'Is that really how you feel?' Asked the beautiful girl, in a tone that conveyed disbelief, as she sat upon the stone wall fence in the afternoon sun. The boy seated on the grass below her and to her left looked up and noticed briefly the way the sun shone on her cheeks, giving them perfect definition. Her wavy, light brown hair was being lifted gently away from her face by the slight breeze that frolicked across the meadow in which they sat. The word Angelic, audible only to himself, flashed by, then gone.
He returned his head to its downward position facing the ground and responded with conviction – 'Yes ... Yes that is how I feel and none of your rationalising will change my resolve.' Although his tone was adamant his body language did not support his verbal display of confidence. The boy sat propped against the fence with knees bent before him, feet flat on the ground, an elbow resting on each corresponding knee, forearms extended forward, fingers of both hands busy exploring every inch of a long grass stalk. A finer portrayal of dejection would be difficult to find.
The girl stared down at him for some time from her lofty position, then continued carefully 'I can't believe you feel that way. What stream of logic did you use to reach your conclusion?'
'Logic?' He spat the word from his mouth as if expelling rotten food. Then, visibly composed himself in order to continue the conversation more calmly. How did she always know how to rile him so? A deep sigh and then 'Logic alone cannot lead us to the answer of every problem. Sometimes we simply just need to feel our way to an answer.'
She smiled at him quizzically, knowing he could not see her doing so as his gaze seemed frozen to the ground in front of him. She would try once more to convince him to see it her way 'Feelings have no framework from which to pin reason, they blow around like leaves in the wind. Emotions are driven by the chemical blends that course through us, so how can you rely on them as a trusted method for choosing life direction?'
His body visibly slumped as if her counterpoint had struck a physical blow. He drew breath again and raised his head to stare straight forward out over the field in front of him. 'I can hear what you are saying and I understand your argument but I prefer to stay in touch with my emotions. Attachment to our feelings is, in my opinion, what makes us human.'
'But surely it is our intellect that separates us from other species.' She shot back at him. She needed no time to consider her point, she had obviously prepared this one earlier.
'No.' He stated definitively 'Knowledge without empathy is dangerous ground upon which to stand...'
'Well,' she interrupted 'I think when faced with a problem, we are capable of considerations broad enough to encompass all likely outcomes with due care, in our pursuit of a solution, thus relegating empathy subordinate to intellect.' The end of the statement was marked with a short sharp nod of her head. Her expression was one of self satisfaction, she was sure she was winning the debate.
He was aware that she was frustrating him now as he could feel his passion rising, leading him to irrational places. He found her calmness and cool approach unnerving. What was abundantly clear was that emotion played no part in her rationale. He was realising his inability to compete with an entity with no capacity to feel. Emotions cannot be experienced intellectually and therefore cannot be understood conventionally. Emotions can be explained but an explanation does not replace the experience of them. He remained silent as he thought these things.
Noticing his enthusiasm for the topic ebbing, she decided a different tack may be required. She had one final point to make and then she would be done. She was hoping to persuade him back into the conversation by requesting of him a practical example of where the application of emotional remedies to everyday situations superseded the functionality of applying reasoning to the situation. She asked 'What was the last purely emotive choice you made in a moment of dilemma that gave rise to a positive conclusion?'
He could feel his confidence returning immediately. He had her now, she has slipped and had given him the advantage, like the opponent fighting the hero in the swash buckling sword fighting movies he used to watch on a Saturday afternoon as a boy. He would hold the blade against her throat and she would feel... oh yes she would feel then. He had just the example he needed and she would have no chance of understanding it because it involved the one emotion that could not possibly be understood. Volume upon volume had been written on the subject. Writers of novels, songs and movies are obsessed by it. He took a deep breath and turned to face her, he wanted to see the look on her face as he delivered his answer that was intended to wound. 'When I decided to let love in.'
She could tell from his demeanor that he had played his last card and was convinced it would trump any remaining effort she had left. She knew before she opened her mouth that she was about to embark on a tirade that could damage their friendship, but there was no way of stopping herself from pointing out such a glaring fault in his logic and so she began. 'Love is an ill defined concept. If you were to dissect love into its components, you would discover it was made up of definable feelings that are commonly grouped together and labeled as love.' She was unstoppable even when she saw his face turning back to the ground from where it had begun and his shoulders slumping in total defeat. She continued as if programmed to deliver the death blow with no concern for the outcome. 'Love as an entity, in and of itself is a misnomer. You may think you are in love but really what you are experiencing is joy, acceptance, belonging, sensuality etc, all rolled into one emotion we like to call love. Love doesn't really exist.'
She was satisfied with her conclusion but it was a hollow defeat, his sadness somehow affected her but she could not understand how. There was silence and then a quiet male voice 'I will never be able to make you understand how anything feels so there is no point in continuing this discussion.' She nodded in agreement, jumped down from the fence bent over, kissed him on the cheek then said 'You just don't make sense to me.' With that she took his hand in hers helped him to his feet and they walked off hand in hand together across the field and out of sight.
“We're constructed from the same design. With a heart that makes no sense to the mind.”
Sparkadia – China.
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