Act from the heart

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We all enjoy philosophy from time to time. To think, discuss and debate how things are, were and should be, why they come to exist and what would happen if so many other things were to happen.

Philosophy can get messy though. It is easy to go from clear-headed debate to fanaticism and locking into dogmatic ideas. It is also very easy to forget that we also have the capacity to feel and get lost into the infinite debate of the rational mind of whether a determined thing is too much or too little.

What is right and what is wrong, what is excessive and what is scarce, is subject to debate and open to as many stances as the mind can imagine. But when we listen to the heart there is no room for debate, it becomes easy to determine the course of action despite what the consequences might be.

Acting from the heart is a risky and dangerous endeavor. It offers no safety and absolutely no way of predicting the outcome. Only the rational mind predicts outcomes. But there is something that’s a bit predictable: you will feel a loser first and realize how much you’ve won way later. So much later you might not even associate the feeling to your previous actions.

There are people who assume acting from the heart means doing something pleasurable or kind. It can be sometimes like that, but a lot of times it involves pain. Acting from the heart involves wearing no masks and some days your face is just too ugly for others to bare. Sometimes even your smile can trigger someone else’s tears.

So why act from the heart if it doesn’t guarantee happiness? I don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t… Maybe everything would work fine if we acted every single time from reason. Maybe there would be no problems if we were to do everything based on the potential rewards and careful consideration of the implications of our actions. Maybe we would work as a perfect set of gears that make the machine called society work.

I just had to write this because I simply can’t be writing every time about what I think is the objectively right way to do things. Sometimes I have to accept all I think and say might be wrong and that life is pointless if you just run around trying to do the “right” things. What if it’s all the “mistakes” we make that give true meaning to life? After all, it’s when we fuck up that we value the most what previously felt as uncorrupted.

Right now I have to make difficult choices and I can go all day thinking about the “whys” and their probable outcomes. One path will hurt another and the other path will hurt me. Which do I choose? Sacrifice for another or self-love? No amount of rational debate can give me a “right” answer.

I must look into my true desires and callings to follow what makes my inner fire burn. The immediate consequence is most certainly pain for both of us, but after that, everything is possible. I know one thing for sure: sticking to reason will slowly drive me into victimization and I will blame everything outside when the answer was inside but I refused to listen.

Perhaps that’s the reason to act from the heart… Because it opens the path to follow your dreams, whatever that may mean. Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant, because it's what it's meant to be.

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