An exploration of reason, experience and wisdom through the lens of the triquetra and the limits of language
“The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”
GK Chesterton
The freedom of not-knowing is not to be confused with ignorance.
When did we, as a society defer to academic learning and reason as the ultimate human faculty? In the western world, at least, we have become hyper-focused on factural knowledge. Things are often reduced to rational argument and reason, and hailed as the shining point of humanity, and what can be explained and championed by reason is held as the diamond of society.
With this hyper-focus on language and reason, we must attend to what has been lost, overlooked and ignored. Experience is what I am referring to here and it offers us valuable insight. Reasoning offers us an ‘either-or’ ultimatum; but if we reduce all life to this dichotomy, we lose on all fronts.
In the Celtic tradition, there is a healthy distrust of logical reasoning as a singular entity. There is, in fact, a triquetra – symbolic of an affinity with humanity, nature and language in which none has supremacy. As a species we are part of nature; we belong to the land but have no ownership of it; we have a profound impact on what happens to it which, in turn, affects us deeply.
What does nature and humanity provide for us that language does not? And how does nature and humanity inform language, and vice versa? What can be easily observed here, is that there is a relationship that exists beyond all three and if we triumph one over the others, all lose out.
In the Western world, at least, we have given language dominance. I would argue that the Enlightenment set us on a course which will lead us toward annihilation. Our rhetoric, public and private, is frequently not about debate but rather about who can argue and shout the loudest. “I’m right, you’re wrong, shut up!” We hear this everywhere – in politics, religion, educational systems, and so forth. The arrogance of those who use language to dominate reduces life to easily espoused definitions, which separate us. Yet I know from experience there is more to life than language and rhetoric, even though language is necessary to provide some indication of what is being felt and experienced. I am using language here, for example, to try to explain something I feel deeply; I know I will fall short but I am happy to surrender that control.
Life is to be experienced not described. Love is an experience that defies all definition. I have worked as a wedding officiant with over 1400 couples over the last 14 years. As I and they try to find the right words or language in an effort to define their love for each other, I can explicitly state that language fails every time.
As intellect grows in the West and universities produce more and more specialists, somehow we have lost our capacity for uncertainty and the freedom to say, “I don’t know.” I know personally, when I am certain, I am at my most fearful and, indeed, dangerous. The more I learn, the less I know and I am mindful of that; it is a levelling field.
Wisdom, on the other hand, comes from being attentive to language as well as experience and is most certainly not an ‘either-or’ exercise. Wisdom is a both. Wisdom accommodates the lived experience that language fails to articulate, but also the rational rhetoric that espouses that lived experience – and we need both to survive. Wisdom does not belittle intellectual understanding, but rather uses it to inform the experience. Somehow we need to minimise the dominance of reason through rhetoric as the primary goal of life, and create more spaces for both reason and wisdom to be discussed, shared and respected.
There needs to be a recognition that singular perspectives are always reductive and narrow in scope; that multiple perspectives offer us glimpses of the overarching view in which the Divine lives. We know so little of the world – and there is joy in that. There is a freedom in that ignorance but also an acceptance that we, as a species, play such a small role in the great cosmos.
I am happy to announce my ignorance in favour of embracing experience and knowledge in the pursuit of wisdom, holding reason at bay to inform me, but not to define me.
Miriam Fitzgerald writes with a voice shaped by scholarship, cultural lineage, and a deep love of story. Based in Dublin, she brings the insight of an English and Sociology scholar (UCD) and the critical depth of an MPhil in Postcolonial Studies (Trinity College Dublin). Her work is enriched by a lifelong engagement with Irish mythology, folklore, poetry and the philosophical questions that sit beneath human experience. As a dedicated student within the Inner Quest lineage, Miriam approaches spiritual themes with clarity, curiosity and emotional intelligence. Her reflections carry the quiet luminosity of someone who sees the symbolic threads woven through ordinary life and invites readers to see them too.
