Emotionally reasonable

If I say I am emotional, does it mean I have no good use for reason? And, if someone is said to be a reasoning-type, is she/he devoid of emotion? Normally, we advise people, while taking decisions, not to be emotional but rational and practical. And that may partly answer the question.

We also say as a matter of fact that what comes from your heart is emotion; and what comes from your mind is rational. Sure, there should be no contention. But what I want to raise is that emotion has its root in logic and logic too is based on emotion. They are complementary and one becomes the ‘background’ of the other, depending on whichever happens to be surfacing at a particular moment.

Helen Keller says, “The best and the most beautiful things in the world can’t be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.” That means we are an incomplete lot without full use of emotion; and that reasoning too has its role in life. Just as one can’t do full justice to life with emotion alone, we will be living half a life with reasoning alone. Pure reason sans emotion has the power to lead one to insanity in a dry, logical life. After all, life is not all reasoning, all work and all success; its best aspects are hidden in the layers of emotion that we fail to uncover.

As youngsters, we were told by our elders to be emotional when must and rational when necessary. And that if you give in life a free run to emotion, you will lose control of your head too.

It is also true that persons who are emotional are their true selves without any “covering”. A rational person, on the other hand, could be, in most situations, selfish and devoid of love and compassion. That is why David Hume called for emotion to rule your reason to remain happier and contented. “Reason is, and ought to be the slave of the passion,” he reasoned. And I add, reason is nothing but tainted emotion.