You can't take a single step with just a cold head. The power that makes you live and moves the world is always the passion in your heart.
Five complete deep essays
For two thousand years, since ancient Plato, Western philosophy has been obsessed with the dogma that 'reason is the master of emotions, and emotions are inferior slaves that must be subordinated to reason.' Philosophers have always condemned emotions and taught that only reason is pure.
However, David Hume, a 28-year-old young man in 18th century Scotland, threw a bomb in his Treatise on Human Nature (1739).
'Reason is the slave of the passions, and must only be a slave of the passions!'
Today, this sentence is read as a declaration that shook the foundation of Western intellectual history, but the Treatise received little attention at the time of its publication. Hume himself recalled that books were ‘born dead in the press.’ But he refined his ideas into more readable works, and over time his insight that cold calculation is not the force that drives human behavior had a huge impact.
Even though you have perfect logic in your head such as 'I have a test tomorrow, so I have to stay up all night to study' or 'I need to put down the spoon now if I want to lose weight', you may have criticized yourself when you found yourself lying on the sofa and watching Netflix.
Hume explains that it is not because you are weak, but that it is a perfectly normal human mechanism.
What reason does is simply a navigation system that predicts the weather or calculates the shortest distance to your destination using Google Maps. No matter how accurate the navigation is, if the car engine has no oil and you don't step on the accelerator, the car won't move even a millimeter. The only engine that fuels our mind, sparks it, and powers our body—that is emotion (desire, fear, love, curiosity).
The warmest and most dazzling concept in Hume's philosophy is 'Sympathy'. Humans are not isolated islands. Just as when you pluck the strings of one stringed instrument, the strings of other instruments nearby vibrate slightly, the human heart instinctively resonates with the joys and sorrows of others.
When we see a child bleeding after falling on the street, we do not calculate ethical obligations in our heads to help them. Because the moment I see the child's distorted expression, the same flame of pain burns in my heart.
� Hume asserts: 'Morality is not a set of rational rules, but a warm moral sentiment that makes one feel heartbroken by the situation of others and happy by good deeds.' Without a heart that can empathize, even genius intelligence becomes nothing more than a tool for a sociopath.
So how do we manage destructive emotions such as surging anger, addiction, and jealousy? Hume warns, ‘Do not try to fight emotions with reason.’ Even if you say 'don't be angry' with cold logic, it's like fanning the flames of a house on fire.
'A passion can only be checked or destroyed by another, stronger passion.'
What alleviates anger toward someone is not a cold admonition, but the fond affection that comes from old memories with that person, the pride of wanting to protect one's dignity, or the bitter 'compassion' that comes from seeing the loneliness that person is experiencing. To drive out negative emotions, you must fill your heart with warmer, richer, positive emotions.
We often live under the superstition that ‘emotional things are bad, and only rational things are cool and wonderful.’ However, a person whose emotions have been castrated is no different from a living corpse. Staying up at night while falling in love, crying over something unfair, and getting goosebumps when listening to beautiful music are the greatest blessings a human being can enjoy.
Don't trap your soul in cold calculations. Use your reason as a rudder and compass for the wonderful ship called life, but open your sails and gladly welcome the wind of passion that will take you to the distant seas.
That kind heart that can cry with others in their pain is the greatest wisdom you can give to the world.