This is going to be a little disjointed. I’m at that moment where things that previously felt disparate are beginning to synthesize together with other things that I’ve recently read or thought about. So, here we go.
I recently finished reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, and while it has a lot of useful and practical advice and insight into how habits form and how we can change them when necessary, there was one little set of claims in the appendix that stuck out to me as I was wrapping up. Here are the two most applicable to the discussion at hand:
Emotions Drive Behavior.
We can only be rational and logical after we have been emotional.
He expounds on each briefly, but to summarize even further, he’s basically saying that without any stimulus that creates a reaction, no action will be taken, and that while it’s possible to react solely on emotion, there’s at least a little emotion that has to come first before you can think your way through something.
The next book I’m reading is called Art + Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura. I just started it yesterday, and by “started” I mean that I haven’t even gotten through the foreword yet, but it seems the basic premise is that the process of creating art allows us to more fully engage with and understand God’s nature as Creator. I am looking forward to seeing what he has to say, because I have long viewed my own creativity (limited though it is) as a reflection of the creative God in whose image we have all been made.¹
It’s fairly common to think of science as a beacon of logic standing in direct opposition to “softer” areas like art, creativity, religion, and faith. We even have separate college degrees for Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts.² When I had a photography business, my stated motivation was to always seek the intersection of technical excellence and artistic vision. I viewed them as competing facets, as if chasing one meant giving up on the other, and there was some impossible reconciliation I was fighting to achieve. I don’t think it’s such a stretch to say they aren’t opposites at all. Maybe I’m oversimplifying a little, but I would suggest that great art asks great questions. Great philosophy asks even more questions as a means of moving toward an answer. Great science asks perhaps the most questions of all in an attempt to pinpoint physical truth. Maybe religion encompasses a little of each of these, but with the endpoint being spiritual truth.
It’s easy to see that science provides lots of answers and to elevate it as the ultimate goal or as the thing to which all other things must be subservient, and while it is a wonderful tool for learning more about the world and how it functions, it’s also worth remembering that behind every answer there is a question, and if James Clear is right, then behind every question there is an emotional response that caused somebody to desire change.
Among the questions I’ve considered as these things began to drift together in my brain is: What is it that makes us human, or makes humans unique? From a theological perspective, my answer is the breath of God that was breathed into humanity through Adam. This answers the question in one way, but it doesn’t clarify the functional difference. It was once thought that humans are unique in their ability to use tools, but it turns out there are all sorts of animals that use tools. Some have said that humans’ tendency to build things sets us apart, but if you’ve ever seen a beaver dam, a bird nest, or the inner structure of an ant colony, you might disagree with that view. I’ve heard that it’s our ability to feel emotions that separates us from other creatures, but certainly that is too broad a statement. Monkeys (chimps? apes? I do not recall specifics here) demonstrate a desire for fairness as well as jealousy when they feel shortchanged. Dogs delight in athletic challenges and show often-unmatched loyalty to their humans.
So what makes us different?
I don’t know, but one option I’ve thought about this morning is compassion. Our ability to empathize with others, to put ourselves in others’ shoes and then take actions to make someone else’s life better, seems unique to me. This can happen on an individual level, of course, but perhaps it is empathy and compassion that lead to great achievements in science as well. A problem exists or an unknown is observed and our emotional reaction leads down a path of questions and answers that bring us to a breakthrough, whether it’s agriculture or space flight. Creativity is the fuel that carries us through the entire process, whether we’re creating art, hardware, or a well-designed experiment to get us valid results.
This morning in the shower I was thinking about all of the things above and more, and as seems to happen when I’m processing, a song began to form, something about how compassion makes us human and leads us to reason, how science gives us answers but questions start somewhere else, and anyway it started sounding like a U2 song in my head and I realized, if I’m going to go down that path it needs to be a lot more abstract, and then an actual U2 song started playing in my head, and I had to go all the way through to remember what the title was. Anyway, the song I was thinking of is called Miracle Drug and you can read the lyrics here if you want: Miracle Drug Lyrics
As mentioned, they’re fairly abstract but I think they illustrate around the edges of what I’ve been thinking about this morning.
I told you this was going to be disjointed, so I don’t have a great cohesive wrap-up thought or a distillation of what we’ve learned today. But hopefully you found it interesting and have some more questions to ponder for yourself.
¹ Several years back I went through a course that encouraged us to develop/identify a life theme; mine was and is, “I have been created to create.”
² When I was about to graduate from college, my mom called to confirm whether my degree was a B.A. or B.S. so she could put it in the church bulletin with the other graduates. I honestly wasn’t 100% sure, and that moment gave rise to one of my favorite spontaneous wordplays. I said, “I think it’s B.A. but if it turns out to be B.S. I’ll let you know.”