004 Reason

Listen, men and women of the twenty-first century, you who carry powerful machines in your hands and chests, hearts racing.

You have built bridges between continents, discovered invisible worlds, multiplied images and voices in real time, but you have forgotten the most fundamental of instruments: reason.

Reason is not cold. It is not distant. It is quiet warmth, firm discernment, the lamp that guides amidst the fog.

I see you divided, restless, confused. You want everything, at the same time, but you don't know why you sigh. You live between inflamed desires and diffuse fears.

Because you have distanced yourself from reason, that divine faculty that distinguishes the human from the irrational.

I am not speaking of technical intelligence. That is in abundance. I am speaking of right judgment, the ability to ask: Is this good? Just? Does it serve virtue or merely the ego?

Reason exists to free you. But we must learn to use it, not as an instrument of vanity, but as a silent master.

Today, many confuse feeling with knowing. They say, "I feel it's true," but what you feel may be a reflection of your passions. Reason, in turn, calmly questions, ponders, observes, and firmly chooses.

Reason distinguishes humans. It is firm and guided by logic, nature, and virtue. Reason refuses revenge after an offense. It accepts death, acts courageously, remains calm in the face of criticism, and chooses to lose money rather than betray principles.

Passion, on the other hand, is guided by uncontrolled impulses: fear, desire, anger, and sadness. It causes suffering because it arises from the illusion of control over what does not depend on us.