David McElroy

One of the biggest problems I see with extremely bright libertarians and anarchists is that they understand formal logic far better than they understand human psychology — and they tend to believe that logic is enough. Unless it changes, that mindset is always going to keep them from understanding people or changing the world.

What’s probably worse, it’s going to keep them from understanding themselves and being as happy as they should be.

I’ve struggled with the issue of balancing logic and emotion ever since I was a child. It didn’t start as a philosophical question. Instead, it all started with Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, who’s the personification of the ultimate rational creature.

Like so many nerdy Star Trek fans, I liked Spock and his mantra of logic, but I ultimately found that I identified more with Captain Kirk. The half-human, half-Vulcan Spock was coldly rational and didn’t normally show emotions, while Kirk was the epitome of emotion at times. Despite that, he could be smart and extremely rational when he needed to be. I found myself debating whether pure logic was really the best way.

My 14-year-old self came to a conclusion that still works for me today. I decided that our emotions and intuition — all those things that are hard to put labels on — are the part of us that determines what we want and what our values are. It’s the part of us that decides to be honest or to cheat to get what we want or that it’s worth the effort to win some particular person’s heart.

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Arthur was a 47-year-old disabled veteran. For 15 years, doctors told him he would never walk without braces or some kind of assistance. He accepted this as fact.

He says he had basically given up. He had been injured in the first Gulf War and too many jumps out of airplanes as a paratrooper had taken a toll on his back and knees. He gained a lot of weight. He couldn’t run or walk without braces. He even used a wheelchair at times.

Then Arthur found a yoga instructor who was touched by his situation and wanted to help him. With his help, Arthur’s transformation was amazing. Please watch the short video below and listen to what happened — and how from “no way” a way was found to transform his life.

I’ve written before about the need to keep trying to achieve things when they’re really what we want. There are many times that we’re close to achieving our goals when we walk away. (Re-read a story I told a few months back about people who quit “three feet from gold.”)

Arthur radically transformed himself. Most of us would have given up completely instead. I need to be constantly reminded of Arthur’s lesson. Maybe you do, too. It might be a sappy and emotionally told lesson, but it’s real.

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The new wireless technology these days means that many birds have some adjustments to make.

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