The human condition is ruled by this tension between the heart and the mind, between emotion and reason, between the incessant waves of our thoughts and the tugging tides of our intentions.
Color
Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Last updated on Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 4:27 PM
“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny—it is the light that guides your way.”
― Heraclitus
For a long time now, I’ve made it a habit to marvel at the ridiculousness, the hypocrisy, or the absurdity of people’s character or behavior. I’ve always embraced my curiosity, my openness in thought, and my natural inclination for self-dialogue. Although it has undoubtedly paved many avenues towards many realms of knowledge that I now take for granted in my life, I’ve never sought out the idea that it might be holding me back in some way. Like most things in life, it must be held in balance. It may seem trivial—these internal monologues, these whimsical rants, and these petty frustrations I have with the world around me—but, as I’ve always argued, everything we do in this life is ultimately a trade-off. If we decide to do something, we are equally deciding to not do something else. I’ve completely failed to realize myself that this equally applies to thought as much as it does action. If we decide to think about something, we are equally deciding to not think about something else.
I operated under the presumption that thoughts are an infinite resource, that they are things that can just whimsically come and go, that I can entertain a thought in the peace and safety of my own mind without consequence. But the truth is that my thoughts are ultimately who I am. Although I am not jerked around like a puppet any longer—implying that my actions are not overridden by my emotions—we must remember that humans are not puppets. We are not merely what we do; we are as much what we do as what we think. Even if I don’t let my emotions dictate my actions, I am permitting my emotions to dictate my thoughts. And, by extension, that means I am letting my emotions dictate my character. If it doesn’t waste time, it wastes away the soul.
“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
I don’t need to have an opinion about the things that are irrelevant to the mission I set out to do in this life, about people that I have no power or no right to change, about things that I cannot or will not understand. My curious nature cripples me in the sense that it will always capitalize on the chance to reflect upon something, however trivial or inconsequential, however sensational or exigent. But I’m realizing that when I am confronted with something in life, I don’t have to have something to say about it. I have the option to simply move on, to simply walk away and continue doing what I originally set out to do, and to decide that something simply doesn’t deserve to be allotted a role in my life, nor do I have to give it a chance to imbue its nature into my soul.
Is this what my life was meant for? To ponder trivialities, to occupy my mind with the inconsequential, to burden my soul with the manufactured suffering and grief? I may try to concoct an intricate excuse—that these thoughts are merely for fun, for humor, for satisfying my curiosity, but at the end of the day, these thoughts and these feelings are who I am; they are what I intend on presenting to fellow human beings, and they are what I devote my heart and soul into, irrespective of how much is devoted. Even though I’ve done so in a manner that eschews condescension, moral superiority, and insensitivity, I am beginning to recognize that if they are neither contributing to the change I seek to make—whether in myself or in the world around me—these thoughts constitute a meaningless activity.
Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2023
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- Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination.Nassim Taleb
- The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with you…Heraclitus
Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2023
The Heart
Posted on Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Last updated on Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 4:27 PM
Ever since I started this blog six months ago in December, there’s no question that I’ve fundamentally changed. In everything that I do, I am able to think with clarity in perspective and reason, to hone my words with sharpness in focus and intent, and ground myself in truth and purpose. For virtually my entire life, I’ve been subjugated by the thought of failure and loss, of inadequacy and hypocrisy, and of purposelessness and inconsequentiality, whereas now I have little doubt in terms of what I’m meant to do in this life of mine; I am at peace with the thought of death; I am unperturbed by the notion of suffering and strife. My emotional volatility is generally very low. In the vast majority of circumstances, whether in work, daily life, friends, or family, I am content, stoic, and grateful that I’m able to be here at all, even if to suffer.
But there’s a part of me that hasn’t changed. There persists one catalyst in particular that has never failed, and continues not to fail in instigating a relentless and inexorable chaos within my heart—love. It merely takes a few fateful encounters with a special person, one fleeting moment of eye contact or physical touch, or a couple intoxicating thoughts of possibility as an impetus for this disconsolate, sulky heart to spur it into an irreversible, frenetic spiraling into utter chaos, impelled by quixotic tendencies and an undeniable, ravenous desperation for love. Despite all the progress I’ve made cultivating the mind and however much I perceive that I’ve fundamentally changed internally, I am still far too easily blinded by love. Compared to my past self, while I think vastly differently, I’ve come to the realization that it’s not as if I feel any differently. It’s only now that I feel in my rational mind as if I’m an innocent bystander to this chaos, witnessing the storm brewing in the distance. Do I view it with disdain or with awe? With contempt or with appreciation? With fear or with hope? No matter what I think, no matter how much I try to reason with this insolent and tumultuous heart, I will never prevent the unpreventable. I will nevertheless become helplessly stranded amid this raging ocean, swallowed by this sea, and the feeble comfort of this rationality—viciously wrested from my consciousness by the inexorable pull of this whirlpool of emotion.
Though what is most peculiar is when I juxtapose this chaos with the aforementioned resilience that I’ve recently built up in this state of mind; this acute self-awareness and this ability to at any moment detach—however momentarily—from the chains of my present circumstances combined with a tumultuous stream of emotion creates within me a strange duality of truth. It seems that at the center of the pursuit of a life well lived lies this fundamental ambivalence of human nature, wherein the consciousness seems to be stranded amidst an unceasing tug-of-war between the heart and the mind. It seems that the meaning of life remains suspended in limbo; is it an unending war, or is it a dance with possibility?
There exists no doubt in my mind what I’m meant to do—what I’m supposed to do and what is deemed reasonable. To fall in love with someone I know nothing about? Absurdity. To incessantly envisage emotional intimacy and connection? Delusion. To believe that they just might be the one and only? Stupidity. In my mind, I know with certainty there is a cost. I know there is a risk. I know it will subjugate and oppress me. I know this frenzied desire and unleashed emotion will derail all semblance of rational thought and my life purpose. But the heart remains unperturbed by the fact that I have more important work to do in this life, unfettered by the notion that I might just be making a fool of myself, unfazed by the very distinct possibility that these feelings are all but an elaborate delusion. In the heat of the moment, disoriented and dazed in the midst of all the confusion and the cacophony, desperate and distraught from all the uncertainty and indecision, nothing—nothing feels more right, seems closer to an ultimate truth than the mere prospect of love.
Blinded by love, coaxed by possibility, determined to find redemption, there seems to be no doubt in my heart, either. There persists an irrefutable yearning ensconced within it—an inexorable desire for passion, for love, for chaos. The frenzied rush of sex, the unmistakable warmth of two souls inextricably locked in an embrace, the invigorating sensation of a reckless wander into this war-torn and ruin-strewn battlefield of emotion. If I said, from the absolute depths of my heart, that I don’t long for the radiant warmth of another’s heart, that I don’t yearn for another’s grace enveloping my consciousness, that I don’t crave the taste of soft lips and the invigorating gaze of a lover, that there is no ravenous beast of lust and desire lurking within me, that I am not completely and utterly starving for love, there would be no greater lie to have come out of my mouth.
Have I starved myself of love far too long? Are my emotions indeed delusions? Or are they shrouded avenues towards a greater truth? As much as we try to psychologically detach ourselves from the inexorable chaos outside our perception, as much as we try to understand—relentlessly and meticulously peeling away at the seemingly innumerable number of layers of reality that constitute an ultimate truth—there seems to be nothing more undeniably real and irrevocably true than our feelings and emotions. The pure, unfettered joy of eating when famished, drinking when parched, resting when exhausted, the warm comfort of a mother’s embrace, the relentless gravity of a lover that tugs upon our hearts, the searing pain of smoking hot oil splashing onto our skin, the visceral panic when a large animal charges at us—what are they but atoms scattering haphazardly in space? What are they but players in this nonsensical game we call life? But in that moment before our minds can rationally justify how we feel—regardless of whether we want to feel those emotions or not—we are one with the chaos.
But the more I contemplate this ambivalence between the heart and the mind, the more I am convinced that this ambivalence is the point. After all, if I cannot control my emotions, what am I, but driftwood in an incomprehensibly vast ocean, ceaselessly tossed by the waves and dragged by the currents? What am I, but a ravenous predator in a desperate pursuit of a meal? Or am I the prey of such a beast, merely awaiting an inevitable fate? And if I cannot experience my emotions, what am I, but a faceless and featureless entity, a cog in an incomprehensibly complex machine, an actor in a plotless play? My mind reorienting itself in a state of emotional chaos—should it be akin to a policeman catching a thief red-handed? Or should it resemble a shepherd guiding back sheep that have been led astray?
To fall in love and find nothing—there exists no greater waste of time, energy, and attention. But to fall in love and find love—there exists nothing quite as momentous, visceral, and irrevocably true. And I speak as if I had a choice between them—as if any semblance of reason survived to discern which is which. In many ways, this inability to discern and this revocation of agency in my emotional state has been tormenting my mind for the past month. But after many long days of emotional carnage and the attrition of reason, I’m realizing that perhaps there is no reason to fight. Perhaps the point isn’t to change the way I feel—to shut out these absurd thoughts, to reprogram my emotional disposition, to regulate how I should feel at all times. Lest I forget that my heart has its reasons of which my mind knows nothing, and that the heart, like any other source of suffering and grief, is also an indispensable source of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.
I didn’t choose to feel this way, as I didn’t choose to suffer, either.
But perhaps, the point is not being able to choose at all in the first place.
But if I did have a choice, would I still choose to feel this way?
Posted on Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Which happens first?
Posted on Friday, March 10, 2023
Last updated on Thursday, August 6, 2026 at 5:24 PM
The way we feel influences the way we act, just as much as the way we act influences the way we feel. What caused what? What influenced what? Where does it start? Where does it end?
We can decide what we do, but that decision is almost always entirely based on how we feel. And more often than not, we can’t choose how we feel.
We are perpetually mired in this vicious, capricious cycle that seems to taunt us, provoking us to question the validity of our belief in our free will.
This is perhaps one of humanity’s greatest merits—the ability to delude ourselves so convincingly into thinking we are in control, fabricating and internalizing whatever narratives that will lead us to believe we, amidst this chaotic, unforgiving existence that we call life, have the power to determine our own fate. And while doing so, making something beautiful out of it.
Posted on Friday, March 10, 2023
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Emotions
Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2022
Last updated on Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 4:27 PM
When we say we’re happy, sad, tired, energetic, or whatever word you can pull out of the dictionary to describe how you’re feeling, you’re not actually describing how you feel, at least not in any way that does yourself justice.
We like to think that there are types of emotions, like there are types of fruit, each with their own unique characteristics and traits. We like to describe our emotional state by assigning adjectives into an abstract fruit basket, where each item is distinct and separate. But I will argue that our emotional state is much more akin to a smoothie. How you feel at this very moment is the very precise mix and proportions of ingredients your body—not you—decided to throw into that smoothie. And the act of trying to describe your emotional state in a few sentences, let alone one or two words, is as absurd and futile as trying to extract, separate, and distill each type of fruit that goes into a smoothie after it’s already been blended into a thick, homogenous goop.
Your body doesn’t understand English. Neurochemistry doesn’t operate on the basis of simple adjectives. Your emotional state when you say you’re “happy” now versus that of when you said you were happy ten years ago, one year ago, one month ago, or even three hours ago, are all incredibly distinct and likely incomparable versions of “happy.” Just because you’ve declared how you feel, doesn’t make that what you actually feel. The truth is, most people are terrible at describing how they feel, partly because most people are terrible at writing—the act of decomposing thoughts into coherent language—and partly because many of us lack self-awareness.
Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2022
Appears in
Along the same lines
- A Certain Vibean essay
- The Heartan essay
- Criticisman essay
- Coloran essay
- Paradoxes of the Human Conditionan essay
- Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.Aristotle
- The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.Blaise Pascal
- Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination.Nassim Taleb
Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2022
A Certain Vibe
Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Last updated on Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 4:27 PM
I’ve had a bad history of falling in love far too easily, yet being haplessly daunted by rejection; more precisely, it was the anticipation of rejection and not rejection itself that ultimately sabotaged me in my quest to find love. Throughout my teenage and college years, despite overidealizing the notion of romance and being overly susceptible to the capriciousness of my romantic impulses that wrought chaos in my ghostly and forlorn heart, I never mustered the courage to even make it to the point where I could even be rejected in the first place. I’ll spare you, the reader, from the cringe-inducing details of my many failed attempts that were riddled throughout this epoch of my life.
In 2019, having already decoupled myself from the psychological constraints of school and church that had once mired me in a seemingly perpetual spiral of loneliness and failure, I began to formulate a sense of independence and confidence to take on the world. Having already spent a year working at Paris Baguette—where I had just been promoted to a management position—not only did I attain financial freedom, but it also led me to forming many meaningful and lasting friendships that boosted my social confidence. And with that newfound social confidence, I felt as if I was ready to delve back into this game of romance.
Since February that same year, I’ve had a playlist on Spotify entitled “A Certain Vibe”; what seemed to be a straightforward collection of rap and pop songs ended up becoming a profound manifestation of my volatile, fledgling emotions and ambitions in this quest for redemption. Recognizing the need for change, I intuitively ascribed nearly all the dissatisfaction that existed in my inconsequential life then to my past timorousness, eccentricism, and general inability to fit into nearly any social context. The music embodied an almost vengeful antithesis to my cowardly, socially awkward and emotionally dysfunctional past self. I wanted so desperately to prove that I was past that phase of my life, that I was fundamentally a completely different person
The odd thing, however, is that even when I created the playlist, I wasn’t quite capable of explicitly defining what this vibe even was; it was a collection of songs that didn’t merely evoke distinct, clear-cut emotions, as did most other music I listened to, but it was rather an opportunity to vicariously live a life I never lived. It was a entrancing glimpse into a surreal, unfamiliar world—visions of carefree abandon, of night drives out to the club, of the intoxicating, alluring scent of perfume and cologne, of the strangely sensual lingering odor of cigarettes and alcohol, of walks along the beach amidst a sunset glimmering along the waters, of the blissful sensations of wafting along warm, intimate air and gentle, caressing summer breezes, of the mesmerizing gaze and the captivating touch of a coveted lover, gripped by infatuation, hypnotized by this irrefutable feeling, causing the world around to collapse in on itself. Passion, desire, lust, freedom—all imbued within this paradoxically intimate yet elusive, familiar yet foreign memory.
The more songs I added to the playlist, the more profound and nuanced these emotions became; the more I listened, the more often I would transport myself into the mysteriousness of this parallel universe, captivated by a version of existence that so vastly contrasted my mostly idyllic and solitary daily life. It turns out that by both harnessing this vindictive energy to prove my past self wrong and emulating the spirit of this “certain vibe,” I eventually did manage to end up in a relationship, which ended up lasting almost two years. While I do have plenty of fond memories within that relationship, there persisted the same kind of emotional capriciousness and turmoil that had haunted me in the past. Whether provoked by the minutiae of daily life, the petty instances of misunderstanding, or by a genuinely significant emotional rift in our interactions, there were many moments where I would mire myself in an oppressive miasma of anger, frustration, or jealousy, which typically eventually devolved into old habits of self-pity, apathy, and complacency. I became jerked around like a puppet—a helpless and woeful victim of my circumstances. Despite all this determination and strife to redeem my past self by proving I could get into a relationship, I now realized that I was trying to prove the entirely wrong thing. What I needed to change most about myself was not my ability to fit in, to effectively socialize, to put on a mask of confidence, or to ameliorate my loneliness in particular; no—these were all but symptoms of a larger problem in my life that I had been blind to. The underlying problem was just how heavily I relied on my emotions to navigate not merely within relationships, but the broader scope of life as a whole.
“A Certain Vibe” does not necessarily represent a life solely consumed by relationships, sex, alcohol, drugs, and an overarching hedonism, despite the recurring motifs of such that exist in the premise of many songs in the playlist. Rather, at its core, it represents a fundamentally unpredictable life—one tossed by the whim of circumstance, wrought by torrents of emotion, and thoroughly engrossed by myopic, often selfish desire. The ultimate goal of such a lifestyle is to maximize the degree of sensual experience—if not merely induced by psychoactive substances, provoked by the thrill of the party, aroused by the seductive, inexorable pull of sex and romance. And to achieve such a goal, it inevitably devolves into a game to appease or seduce others by maximizing perceptions of attractiveness—fashion and physicality, wealth and status, charisma and confidence. But not only did one have to possess this laundry list of qualities, but, more importantly, this lifestyle demanded the kind of resilience to endure this emotional whirlpool whose degree of strength depended entirely on the whimsical, arbitrary perceptions of others.
Alas, as I eventually learned the hard way, these were games I was never quite willing to play. This bravado that had once spurred me on an almost maniacal quest for redemption had predictably petered out. Being on the extreme end of the continuum of agreeableness, a life dictated by emotion was untenable; interpersonal conflicts, ruled by emotional impulse, proliferated irrationality and thus unpredictability, often making them both psychologically oppressive and monumentally difficult to solve. Being heavily biased towards introversion didn’t exactly help me either; forcing myself to engage in a myriad of social interactions—often superficial, petty, and vapid, at that—was extremely draining and arduous. In many ways, I envy the unrestrained and carefree abandon characteristic of this life, but I have concluded now that I can neither succeed in nor ultimately find happiness in it; my emotional and intellectual disposition is simply not designed to tolerate the capriciousness and vapidity of such a lifestyle. Despite my past fascination and awe, I know that I will never be able to fully immerse myself in this world—this certain vibe. At this point in my life, I've acknowledged that given the potential I’ve realized in myself, I have far more important work to do in this world than squandering it on this tireless, wearisome search for an elusive soul mate, especially in a world that is continually distancing itself farther and farther from a sound definition of love.
I haven’t fallen in love in three years. And in those three years, I’ve made immeasurable progress in terms of emotional awareness and maturity. But as much as I claim to have adopted the cultivation of the rational mind and eschewed this pursuit of sensual pleasure, I cannot deny the visceral feeling that arises when faced either the daunting, heart-wrenching prospect of true love, or the seemingly insatiable, ferocious sexual lust that prowls within. When I immerse myself in this certain vibe, I can’t help but feel as if I’m on a romantic precipice, on the verge of falling in love again, on the brink of my world once again collapsing around me. I often forget that even if I’ve made the choice to let my mind dictate the course of my life, I still possess the capability to perceive emotions with such profundity and intensity in a way that can effortlessly derail any rational train of thought. I will never be able to extricate this romantic idealist from my inner self, that even despite all my efforts to remain calm in the face of chaos and rational in the face of ignorance, I remain susceptible to this inexorable yearning of my heart. But perhaps, there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps, there is as much truth to be found in that feeling as there is anywhere else.
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”
— Blaise Pascal
Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2023
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny—it is the light that guides your way.
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The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
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Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.
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Without reason, and we become a slave to our circumstances.
But without emotion, there is no reason to have reason.
Added on Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Along the same lines
- A Certain Vibean essay
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- Criticisman essay
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- Emotionsan essay
- Paradoxes of the Human Conditionan essay
- Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.Aristotle
- The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.Blaise Pascal
Added on Wednesday, August 5, 2026