntakton” newspaper (Newspaper of the Editors) on July 28th 2018.
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