2.21.2013

The Head or the Heart

Here's the thing--everyone runs about madly, dashing about, trying to find the right words, the right phrases, the right meaning behind the heart. And I think it's a bit more difficult than extracting an idea, a thought from the heart. That's the thing about this muscle--that keeps the body moving and the soul thriving--it's so hard to define. In a cardiovascular sense, yes, it's a muscle that pumps and pumps and pumps until one day that muscle makes its final contraction, ending someone. But it's also more obscure than that--it's an idea, a thought--things that can't be written on paper or explained without some kind of confusion. That can't be translated. And I think that scares us. Terrifies me. What is the purpose, the motivation? Why does the heart burn and the head question? It's this terrible truth and confliction of the head and the heart that leads so many to misunderstand his fellow man--to use their head where they should use their heart to understand or vice versa. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that the heart is the most difficult part of having a soul. Of being a soul. Confined to the mere space of eighty years. And it's this urgency--this knowledge that each pump leads to the last--that terrifies me. Mortality is what it is. But what if you had such an acute understanding of mortality--that the next contraction could be your last--that suddenly all of the rigamarole and hoop jumping felt like pish posh. Like unequivocal waste. Time is limited. Time is false. And if we only have so much time, so less time, how can we ignore the burn of the heart? I think if we would listen we would hear the whisper of our heads--logic--logic that says let go of inhibition. The head is closer to the heart than we could ever imagine. And to ignore the burn of the heart would be to question the power of the head. All that to say, burns can't be ignored. Can't be left off until something is accomplished. After all--to ignore the burn only worsens the pain. The pain the head will have twenty years from now, as it slowly comes to the knowledge that the heart has been roasting and left to wallow, to forget where the source of the heat came from.

Twenty years from now what burn will have scarred your heart because you misinterpreted the head?