The Intellect: A Wonderful Servant, A Terrible Master

There was a fireplace in the kitchen in my grandparent’s house in the village of Pontyberem, South Wales. Depending on what fuel was most available, it would burn wood or coal and was the main source of heat for the entire home. I’d sit there on my grandmother’s lap with her scratching my back, and me staring into the flames on many a Saturday night, or kneel right in front of it with a toasting fork, warming up crumpets before drowning them in butter for supper. Being the curious kid that I was, I’d love to use the fire poker and mess about with the logs or the coals; not knowing that - as the saying goes - I was playing with fire. If no one was in the kitchen, my grandparents always put a large wire mesh fire guard in front of the fireplace. It was often there even if someone was in the kitchen. I didn’t get it. I didn’t like the fire guard: it stood between me and the fun of the fire. Of course I didn’t like it – it was a fun-guard to me, keeping fun at bay.

One afternoon, before going out for a jaunt with my grandfather, I watched him put up the fire guard. “Fire is a wonderful servant and a terrible master,” he said to me in a rare English language statement. If he said something in English instead of our native Welsh language, it was either due to there being no direct translation, or it was more profound in English. The fact he said it in English also made it stand out to me. I must have been about 7 or 8 years old at the time, so I didn’t understand what the phrase meant, and I asked him about it as he grabbed his hat, driving gloves and helped me with the toggles on my coat.

Here’s what I remember him explaining. Fire, in its place, is incredible. It provides immediate heat. It was the source of hot water for their house back then too. It gave us humans a place to gather. It was, for thousands of years, the only way for us to cook food. Fire. In. Its. Place. A wonderful servant.

Fire can take over, when out of its place. It can engulf, burn anything it can and it can kill. When fire becomes the master, it is a terrible thing.

I got his point. A far more effective way for me to get it than by him telling me things like “Don’t play with the fire” or “Put the fire guard up if you leave the kitchen”. The teacher in him came out with me, always.

Fast forward to today, almost 50 years later, and almost 45 years since my grandfather died, and the ethos of that proverb about fire rings true about another of nature’s phenomena – the human intellect.

I get in my head. And I stay there. Stay longer than I want to, and stay longer than I want to admit to. When I’m in my head, I try to use my head to get out of my head. As IF that would work! More thought to solve too much thought. More analysis to stop analysing. More intellect to stop my intellect from running amok.

I used to think my intellect was my greatest asset. It served me well in school, and it gave me a sense of value. When I was about 20, I did an IQ test. The result was another way I could attribute my value to my intellect. And through the next two and a half decades, I relied on the same thing to bring me continued self-esteem,  contentment, happiness and peace. It never worked, so I tried harder.

When I felt low, insecure or depressed; I turned deeper into my intellect to help me to understand what was going on in the hope I’d get out of it. I was driving along, seeing no-entry signs and putting my foot harder on the accelerator thinking the way out was through. I didn’t know how mistaken that was.

I didn’t know that my intellect was the fire, out of its place, becoming my master. Burning my sense of well-being away.

I didn’t know that there was something deeper, fuelling my intellect. Keeping me safe, even when I was beyond my wit’s end. That there was something making every living process: biological, chemical and physical going – without my intellect being involved. Things my intellect could never do – they’re way beyond the intellectual capacity of any human who ever lived. WAY beyond it. And in charge of creating and running that intellect, the intellect that thinks it is the one in charge. And it’s not.

I didn’t know I could surrender to that invisible power that drives everything in me, without me being involved.

I didn’t know that life not only felt a lot better, it went a lot better. Keeping my intellect as a tool that’s great for figuring some things out in the world of form. Keeping it in the fireplace.

Keeping it as a servant in my life, not my master.

With love and thanks,

Wyn