The Boy and The Heron And A Semi-Deep Dive Into Logic & Intuition
Logic is overrated, I once heard a few years ago. Those same words were what surfaced after watching the film “The Boy and The Heron.” Hayao Miyazaki’s latest work. To be honest, I didn’t quite get the story at first. I struggled to make sense of it all.
But the thing is, I still enjoyed the film. There were scenes, particularly towards the end, that made me feel like something profound was being revealed to me, to the audience. It didn’t quite make sense, intellectually. I couldn’t think my way through understanding it. But I felt it. I felt it and recognized that what was being presented on screen was something that actually made sense, just not in my mind. At least not yet.
G.K. Chesterton, an influential and prolific English writer, says this: That Truth can be found by logic, only after it has been first discovered without it.
Our culture has come to really embrace or even worship logical and rational thinking. Any new idea or decision that doesn’t make sense logically is shrugged off, ridiculed, or looked down upon. I’m guilty of this as well. But logic only serves the purpose of connecting the dots – if A is B then C, therefore not D. It builds a bridge from premise to conclusion. And then it makes sense. But in order to build a bridge you first have to have an idea of where your destination is. Then logic builds a bridge your mind can cross.
Intuition is underrated. To arrive at things intuitively first – that’s how you get an idea of where your destination is. Then as Adam Robinson put it, “then you can work backwards and construct a logic and go ‘oh now I see…’”
We sometimes get those gut feelings, those hunches, and they pop out of nowhere. That’s not logical. And yet if we follow that, we later discover that we were right. There are so many stories like this. Then looking back, we realize we discovered a truth before we could even explain it. Making a logical story about it, for ourselves and for others, comes later.
A lot of breakthroughs in science, in art, or in any field are like this as well. Those big aha! or small I knew it! moments; those moments when something tells you not to walk down a particular street even though there’s no visible threat. All of these make use of intuition. It’s an older kind of intelligence. Maybe wiser. Albert Einstein says “I believe in intuition and inspiration… at times I feel certain I am right without knowing the reason.”
There’s this concept of the “Whole Body Yes,” which I discovered from Diana Chapman and Jim Dethmer. The Whole Body Yes is a kind of decision making process wherein you let your choices be guided by not just your IQ – your intellect or rational mind, but also by your EQ and BQ: Emotional Quotient (or Emotional Intelligence) and Body Quotient (Body Intelligence). It’s consulting all three kinds of intelligence in equal importance, to help you get to the choice that is truly right for you. It is an alignment of your head, heart, and gut, where something just feels right.
I think deep down this resonates with us: we want to be doing things or making choices that somehow just feels right to our core. What I like about the whole body yes concept is that it highlights the importance of EQ and BQ – the emotional and gut-feel side of things, which often gets overpowered by the rational mind. Derek Sivers also has a similar concept. He calls it “Hell Yeah! Or No.” (link below)
Ok, let’s surface a little bit and talk about something everybody knows: the iPhone. We might not have the iPhone (or a lot of other tech-product breakthroughs) without Intuition. Steve Jobs says this: “Intuition is a very powerful thing – more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.” You’d think we’d be all over intuition after someone like Steve Jobs drops those words. But no. I think a reason why is that Intuition is just hard to grasp – it’s unquantifiable and intangible. Not to mention it can be very scary and very confusing following something you can’t quite explain. We all, to an extent, have an experience with intuition, but it often goes unnoticed. It flies under the radar. But I think it’s a good skill to cultivate and practice. We just need to get really curious about it first.
Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, apparently once said this while having a debate with someone: “No, no – you’re not thinking. You’re just being logical.” Being logical is just one aspect of thinking as a whole. And even thinking is just one of the ways we exercise the fullness of our overall intelligence.
So back to The Boy and The Heron. After reading reviews and explanations, I get it now. It makes sense. It’s quite simple even. I won’t spoil it though, in case you want to watch it. When I was watching it in the cinemas, my mind couldn’t grasp it; but somehow my heart and my gut knew something important was there.
Logic seeks what makes sense. Intuition seeks the truth. Logic builds a bridge from point to point; it moves slowly. Intuition takes leaps. Take the leap.
But you know, I did use a lot of logic and racked my brain for rationality to be able to write this and make it make sense. So. What do I know?
Links:
- The Boy and The Heron [film]
- Adam Robinson on Logic [skip to 1:27 mark]
- “Logic is overrated” – Heard this from the TV Show, The OA.
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Reading this introduced me to the Whole Body Yes. Wish I found out about this years ago.
Hope you can use it now moving forward!