When Heart and Head Go to War.

I’ve known people during my life whose emotional side has been subservient to their rational side. These are people who can handle jealousy, for example, simply by thinking themselves out of it. They’re lucky, although they possibly miss out through rarely being creative.

And then there are people like me, and a few others I’ve known, whose emotional and rational sides are defiantly independent. When some situation occurs to cause us emotional difficulty, the rational side demands reason, while the emotional side refuses to demur. The result is a war in which no quarter is given, and the conflict is debilitating to both mind and body. The rational side is strong and well organised, but the emotional side is equally strong and much fiercer. What’s more, it doesn’t know how to give in. The result is always to inflate the suffering, and sometimes to cause suffering to the innocent as well. And I haven’t a clue what you do about it.

I put this problem to an eminent psychiatrist over twenty years ago. He told me that, however intelligent and mentally well organised you are, if those powers can’t kill the root of an emotional issue, you just have to live with it. There’s no more to say. There probably is more to say, but you get the gist.

So pity the passionate person, and be careful how close you get to one. You might be in for a ride that’s colourful, but not always pleasant. On the other hand, if you’re a passionate person yourself, you might find a rare degree of mutual understanding.