Mental Traps_ The Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life - Andre Kukla [48]
Can the spontaneous welling up of rationality be counted on to occur exactly when it’s needed? Not infallibly. We can all remember circumstances in which we acted impulsively and things went worse for us than if we’d done a little figuring. We thoughtlessly encourage the attentions of a bore, and he importunes us for years afterward. Had we kept our prescriptive apparatus running, we might have foreseen this outcome and prescribed a more reserved demeanor for ourselves. But of course we make mistakes in the prescriptive mode as well. Our calculations are sometimes based on erroneous or incomplete information, and we sometimes misplace a decimal point or skip a step. We can’t directly assess the relative efficacy of impulse and prescription by comparing the sum total of their outcomes—life is too complex. Nevertheless, it can be shown that there’s no advantage to leaving the prescriptive mode running all the time.
The crucial point is that planning, calculating, and prescribing can function only on the basis of certain premises. When we decide (prescriptively) whether to be reserved or warm toward someone we’ve just met, we consider the likely outcome of both courses of action and choose the one that, everything considered, seems best. But what makes one outcome better than another? Why do we deem not having a relationship with someone better than having a boring relationship with him—or vice versa? Perhaps such a decision can be made to follow from some general principle such as “Do what gives you the most pleasure” or “Do whatever serves others best.” But where do these general principles come from, in their turns? Perhaps from even more basic principles. But eventually the chain of rational justification has to stop at a principle or value that, from the viewpoint of rationality, is simply given. The deliberations of the prescriptive mode can’t begin with a blank slate. The items it begins with—our most fundamental principles and values—must therefore come from impulse. We spontaneously, irrationally adopt them. There is no other way to start thinking.
It follows that the strategy of modern consciousness makes no sense. We leave prescription running all the time because of our lack of faith in impulse. Yet impulse lies at the very heart of our prescriptive activities. Every plan we make, every calculation, every reasoned decision begins with assumptions that were given to us by impulse. Thus our faith in rationality presupposes an even more fundamental faith in impulse. If the dictates of impulse are untrustworthy, then so are the products of rational deliberation. And if we trust rationality, then we are committed to trusting the impulse that gives birth to it. In either case, there’s no advantage to be gained by the strategy of modern consciousness. Its only fruit is weariness.
This doesn’t mean that it’s always undesirable to deliberate or prescribe. The conclusion is rather that deliberation and prescription can be trusted to emerge on impulse when they’re needed, just like breathing and blinking one’s eyes. Therefore we can turn off the prescriptive apparatus without fear. We won’t immediately dive over the edge of the nearest cliff. Of course, absolute security can’t be guaranteed. It’s always possible to break one’s neck. But the habit of perpetually staying “on top” of every situation makes us work very hard for no return. In brief, it gets us into mental traps.
We are left with the question of what to do. We’ve already seen how every attempt to argue, command, insult, or otherwise persuade ourselves to desist from