Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking

Passion or Calmness?
©A Pondering by Vijaya Sundaram
March 29th, 2013

I am equally moved by both.

If there is too much passion, though, I get suspicious.  It’s easy enough to weep and rant, easy enough to be outraged and enraged, easy enough to  wave one’s hands about and gesticulate fiercely when making a point, if one feels deeply about something.  And that’s important, because we need deep feeling and deep engagement with our own, and others’ emotions.

Go on for too long, though, and it becomes too much — one needs a check to correct the flood, re-channel it, perhaps, to irrigate fields, rather than inundating them.

Calmness and reasoned thinking matter.  Logic matters.  True logic can be married to true emotion.  The two can go hand-in-hand.  One has to step back from personal response as the sole arbiter of one’s philosophy of life.  One needs to truly see.  Beware of false traps and circular logic, self-serving interests disguised as dispassionate interest, logic that seeks to destroy rather than build up a good, reasoned, calm, thoughtful approach to a problem, any problem that exists in one’s own life, or in the collective lives of humanity.

I cannot help but remember Yeats:  The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.

My definition of Balance:  The merging of the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

So, what do we do when there’s a flood?

Build irrigation ditches, and grow food.  Feed the hungry, and nourish the spirit.  Then, dance, sing and get drunk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S.  I do not advocate drinking (although I think the occasional wine is fine).  I like metaphors!

Tags: Apollo, Dionysus, ego, Finding balance, Logic, Passion