Simplicity-Lit: Today, Reason versus(??) Passion

"Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. "Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

"If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

"For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

"Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;

"And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes."

- The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran - Knopf, 1923

In the quest for "simplicity," we sometimes reach for binary answers - either this, or that. But the simple truth is that sometimes the answer is "both with balance."

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is a quick but profound read. I recommend it highly.

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