Passion and Rationality (Passionality?)

I exist in a continual state of flux between passion and logic.

That sounds wrong, when I say it like that, but there's something that I've noticed within myself, especially over the past few months, as I find myself thinking more and more about logic and rationality and what it means for the world, and for me.

I have a very deep fear within myself that reality is cruel, uncaring, and meaningless, a fear that every thought about souls and afterlives and gods is just humanity's attempt at wishing meaning into a world that has none. A fear that not only does the question "what is the meaning of life?" not have a satisfactory answer, but that it's foolish to even ask such a question, because life, and conscious life in particular, is an aberration, a happy accident.

It makes it very hard to feel passionate about things, when there is a sense that the idea of value and meaning exist inside my own head. Well, our own heads... humanity as a whole.

But then I wonder if it is not indicative of a bit of personal enlightenment, to recognize that a waterfall is beautiful even in the absence of a beholder. There may not be some grand story structure to our world, we may not have destinies foretold, but that does not mean that the world itself does not have meaning.

It has not escaped my notice that it depends entirely on what I'm reading, which side of this scenario I find myself in. And it's difficult for me to really reconcile, or even articulate this concern of mine, because it seems like I'm saying one is better than the other, or that both are impossible. I don't think that's true; I just wish I knew how to attain both at once.

I think that logic and rationality are great gifts, perhaps some of our very best tools for understanding ourselves and our reality. But no matter how much I'm excited by the question and by the attempts to answer the question, there is the worry that the logic is cold and uncaring. I don't know how much of that is merely media bias from too many years of watching robots and sci-fi aliens and whatever else.

People shouldn't have to choose; I don't even think it really should be a choice. But I feel like it's something that I have to choose for myself, being declaring myself a scientist (in outlook, not in profession) or a poet (outlook again, not in actuality.) I want to declare that I'm an artist, that the artistic view is the best lens to view the world, but I always feel, somewhere inside, that the scientist is right and I'm not.

It feels like choosing passion means embracing ignorance. "I might not know much, but goddamn, I'm passionate about it!" That can't be right, can it? Especially when I get so offended, so absolutely incensed by what I perceive to be ignorance all around me.

So, that's where I'm at tonight. It always feels weird to me, to wax on about these things without ever coming to some sort of resolution at the end. But part of that's the point, you know? If I knew the answers to these problems, I wouldn't have to ponder them in such a fashion.

Regardless, the portmanteau in the post title makes me smile every time I read it. So I guess there's that.