This and all other postings are WORKS IN PROGRESS. Each selection is added to, corrections made, and questions asked are answered as needed. I add new findings as they become available, often before proofing.

Nature requires balance in all things. To be valid throughout the full range of variable situations possible, thought, too, requires an acquired balance between emotion and reason.

By itself, emotion in action is not capable of “thinking,” or, what we would consider the meaning of the word “thinking.” Rather emotions “ruminate,” a word taken from the bovine nature of a dairy cow, which belches up past consumption to further masticate it.

One could say emotional ruminating is rerunning past “feelings,” and adding that “flavor” to whatever the rational is “serving” at the moment. While that is not a particularly ennobling “spin,” and, if taken with the problems emotions can create; one could easily assume our emotions are less an asset and more of a liability. Whether “help” or a “hindrance,” depends upon the rational environment we provide. Emotional distress is only a symptom of a problem with management at the rational level. Emotions are good with good rational management and balance; they are akin to a sucking chest wound when rational discipline gives them free rein.

Emotions deliver to the present moment, the very “flavor” and essence that is “the fuel” of life, much as oxygen is an essential “essence” for life. Like the presence of oxygen, or lack of it, emotions are felt, not seen; lacking a visible physical form, but a presence. Neither good, nor delinquent, emotional output's value is in how it is used, or, we could say, how we allow it to use us.

By itself, the rational “mind” analyzes, calculates and delivers a logical outcome. The outcome is a precisely calculated application, a precise “tool” for a specific “job.” Yet, it is what it is, and what it is meant to be: cold and calculated to an isolated objective. The rational has essence, but not a membership in life's “feeling family;” it does not “breath,” it does not “feel.” It would not melt from, nor feel the warmth of kisses from a child; rather, the rational would know, or acknowledge, those moments as precious: The rational can understand in an empathic form, but not sympathize; as to sympathize is to feel what the other side is feeling.

Rational outcome has the power to understand and characterize substance in the physical world. Furthermore it can define and bring together what is needed to bring about an outcome created by factors of universal law, rather like the universal law's factors combine the transparent gases of hydrogen and oxygen into the physical “stuff of life:” water.

Rationality, juxtaposed with emotion, shows two seemingly unrelated elemental components of our overall “thought process.” Yet, brought together in a healthy balance, it is the emotional element that gives life its “flavor,” the very essence of all that is “heart felt.” We are 100% emotional creatures. You are your emotions, whatever you “are” is emotional. Whatever you will be in life, however, will be determined by how this emotional “you” is balanced by something that is not “you,” but of you. You only have the capacity, capability is a learning process entirely up to you.

While we reach out and touch the entire palette of life's wonders though our emotions, our astounding rational endowment, on the other hand, is a singularly focused, “one-note” entity that is fully vested in giving life direction. It does so knowing what is going to be around life's “blind corners,” which it can determine from its astonishing capacity to correctly factor outcome. “Astonishing” in as much as our species can know outcome in advance by factoring universal laws, and do so to such a degree that we have dominion over the planet by way of that singular advantage!

Still, your “rational mind” is what it is, and is not a “stand alone” feature of yours, as, just as your emotional aspect, it is restricted to its singular specialization. As to caring, which we associate with our emotional side, rationality “cares” about the cost of each of its decisions, but cannot shift to a “popularity match” by altering its conclusions and the logical directives; should the outcome response is not what would be preferred. This is because the rational “mind's” solutions are arrived at by universal factors that define outcome, not necessarily what one would want. In fact, the vary basis of rational power depends upon your ability to sustain objectivity over an emotional default to subjectivity.

Rationality can have intellectual empathy, whereas the emotional “mind's” equivalent counterpart is sympathy. Empathy recognizes and understands suffering. Sympathy accepts, takes on, and feels the suffering to the point of becoming a part of it. Somewhere between the two perspectives there must be equilibrium, as in rational execution there are times in which the correct implementation is neither to the right nor to the left, but somewhere in-between. THE DISTINCTION, MOST CRITICAL, IS THE EXECUTION MUST NOT BE A COMPROMISE OF THE RATIONAL SIDE'S LOGIC. “Compromise” in this context would also be defined as an exception.

Obviously, success in life depends on developing a healthy mental balance. Yet, this mental balance in not achieved casually. Our emotions have the vigor of weeds in a garden and thrive on their own, this, as we are by nature 100% “emotional.” Your rational power is merely incidental, and SUCH POWER: It is the supreme authority to use centuries of accumulated knowledge of rules, universal law factor values, and predefined templates to bring probabilities, possibilities, potential, and power of such authority we do not have a word, or rational term, to fully do it justice.

Perhaps the lack of a worthy term for our rational prowess is due in part to rational illiteracy, and, also, the missing sense of utter awe and wonder it deserves. Yet, just as we “learn” to read, write and do arithmetic, we must learn the rules, meanings, and principal that allow us to function as a rational being. It is NOT an automatic programming process, as learning to talk, at which time we absorb words, but seldom the meanings. Ask what a word “means” and most often it will be the first time that person realizes they do not know how to define most of the words in their vocabulary. This comes as a profound shock, so be careful with such queries.

What ultimately makes our species unique in all of nature is our power to balance our emotional nature with the control and power of quantifying and qualifying ideas -- what the 20th Century would have broadly labeled “rational thought.”

The goal is to find the right balance between your opposing “sides,” by developing rational literacy, which understands the “meanings” that allow you to “think” when seeking rational wisdom.

How people “think” is less a mystery and not nearly as complex as people realize. If considered, most people assume the “mystery” of profound “thought” is that evolved logic is more the result of one's interests, where one focuses. This is absolutely correct as far as it goes, as interest is far more important than the myth of “talent,” and imagination is more potent than the myth of one's “IQ.” This, and the absolutely false assumption that “genius” is dependent on one's “intelligence quotient.” Later, we will cover “genius,” however; the point is people assume such things, whereas actual thought process itself is seldom considered.

For example, to me, the process of building a structure, starting from the ground up, rather intimidates me. Yet, I have no interest in learning the carpenter's craft. My single attempt ended after looking over the tools I assumed would be needed to construct the fence I had in mind. To my dismay, the shovel, hammer and handsaw did not come with instructions!

I made the decision to stick with what interested me, and leave the carpentry to the masters of fit and finish. As to the patterns people use to “think,” however; that captured my interest in my early teens, and “thought” seems much less complex than the complexities of construction.

As with most things, it is either easier than it seems, or, the people that do it, just make it look easy. Better understanding of the “thought process” is easier than it is usually assumed. For a brief example, were I to ask you the color of your front door, you would mentally refer to a “tool” in the form of a visual image of your front door. Likewise, when you ask yourself for rational answers, the “tool” is the pre-defined factors rational terms.

(The definition of “response” comes from the context of one of the rational core operating terms, “responsible,” which will be fully defined when enough background has been given for a proper fitting into its vital role in rational function.)

When emotions react, without exception, in rational context, any and all emotional reactions are hysteria, just in varying degrees, and regardless of how minor the level of reaction. In other contexts “hysteria” is also defined as having a physical symptom without a physical cause, this as emotions are the source of the affect.

Understanding “hysteria” within a rational frame is vital! This as without rational literacy, the common assumption is that hysteria is an “over the top” emotional outburst when someone is completely out of control, and radically “off balance.” Whereas, once more, ANYTIME the rational balance tips in favor of emotion, even a slight flash of “temper,” it is hysteria.

Something beyond emotion's capabilities to resolve is: You can't burn ashes. You cannot burn ashes and receive a benefit greater than the energy and resources wasted to start the fire.

As much as anything, emotions are based on reruns of the past, and require you to apply the opposing balance of the rational to look ahead. Once again, unbalanced guidance by emotion is driving down life's highway seeking direction by looking in the rearview mirror.

There is a “golden mean” between our higher-level rational mind and the basic emotional drives. The goal of rational literacy is to develop a personal understanding of your rational thought process, to reliably find a “healthy balance” between the two opposing sides. What you “are,” all you are capable of achieving, whatever you are going to be, is determined by your attention to balance. “Balance between all the parts that are me.”

The dilemma to you and to me is the “we,” we are, is 100% emotional. One could say rationality is an “aftermarket option,” just as the ability to read is an option we can add to the gift of sight.

Where you are going, depends on the dependability of your rational mind's factoring outcome, and next to the degree of wisdom required to fulfill its objective answer without compromise.

Wisdom in this instance is balance. Rational thought tempered by an emotion alliance then becomes thoughtful. Balance matches outcome to the emotional needs that give meaning and inspiration to all the other working parts that makeup your psyche, the part of you that defines you, but you never get to see in the mirror; just as you do not see the back of the moon, though you know it is there.

The ration of recognition your rational measures out to emotion appreciates its limitations to logic, and restricts its access to the narrow range of what emotion does that rational process cannot.

Wisdom appreciates the importance of the role of each part that defines the whole. One part does what it does best, and then it depends on the rest. The key is balance. Without the weight of rational literacy, emotion overpowers. Without emotion's grassroots' connections, rational outcome lacks the power to inspire action.

Though ruminating shrilly from the backseat, emotion assumes it could make things roll smoother; that the driver's a loser. While emotion assumes, the rational knows outcome, and keeps driving. Rational also knows that in spite of backseat moans, they were meant to need each other. Feelings to show, rational to know, and together they go farther than either alone. The more “together” knows together, the further you can go.