Monday, August 22, 2005

"Heart"y Honesty?

I was reading a JDate profile this morning (I know, kill me now), and the guy wrote: "The heart never lies." Is this true? And if the heart is always telling the truth, then how do we explain moments wherein we follow our hearts, to our own peril, and sometimes to our own ruin? Is the reason we call those moments "lapses in judgment" an attempt to shift blame from heart to head, thereby preserving the sanctity of reputation for said cardiac organ? Re-reading the above, I have to concede that it is entirely possible that I think about things too much.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe it never lies, but the heart is often really, really stupid.

-Shaun Eli

Anonymous said...

I don't think my heart is stupid (tottally) or lies it just needs some glasses.

melinama said...

I think people confuse "heart" with "wildly sub-rational impulses over which I have no control" - not that they're all bad, but they often speak with the voice of a mad person or a little child. The heart makes bad choices; the heart tells us we need something but often that thing is bad for us.

Ken Wheaton said...

I'm with Shaun on this one. I know plenty of really, really stupid people, really naive people, many of them well-meaning, who'd never think of lying. Doesn't mean you should listen to them. (Like Jimmy Carter!)

Melinama, good one. Perhaps the heart is like a mostly-honest child who, left to its own devices, would eat cake for every meal (or, in my case, fried chicken). Smart, no? But it's what you really want.

Anonymous said...

What Shaun Eli and Ken said. The heart is a moron, and as far as I'm concerned, I am no longer letting mine run the show :P

Anonymous said...

The problem with jdate is that it drowns out the heart with so much noise. 99% of the men on jdate just aren't compatible with you. Only in the twisted Cinderella story of jdate do we try to cram the size 5 slipper on, then punish ourselves because it doesn't fit.

If we really listened to our hearts, with no pressure, we'd know right away he wasn't the one.

Anonymous said...

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? -- Jeremiah 17:9