Everything Rationalized

I used to think my wants needed to be explained. Like all of my feelings. Like most western people, I've appointed my brain as the judge and manager of my entirety, and of everything around me.

I want whatever my brain says. My mind is logical. It knows what is rational and what isn't. It knows when something is dangerous.

Millions of years of evolution have created my brain. It prevents me from following paths that could lead to destruction. It filters all of my wants and decides which ones are valid. It finds out why I want things so I can explain it to others so that they will see me as rational.

My rational mind keeps me safe. It helps me know what is about to happen. it separates me from the animals. It separates me from the underclasses and the unsuccessful. It separates me from the people around me. It separates me from my feelings. It separates me from myself.

In return, I get to think I feel like things around me are controlled.


Each week, in the AoA course, a few people have their turn to speak with Joe, who leads most to some meaningful breakthrough in those 10-20 minutes of interaction.

It's been 5 weeks since we spoke as best as I can tell here is what happened: Joe showed me that it is possible for my body and intuition to understand something that my brain just doesn't.

He told me a joke. That joke won't make sense here; It's not intellectually funny. Man did I laugh though.

I told Joe that my brain didn't get why this is funny.

"That's right, it doesn't"


Fast forward just over a month and I realize: my feeling don't require rational approval, not even my own. This includes my wants.

For example, If I wanted to connect with someone new, usually, I would look for a rational reason for us to chat. This would help my internal manager decide if it was worth the risk / reward, it probably made my ask sound more like a pitch.

I'm guessing it usually comes out as some variation of "Something that is in essence "Hey we would both benefit by talking to each-other because __________"

This week, my ask is very different: 
"Hey X, I want to meet you, would you be open to chatting?"

Within the course community that this has yet to be turned down. I wonder where else I am pitching rather than just stating my want so if can be fulfilled.

What I've learned is that I don't at all need to understand, judge, or rationalize my feelings, including my wants.

If I want it, then that is that.

I'll quickly differentiate wants and cravings. Cravings have a subtly different feeling and I'm not a master of telling the difference yet, but often enough I find I know the answer if I'm willing to admit it. Probably so do you. Those aren't what I'm saying to follow. I'm told that wants feel expansive, whereas cravings do not.

So many of us believe that the voice in our head is the smartest part of us. We love the sense of control it brings, but that's living out of balance.

In that mode, we are ignoring a huge part of our intelligence. Important as intellect is, limiting ourselves to only that which is rationally derivable is... limiting ourselves.

Economic and psychological theory are well past viewing humans as purely rational actors, yet individually and even societal, still expect at some level that people can behave like logical robots.

That means that we often manage ourselves and others using more force than is necessary, because the action we choose are often out of alignment with the terrain we're navigating. Using force tends to have cascading negative consequences.

It also means that we spend an incredible amount of energy trying to rationalize everything we feel and rejecting ourselves and others where we believe we are being irrational.

What would living be like if we didn't force everything we accept in ourselves be rationally defensible?