Our minds are essential to practical life and establishing the familiar, as well as our relationship to it. But beyond practicality, a mind, left unbalanced, can also thwart life because it is uncomfortable with change. New information about the world or self challenges the mind’s subjective reality that it worked so hard to create and understand. It’s a threat to mind’s established identity. In short, the mind wants what is, not what will be. It wants what is familiar, labeled or labelable, not unquantifiable possibilities or change. Some of the most intense suffering we endure in our lives is psychological, stemming from change and our attachments to what was.

Since life is one continuous process of change, and our society puts disproportionate emphasis on our mental abilities, it is crucial that we balance this harder part of ourselves with a softer one. I call it the heart, others call it something else, but they point to the same emotional intelligence that penetrates labels, and gives numbers and theorems meaning beyond their formulae.

Our mind separates us from our surroundings through differentiation, our heart unifies by seeking interrelatedness. A heart wants change, evolution, growth, even if it means pain in the short-term. It’s fiercely driven by curiosity, a passion to discover and connect. It leads us to new worlds and realizations, pastures for our mind (and us) to feed on and grow from.