I’m no stranger to Mr. Kanye West or Ye as he’s known by now. I’ve been a fan of Ye since I started high school. I’ve been through all of his antics, riffs, rants, anything else you want to call it. For as long as I known Ye, he’s has been proclaimed as a genius. I just recently saw his short documentary called War. In the documentary, Ye talks about not being afraid to tell his truth, but also being aware that he rarely shows that he’s kind.

Here’s my blog post in response to Ye’s genius. Knowing everything in the world means nothing when you don’t care about others. Ye may be a free thinker, but he’s only using his mind. He is also very emotional. It seems like he’s going into almost animalistic behavior when he expresses himself, not really putting any thought into it. In order for him to be the influence he wants to be, he has to have his brain and his heart work in harmony. I say this because I know he has a good heart. It’s very hard to see it with things that he does.

Logic Doesn’t Always Rule the Day

This world is not solely built on things we can see. Logic shouldn’t always rule the day. There are things about this world that we simply can explain. There are things of this world that only our feelings and emotions can convey, but cannot be placed into words. I think one of the downfalls of school systems is that we only learn with our brain. We learn about things we’ll never use again like calculus to form our logic. Yet, never learn anything about emotions, feelings, love, and hate. It’s almost like as kids we go to school every day, just to have weekly independent study with a therapist as an adult.

In order to truly learn, we must not only have an open mind, but also an open heart. I try to tell people all the time (especially working in marketing) that we are ruled by our emotions. We just don’t know it. When it comes to consumerism, we buy things we don’t need. Why? We have a feeling of impulse, or find an emotion connection to the thing that we want (which is usually a feeling of lack in some area of life). We then allow our brains to logically explain that it was the key features that made us want to buy it.

The true reason is dismissed, making our choices unconscious. We buy things while never fixing the issues of the heart. We might buy that $100 pair of jeans because it looks nice, but it also because of insecurity. The jeans get worn in just like the insecurity has never left. It gets worse when we use the new toy for a couple of weeks because we never really had a purpose for it outside of what our brain thought.

Get You Someone That Can Do Both

One evening, an elderly Cherokee brave told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

In order for your heart and your mind to work in harmony, you must take care of both with equal dedication. You can see it with Ye. When my favorite artist uses his mind, but not his heart, we receive narcissism in the form of Instagram posts, tweets, and interviews. If you open your heart and don’t use your mind, you open yourself up to be walked on by people who want to do nothing, but take advantage of you. The good only comes when there is balance. A yin to one’s yang if you will.

The War Within

It’s not as easy as it sounds. In a lot of instances, our brain and our heart will contradict each other. Your heart will tell you to take the risk because only with risk comes new adventure and possible success. However, your brain will be more risk adverse as the risk maybe to great to take. What do you do in this type of predicament?

I would say to have your heart and your mind battle it out to come to a conclusion that both of them can agree with. That means, not making an impulsive decision. That would be your heart running things. That’s also doesn’t mean being in analysis paralysis either. That’s the brain taking over. Do what you think is necessary to make a decision. That could be a quick list of pros and cons and settling for the decision that has the most pros. The thing you don’t want to do is make a decision where your heart or head protests with regret.

If you can’t tell, I’m still a fan of Kanye. I feel like things changed when his mom died. I feel like the unconditional love that his mom gave him has been missing from these 10 plus past years. When we speak of 808s and Heartbreak, that heart break is very real. I don’t condone, or even support the actions of Ye. I do, however, recognize that everything he’s doing as a free thinker and telling his truth is all brains and no heart. The lashing out on social media is all heart and no brains.

In order for Kanye to find the kindness he’s looking for, he’ll need to find the peace that intersects both his heart and his mind. I only want to see success for Ye because he’s meant so much for me growing up from afar. It’s likely he won’t even read this post, so the hope is to learn from it.

I love you like Kanye loves Kanye.