Sometimes it is said that all religions have lots of common areas and beliefs. Sometimes it is said that doctrine and meaning are secondary in religious practice and that what matters is the facts of getting together, feeling in common with and accepted by others in the group. I read recently of the World Parliament of Religions, started before 1900 and still showing life and energy.
I have more or less lived on the line between facts and feelings. I often wondered which mattered more. It has been clear to me that women have plenty of feelings and show them. Men seem to show them less but I found that young males have tons of feelings too and that older males have found that holding their emotions in check may pay off.
I was surprised to read that a person with the emotional center of the brain damaged showed no ability to make a decision or choice. It seemed that there was no perceived weight for one alternative or another. That fact has underlined for me that we humans can calculate and reason and plan but that our feelings and desires and hopes precede all that sort of rational thinking, underlie and support it. Our reasoning is toward some end, purpose or goal and our feelings energize us to think and act to realize that goal.
There are people who only tend to pay attention to fiction or non-fiction, I guess. I find it very helpful and uplifting to try to feed myself both. Something factual but incisive, such as Tim Taylor’s look at world economics or Bill Bryson’s look at the history of modern science can be riveting while a chance to live in the head of Fred Vargas’s French police administrator highlights terrors and desires. I do better on a balanced diet but feelings really do matter.
