Logic vs. Emotion

I am in the middle of reading a book that a friend let me borrow a while back... granted, I should have finished it a while ago, but alas, I procrastinate. Anywho, I recently came upon a section that really meant a lot to me, and so, I feel I will share its thoughts with you.

Generally speaking, people prefer emotional and subtle arguments to straight forward, logical arguments. This may make perfect sense to you, but please refrain from yelling your "DUH"s at me, as this is actually earth shattering to me, lol. I had a post a while back about how I was finding it extremely difficult to communicate with people. In fact, I think I had several posts on the topic. Essentially, I could not figure out why on earth it was possible to convey a single point to someone. Well, it turns out that I was going about it all the wrong way...

In conversation, for the last several months, I have divorced myself from emotional persuasion and subtle manipulation so that I could speak logically and directly with people. This was my way of showing them respect. Instead of using subtle vocal queues, or various emotional tactics to persuade someone, I was using simple and bland logic. Well, as it turns out, when you are blunt and logical with people, it actually offends them.

Now, I am sure at this point, many of you are like "HEY, I like blunt logic"... however, I would argue that you are probably fooling yourself. Or, at least, I was most certainly fooling myself to believe such a statement. While I wanted fairness and openness, what I did not expect was such a great divorce from emotion and passion. Suddenly, I found myself talking about death as if it were some abstract concept, instead of the end of a being's life.

For some brief background... there are probably some things that you should know about me. When I was a kid, I would question everything. More or less, I was this great funnel for "How the World Works", lol. That affinity for knowledge, however, was curtailed by several social concepts around me. Specifically, that a man can not survive reading books all day, lol. Fortunately for me, I was never allowed to camp out in my ivory tower, as my family was and is a very goal driven, success oriented family. When it came to volitle moments in my life, those times when I wanted to hide in my tower to either cry alone, or thrown down rocks from above, (especially once I entered high school) my parents were generally unforgiving towards me being emotionally reclusive. Whether it was something that made me upset or sad, both my father and mother always "resolved" the situation by reminding me that in the "real world", time does not stand still while you work out your problems. Now, in their defense, I do understand where they are coming from. They did a lot of hard work to get where they are at, and they do not want me to be controlled by my emotions in so far as it would hurt my productivity. Essentially, they were saying to me that it is okay to feel sad or alone, but those feelings should not make you hide under your bed.... To be honest with you all, I totally agree with that assessment... even though it was not easy to accept at the time. However, being the overachiever and perfectionist that I am... I believe I took that suggestion to far.

Approximately 7-8 months ago, I ended a relationship that I thought was going to last me my entire life. In ending that relationship, in many ways, I felt like I was giving up on love, on joy, on hope, and on my happy ending. This was one of those moments when I really wanted to hide up in my ivory tower and cry myself to sleep. However, I think I may have done something even worse. Instead of crying in my tower, I read... a lot. More or less, I just shut down emotionally, and decided that logic and reason were my gods. While I still held my faith in God, I most certainly became twisted as an individual. Within a few months, I found myself, for lack of a better term, thinking like an theistic agnostic, or perhaps even an atheist would. These thoughts were not pertaining to God, but rather to the way I lived my life.

I understood that God would love me no matter what kind of person I was, and so I began to question some fundament things about my lifestyle. For example, why I was not drinking.( For those of you who dont know, many years ago, I decided to wait until I was married to drink (for several personal reasons)). However, with my relationship gone, and much hope feeling abandoned, I started to wonder why I was not drinking. Now, just so you know, I am not talking about getting drunk, but rather just socially drinking. Also, I started to question why I was not just "dating around" with not specific goal for marriage. To me, it seemed like the thing to do for people my age, and I knew it would make me feel better, and yet I could not bring myself to do it... and I just did not know why.

Fortunately I was smart enough to realize that I was in a fractured state of mind, and so I did not allow myself to act on any of my decisions for that period of time. One I started teaching, I found joy and hope again in life. My knowledge and reason became extroverted instead of introverted... In time, I felt more confident in many of my personal reasons for abstinence (in many areas in my life). However, the general logic still remained to a large extent. I still felt like logic and reason were far better gods than emotion... and that when it came to conversations, they were best served cold and dry.

For several months, I taught debate at Metro. I taught on the issues, the philosophy, the evidence... you name it, we discussed it. Then came regionals, and I just knew that we were a shoe-in for state. The person who would later win regionals was using one of my sample cases that I presented to the class, verbatim. (his entire case, I defeated in class as an example, long before this tournament). When the awards were announced, I was in complete disbelief that none of my students even made it to the finals.

However, now that is all making a lot more sense to me. The first day after class, I returned and told them something that even I at the time didnt fully understand: "It doesnt matter how right, or intelligent you are... If you cant convey your Truth to a judge, you become irrelevant".

Their struggle was my struggle. Their failure was my failure. I had created intelligent, emotionless machines of Truth and logic. They knew their material better than anyone else. They found ways to be right, on both sides of the resolution... and yet to the world, we were nothing but monsters. It is not surprise that one of my debaters got really low speaking points, even though she is an excellent speaker. That only happens when you piss a judge off.

Through months of logic and reasoning and training, they were no better off than myself. They were right, but irrelevant to the rest of the world.



Now, all of that is about to change. I was once a very charismatic person, and I believe I would like that lifestyle again. It has been months since I have seen myself without dark circles around my eyes... and I think it is about time to remember the reasons why we live and why we even debate in the first place. Debate is suppose to be about conveying truth, not about defeating someone else. Debate is suppose to be about leading people to the light, and not simply being "right" on a given issue. Debate is suppose to be a search, not an Army march. Debate is suppose to be a dance, and instead I have been treating it like a machine.

In life, we do not give out attention or respect to the "right" or the incredibly intelligent... but rather, most people turn their ears to those that draw them in... those who seem to radiate a light that we want. There is a reason why we care what celebrities think about the presidential race... and that reason has nothing to do with their expertise in the field.

In teaching people to "persuade", I was focused on the arguments and the logic, and yet was ignoring the fact that 80% of communication is non-verbal. In the end, I will blame it on me being a man... as any woman knows that "it is not what you say, but how you say it"... :-)

I believe it is time for me to rethink how I am going about communicating to people... and it is about time that I start to capitalize on the skills of my persuasive female friends... seduction, here I come! :-)


Oh, and in response to my last question, this is why I am doing a vLog... because 80% of communication is non-verbal... and therefore text is just too limiting.