Friday Philosophy

Randolph Bourne was a giant in American intellectual circles around the time of World War I. Unfortunately a variety of physical ailments led to his early death, depriving the country of an incredibly insightful thinker. Here's a selection from an essay he wrote called "The Experimental Life":

"It is good to be reasonable, but too much rationality
puts the soul at odds with life. For rationality implies
an almost superstitious reliance on logical proofs and
logical motives, and it is logic that life mocks and
contradicts at every turn. The most annoying people
in the world are those who demand reasons for
everything, and the most discouraging are those
who map out ahead of them long courses of action,
plan their lives, and systematically in the smallest
detail of their activity adapt means to ends. Now the
difficulty with all the prudential virtues is that they
imply a world too good to be true. "