Einstein, Anne Lamott, and Steve Jobs on Intuition vs. Rationality

What the libraries of yore have to do with today’s information economy and the heart’s will.

In putting together Monday’s reading list of 9 essential books on reading and writing — a master-toolkit for a worthy New Year’s resolution to read more and write better — I found myself rereading Anne Lamott‘s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, one of my all-time favorite books. A particular passage from it has stayed with me over the years, and reemerges by some uncanny, invisible mechanism at critical times of my life, as if to remind me where the truth lies:

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn’t nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.”

A similar sentiment comes from one of history’s most celebrated heroes of science, the alleged pinnacle of rationality — Albert Einstein:

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Steve Jobs reflects in Walter Isaacson’s much-discussed biography of him, one of the 11 best biographies and memoirs of 2011:

The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and the intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world… Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.

Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic, it is learned and it is the great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.”

In the olden days, librarians were expected to use intuition to categorize books. When did we lose this value system in how we think about the categorization — curation, systematization, organization — of today’s information sphere and, perhaps more importantly, of the heart’s sphere?

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“Dream Good”: Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Resolution List, 1942

How to keep the hope machine running, or what socks have to do with self-actualization and belonging.

As a lover and maker of lists, I often agree with Umberto Eco that “the list is the origin of culture.” But, more than that, it can also be a priceless map of personal aspiration, as is the case of the kinds of lists we make this time of year — resolution lists. This particular one, penned by the great Woody Guthrie in 1942 at the tender-but-just-wise-enough age of 30, is an absolute gem of humor, earnestness, and pure humanity.

1. Work more and better
2. Work by a schedule
3. Wash teeth if any
4. Shave
5. Take bath
6. Eat good — fruit — vegetables — milk
7. Drink very scant if any
8. Write a song a day
9. Wear clean clothes — look good
10. Shine shoes
11. Change socks
12. Change bed cloths often
13. Read lots good books
14. Listen to radio a lot
15. Learn people better
16. Keep rancho clean
17. Dont get lonesome
18. Stay glad
19. Keep hoping machine running
20. Dream good
21. Bank all extra money
22. Save dough
23. Have company but dont waste time
24. Send Mary and kids money
25. Play and sing good
26. Dance better
27. Help win war — beat fascism
28. Love mama
29. Love papa
30. Love Pete
31. Love everybody
32. Make up your mind
33. Wake up and fight

What’s interesting is that the list doesn’t map onto the Maslow hierarchy of needs in order, but does contain shuffled elements of its five tiers, perhaps validation for the universality of Maslow’s insight into human psychology and aspiration — there is the physiological (“Wash teeth,” “Shave,” “Eat good”), the safety and security (“Bank all extra money,” “Keep rachno clean”), the love and belonging (“Dont get lonesome”, “Love mama,” Love papa,”, Love Pete [Seeger]“, “Love everybody”), the esteem (“Wear clean clothes — look good”, “Dance better”), and the self-actualization (“Work more and better”, “Keep hoping machine running,” “Play and sing good,” “Make up your mind,” “Wake up and fight”).

Thank you, Woody, for a timeless list that still speaks to us all — yes, by all means, let’s read lots of good books, keep hoping and dreaming, make up our minds, and love everybody. And, you know, bathe.

via Boing Boing

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The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossoms

“If you give up, it’s all over.”

A piece of existential poetry for your weekend: Japan’s most beloved flower began blooming a month after the devastating disaster.

Even when the flower falls, we love it. That’s the heart of the Japanese person. Flowers dying is not a sad thing.”

(What a lyrical way to capture the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which has no direct translation in English but connotes a way of living that finds beauty in imperfection and accepts the natural cycle of growth and decay.)

From award-winning British director Lucy Walker of Waste Land fame.

via Doobybrain

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In 2011, bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings took more than 5,000 hours. If you found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider a modest donation.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.