The Vine

Here’s an interesting pair of perspectives on rational and irrational behavior…and the merits of each.

First, Anaiis Flox shares a vulnerable, heartfelt account of mismatched expectations — the inherent conflict between (her ex-boyfriend’s) rational, ordered, cultural norms vs. (her own) irrational, messy, spontaneous desire. What begins as a relationship story is ultimately a profound commentary on what it means to pursue a life of meaning and purpose.

In her words, when you challenge the conventional order of things, when you make “irrational” choices with your career or your life:

“They’ll say you’re crazy. They’ll say, ‘I wish I could be as impulsive as you are,’ and that you should grow up. Life isn’t like that – there are norms, you know. There are ways to do things. You don’t talk to people at the security line at the airport. You get through it as fast as possible, go to your gate, wait for them to board you, sit down and be quiet. You go to your job, bust your ass, go home, change, go to some social thing, entertain the same questions, go home, watch bad television and do it all over again. Polite, proper, efficient. That’s life, right? Then you get old and maybe play some golf, then you die.

Fuck no.

The only way to remember who you are is to refuse to let anyone or anything dictate what you want. I write to share my triumphs and defeats and to remind you that wanting something other than herd-like, soul-crushing monotony is not only natural, but necessary.”

Still, we can’t all skip off to Provence to paint and sketch and journal. Someone needs to keep the trains running on time. To that end, Seth Godin makes a compelling case for being rational about when—and when not—to be rational.

He points out, “If you’re running Adwords on Google, I hope you’re making rational decisions based on clickthrough and conversion. On the other hand, were you rational when you fell in love? Did you do the math? Medical analysis?”

“There’s room for both rational and irrational decision making,” he concludes, ”and I think we do best when we choose our path in advance instead of pretending to do one when we’re actually doing the other.”

In some ways I’m an unlikely advocate for the irrational life. I live in the suburbs. I work for The Man. I have two young children and I instinctively, unwittingly feed into the “stranger danger” mentality.

But if barreling as quickly and mindlessly as possible from point A to point B is considered rational rather than robotic…and getting sidetracked by conversation and connection with (gasp!) strangers is considered irrational rather than human…

Then give me irrational every time.