Are You Rational or Human?

I read somewhere that all rational people are not emotional.

That is like saying that all oranges do not rely on their skin. If you separate the skin from the orange what you have is two separate things. A peal and the pulp. Most people just eat the pulp.

Let us say you are a very objective and rational person. You decide to make a decision. You gather all the facts about whatever you are deciding on. Are you sure you have all the information? Are you sure you need to have all the information? Can you afford to wait for all the information?

At some point you will need to find the confidence to make that decision. And, if you are confident you have enough information you make the decision.

What is that? Did I hear you say you FEEL confident?

No matter how you cut and slice the orange, you will at some point rely on your feelings. Feelings, good or bad, are emotions. And even a rational person cannot escape them.

Rational and emotional are separated in our language but in fact the human being is a whole. We cannot separate Physical, Rational, Emotional and Spiritual. This is simply a construct of the language. A way of talking about something.

There are those who, because the words are spoken as though they are separate things, convince themselves that they are separate.

You can pretend you do not have emotions., but you cannot escape them.

Do You Have Common Sense?

Another related issue is that of common sense. In language we tend to equate this with having native intelligence.  To sense though, is to use our five senses (six if you include our sense of balance).

I also object to the use of the word common. I often hear this used by employers speaking of job applicants. As in, "He didn't have the common sense to be a clerk!" The implication is that without any training, you can hire anyone off the street who will do the job.

If that is the case, let's hire someone off the street who has some of this common sense to replace all company presidents.

Some employers will use any excuse not to train their new hires. Are we to believe then that all company presidents are rational people?

You cannot expect an untrained person to do a job, even with common sense. If you have never been exposed to a particular discipline, no matter how simple or common, you may never understand what you are expected to do.

In what sense do we mean sense? If what we actually mean is to use the senses to arrive at somewhat rational decisions, then I'd like to see the school that teaches common sense. Do we really expect everyone will have gone to that particular school?

Perhaps it can be said that the rational also lack common sense.

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The author has many years experience, writing and reading for self development.

Copyright Gilles Hamann 2007
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