Reason That Drives You Crazy

“To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits” (Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, 2001, p15).

I’ve mentioned before that you need more than understanding—you need God’s peace. Man’s understanding without God’s peace makes you anxious and drives you crazy.

Chesterton says something similar above. A poet pursues wonder. A logician pursues control.

A grateful poet wants to enjoy getting “his head into the heavens.” A controlling logician thinks he’ll solve his problems by getting “the heavens into his head.”

Which one is more likely to go crazy? It’s the obsessively rational man who ends up in the asylum—not the poet.

What do you think?
Joseph