reasonably fatal

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REASONABLY FATAL

Hello friend, You’d be hard-pressed to name a book more intentionally obtuse than Summa Theologica, and hard-pressed to name a writer more unintentionally obtuse than Saint Thomas Aquinas. Maybe that’s a little unfair—though it’s difficult to describe someone who decides to, in the days before Google or even modern libraries, sit down and write a book detailing the entirety of theology. A book that, at 3,000 pages, he still considered to be incomplete.But much to the chagrin of many a college sophomore, the book was not a flop. It’s widely regarded as one of the greatest works of medieval philosophy and theology, and perhaps even more widely regarded as a total pain in the ass. It’s the  sum of everything we know about theology, neatly laid out, in all it’s perfect reasonableness. But it’s in that work that Aquinas, arguably the greatest left-brain thinker of his time, drops this line:”Reason itself demands that reason must, at times, be interrupted.”Even Aquinas–the king of the head ruling the heart–saw that reason, by nature of its own laws, was totally inadequate. He knew that as much as reason cannot be abandoned, it also cannot be entirely trusted.The voice in the back of your head that says you’re tired and don’t need to practice today—well, it’s an entirely reasonable voice. You’re tired. The gym will be there tomorrow. You can always pick up and try again.And that’s true… And perfectly reasonable… But ultimately fatal to any goal or plan or dream. It’s not creativity that makes us quit a new undertaking. It isn’t brashness that stops entrepreneurs from starting. It’s not Cupid’s arrows that stop potential lovers dead in their tracks before they muster the courage to say hello.It’s reason. The calm, cool, collected voice of logic, killing everything worthwhile before we even start.So be creative. Be charitable. Be loving, thoughtful, opinionated, brash, or honest. Fall in love and make music so good it’s a worthwhile dance partner in it’s own right. Be kind and strange and ever so productive…Just don’t try to be too damn reasonable about it.Journal Prompt: Is there a part of your life where reason is hurting you more than it's helping you?