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Logic & Language

The inspiration for today's post came from the comment left by Mapiprincesa.

There is often a presumption that logic and art do not mix. When one thinks of a logical man, one envisions a banker, or an accountant, perhaps a scientist, or a physician. When one thinks of an artist, the mind envisions a free-spirit, a wild-haired soul lost within himself, often a person of chaotic means or of non-sequential thought. Yet, for both the logical man and the artist, these impressions are but illusions and misconceptions. We each have within our mind, body, spirit, and soul the propensity for rational, sequential thought, just as we have the ability to see things in the abstract and disordered. Therein lies the quintessential dichotomy of how our life unfolds... which path do we choose? Or, perhaps, do we choose both paths? Or, even more antithetical, do we choose no path?

In essence, what makes us who we are is built upon the choices we make. Be they conscious choices or subconscious choices, both shape and develop who we have become. To those in the neurobiological/experimental psychological circles, this is the arena where many of us find ourselves poised... filled with ideas, experiments, questions, ambitions... to uncover the new knowledge, the new understanding of how these choices shape who or what we are.

For me, this chimeric yet bifurcating path truly intersects back together at the study of the brain, both neurally and endocrinologically. How is it that electrical signals from one neruon to the next guide our thoughts, our behaviors, ourselves? How is it that minute chemical molecules impart such strong effects into our body that they can drive us to DO the myriad of activities that we do daily... eat, drink, sleep, copulate?

Mapiprincessa, I thank you for steering my thoughts into this venue today. For your comment helped encourage me to re-explore what it is that in essence makes me tick. It is both the logical side of my being and the artistic side of my being that helps me to feel whole and complete inside. The logic of my research is coupled to the creative artistry upon which I try to build my experiments. The wanton abandon that I sometimes crave in my routine, is coupled with the logic of predicting the outcome of the efforts. For many months now, I have felt empty... empty from the loss of my beloved mother. And while her passing is still a harsh and bitter pill, by remembering and rethinking about how I feel about science and art being merged into one holistic paradigm of how to live, I feel more complete and more whole than I have in quite some time. To recall the beauty I see in the forms of art I attempt to practice... painting, photography, music, and now the mosaic art, and allow it to merge again with the logic, the pendantic, methodical practice of the art of science, helps me to feel more who I have been, and helps me to see more what I have lost of myself as I grieve the loss of my mother.

Your comment has given me hope, hope in reclaiming the totality of life.

I thank you.

PipeTobacco