I’ve been reading a number of german works in the past few months, spanning in era from 18th to 20th century. One theme that I’ve found common in nearly all the works is the stark splitting of emotion and reason. Its presence is so ubiquitous I’ve begun to grow curious of just how common it is in german art. I am, however, not keenly enough interested in german culture to pursue it with much vigor. Instead, I’ve found myself deeply drawn to these metaphors and fictitious scenes in which a person finds themselves lost in a psychological purgatory between feeling and reason, spirituality and rationality.
There is a balance I once believed we must create between the two — a compromise. As a child it takes the form of narrowing the imagination’s scope, seeing what is impossible and what is possible, then readily and correctly differentiating between the two. This can be evidenced by a fear of monsters or night, darkness gives rise to ambiguous shapes, things that a child cannot yet readily dismiss as imaginary or impossible. In our teens we learn to distinguish a valid feeling from an invalid one, and how to properly show the ‘right one’ while veiling the ‘wrong one’. Again, this manifests as strange emotionality, crying or feeling rage over what is typically written off as something trivial. Now into our twenties and generally considered an adult, one wrangles with a lingering sense of idealism. They attempt to reconcile what they want to do with what they think they should do.
All of these stages I’ve described are of course of a person slowing carving themselves deeper towards the side of reason/rationality. This is not always the case — there are, on rare occasions, those who seem to be born seemingly outside of this realm. However, I’ve chosen to focus here on the path most people take, where we repeatedly dismiss the emotional and spiritual side of ourselves because of both habit, and belief that the two are incompatible.
There is, for a reason I’m unable to defend, a sense that all things spiritual are also irrational. Perhaps this stems from the purportedly dichotomous nature of the two, but what exactly disconnects the two? The warm embrace of awe and inspiration that one can feel when staring at a beautiful scene in nature, some fiery and crimson sunset over a beach, is able to leave me a with repose, from which we derive legitimate value for no reason other than the scene’s beauty. Yet there is something utilitarian etched into me that struggles to dismiss these things as senseless.
This struggle between rationality and spirituality, I believe, is an illusion created by our desire to simplify. In truth there isn’t a balance that needs to be maintained between the two — the two aren’t opposing forces and hopelessly intertwined. They simply are what they are.
Bringing this back towards the now distant opening, I believe what I’ve attempted to describe here is perhaps the one of the major thoughts that one of those authors (Hesse) tries to convey in his works. Or, maybe, it is even more simply put as being the illusory struggle between things we create, and how much simpler and truer life becomes when we no longer pit things in opposition of another.
Regardless, I’m already finding some distaste in this style of writing. We’ll see if and where things go from here.
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