I talked in a previous post about how tough I am. This is in large measure a lie. I’m not tough: I keep going, often after momentary failures brought on in part by a lack of sustained discipline. I know truly tough people, and I could not keep up with them over the long haul.
Apparently like most kids that age (roughly 5-11) I used to like Wolverine, in the X-men. But the way I remember him is he was usually the first into many fights, and the first to get his clock cleaned. The other X-men did more of the actual work. His main attribute was often that he survived things others couldn’t. He couldn’t fly, he couldn’t jump, he couldn’t project anything. He just kept going, and he could cut things with his claws. (as I think about it, with changing attitudes towards extreme violence, this role may have changed a bit; I always remember his claws being out, but never killing anyone). This is kind of how I think about myself.
The attribute I grant myself–and I share this because it may be more generally useful for someone out there–is the capacity to hold extreme emotions, and extreme thoughts in close proximity and generating imaginative insightes from their interaction. This is a painful process, holding everything in place. I visualize it as a sort of X-ray, where you have to project it from more than one angle to get a three dimensional view.
Reason happens within a field. It is never enough by itself. Biologically, our rationality is, in my understanding, a subset of our larger neurological complex. To follow lines well, you have to embed them within a field of trained emotion.
This is a subtle insight–and I’m not completely sure this isn’t BS–but I thought the words worth typing.