Monday, December 29, 1997


• Intellect is an emotion. You know what is right because it feels right, because it makes sense, because all of the pieces of that particular puzzle in your head fit in places that feel appropriate, that feel right. People consider intellect as part of the consciousness, the ego. It is not. Only the choosing mechanism itself, that calls on and decides to use the intellect, is that.
• Your mind will come up with answers—or at least with questions—on its own, if you encourage and let it. Lots of them. Don't worry about why—it just does! You are not your intellect. You are only your memories and thoughts. All the ideas and emotions come from somewhere deeper. You don't need to know how it works to use it, and in fact if you insist on knowing how it works before you use it, you'll never find out, because you'll have no means to find the answer! Exactly why this should be true I am still unsure of as yet, but I am sure it's true.

• Make sense of everything. This does not necessarily contradict the above. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make intuitive, gut sense to you.
• Every piece of knowledge that you encounter, either take in and understand, or admit you don't understand it and put it aside. Never allow yourself to partially understand something, taking it in and making it your own without comprehending it fully. Understanding your own emotions is the first, most important key to this.
        This is what I did with Ayn Rand. I allowed her to convince me that what she said was right, to believe it was right, without fully understanding why each thing she said was right.
        You will never succeed until you understand what you know, and as you get new data, understand that, and integrate it into who you are. This is the key.

1 comment:

Calion said...

Jason: This has great bearing on some of the things we talked about the other night.