While reason appears unreasonable, common sense in turn produces uncommon wisdom: to be different, operate at a higher level of reason and common sense, not feelings and emotions.
There are times when I’m lost in amazement simply wondering how much time will elapse before more humans begin to use their brains rather than their feelings.
Simply put, and plainly understood, when brains are used in a given situation, one is utilizing common sense.
However, when one relies solely on feelings he/she is ignoring rudimentary elements of reason.
Pursuing one’s feelings may feel good, but more often than not it produces the wrong answers to life’s questions. Babies and young children are guided by feelings; a baby feels hungry and cries until someone feeds him or her. If you do not want to go to school then it might feel better to just stay home.
“Just Do It” was a somewhat controversial advertising campaign slogan that was certainly feelings-oriented. In a similar vein the popular expression of the 60s (the moral imperative at Woodstock), “If it feels good do it”, had the same appeal, although it summed up everything that was wrong with the emerging values of the 60s and 70s.
We hear about tuition-free education, free housing, free healthcare, paid maternity leave and a monthly guaranteed government allowance to those who are not working for whatever reason. Yes, it all sounds wonderful and it certainly feels good. But if you fail to use your brain, mind the facts, or bring logic and common sense into this equation it falls apart.
In response to the question of who pays for it, the feelings-based individual might answer thus: “Well, of course the government pays for it.”
Notwithstanding, the person who uses his brains knows that “the government” does not create the money to pay for these things, but instead “take” the money from hard-working taxpayers. In other words, people who work for a living, pay for all the freebies.
Nowhere on God’s green acre is there free anything. Get that straight!
Currently, it is popular with the younger crowd to be feelings-oriented because it is so much easier than actually thinking things through. Progressivism, socialism, radical liberalism, or whatever name you may want to call it is definitely feelings- based.
Most sticker slogans appeal to those who value “feelings” over logic. For example, “MAKE LOVE NOT WAR” sounds good, but in actuality it means nothing. No rational human being would choose war over love. Such logic dumbs down a problem, oversimplifies complex issues and disregards context and circumstances.
If we were to literally follow the Make Love not War slogan, then wars such as the Vietnam War, the invasion of Afghanistan and the Coalition of the Willing, to name a few, would never have occurred; people would have stayed home and made love instead.
Yet another ‘feel good’ concept that fails the sense test, relegating it to pure nonsense, is the celebration of transgender diversity. Almost everyone with sound common sense knows that there are only two stated biological sexes, male and female. Period! Point finale! Anything else is abnormal, is an aberration plain and simple.
Celebrate transgender diversity? One might as well celebrate abnormality.
There are also political phrases that are designed to make people feel good. One might support the noble and freedom-loving notion of “A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE.” If expressed in another way perhaps it would not produce the same emotional righteousness. How many can feel good about a woman’s right to abort her baby, and then add anytime up to the minute of birth. Such a statement genuinely delineates the Democrats position on abortion. Not exactly a virtuous cause.
While it feels good to think that America should be open to all the poor people who desire to reside in the country, from a logical stance a country without border control would not be a country for long. The ensuing chaos is almost unthinkable.
Also, paying reparations for slavery might make some feel good and ease guilty consciences, but the truth of the matter is that today there are no Black Americans alive who slaves, just as there are no white Americans today who truly enslaved anybody.
Throughout history there have been people cruelly treated and used by other people; such a situation still continues.
It is obvious that the big questions and social issues of society call for all the brainpower we can give them. Notwithstanding, while it is nice to feel good, it is far better to do good.
Using common sense, reason and logic along with virtue and compassion is the way to handle life’s problems. Using only feelings is the way to avoid handling them.
Aleuta– The struggle continues.
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