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Philosophy|Reading Time: 2 minutes

Philosopher Kahlil Gibran on The Tension Between Reason and the Silence Required for Thinking

Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) published his masterpiece, The Prophet, in 1923. The work endures as a timeless meditation on the art of living. Gibran’s thoughts on love and giving offer a glimpse into his genius.

Reminding one of the struggle most of us have with the three marriages, Gibran illuminates the beautiful struggle that exists within all of us between reason and passion.

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confirming; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it my sing.
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

As for his final piece of advice, on the tension between reason and passion, Gibran suggests something we should all take to heart, “rest in reason and move in passion.”

Just as there is a required solitude in leadership, there is a silence required for thinking. Increasingly, however, we use devices from iPhones and Echo’s to entertain and reduce our ability to be present with ourselves. When it comes to Speaking and Talking, Gibran offers:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, your thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a case of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

The Prophet goes on to explore love, marriage, children, crime and punishment and so much more. Complement with German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on the Dangers of Clickbait.

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