On Options

With Apologies to St. Paul and 1st Corinthians 13

In the teaching of business, there is a genre of writing called the “Case Study.” In business classes, students are often given a “case”—a problem that a company is facing. The students are then asked to analyze the situation, brainstorm multiple alternative options, and then choose one option, one solution. This option is their recommendation, and the recommendation demands an argument. Why is this option the best option? Why is it better than the alternatives? The students then use their knowledge about how businesses work and how people collaborate to make the case for this one option.

The Case Study is a function of Reason. It is a mechanism for problem solving by means of applying the rational faculty of the human mind to discern what is right. What is wise. And part of what it means to be a good business student—and more broadly, what it means to be an educated citizen, what it means to be a wise person—is to engage in reasoning to address problems. It is, according the ancient Stoics, our birthright as humans, and the most important part of our souls, even the closest to the gods. Our Reason is our divine spark to the ancient Stoics.

But Reason can err. The business student can make a faulty argument, and God knows I’ve read my fair share of faulty arguments among my students’ papers. Reason is not infallible. Reason works well, but it is not beyond prejudice and bias, and it is not beyond simple mistaken calculation. Reason, contra the ancient Stoics, is not divine, but it is among our best qualities as a species. It brought us out of the caves and into civilization. Reason is why you are reading this right now. And I don’t want to blow more smoke up Reason’s ass, but it is what has saved me again and again against my own broken mind, my own failures. Reason saves us by giving us options out of our errors. Just as Reason can lead us into error, it can lead us out.

But Reason is situational. It would do little good to apply Reason to falling in love or cheering for a team. Not everything should be run as a business, always looking to profit, to seek self-interest. We would not have survived long as a species if we were mere automatons of Reason. We are more, and we have more to compel us to thrive, though the dispositions within us that counter Reason do not give us so many options. One disposition gives us only one option. And that disposition is Love.

Love is obsession, and in this way not rational. Love fixates on one—a person, a country, a team, a god, a philosophy. And Love makes the one important. More important than others. And in this way, Love is not about options. Love is about the one. The object of affection. The being that drives us to deny all others.

Reason looks for options. Love sees only one.

Love, like Reason, is situational. It would do little good to apply Love to a business problem. Rockets don’t fly and trains don’t run on Love. But in the moments of our lives that matter most, Love is there as a guiding light, the bridge of human connection, to see into another’s life and to act. And it is a choice, no doubt. But not a choice among options. When you love someone, there are no options. There is only what is best for them. What is there before you to do. To comfort. To advise. To reprimand. To guide.

Love allows us to not see options, even though they may exist. I’ve seen this in my own life, this lack of options. Right now, one of my family is grieving. There are options, though I strain to see them. There is the option to flee. I could turn away, leave them to their grief on their own. It’s no fun, grieving. And it reminds us of death, which can inspire fear. There is the option to fight. I could resist the grief, push back against it, try to pretend it is not happening. Tell my family not to worry, that it will be okay. But Love never lets me see these options. Love does not reason to the wisest decision. Love simply does what it does. It is instinct. It is character driving action.

Love is, perhaps, though intentional, not certain. Sometimes, it is not easy to know what to say when you love—that is a paradox. What do you say to someone grieving? Sometimes words fail, or are not enough. Sometimes what you say is not what they need in that moment. Sometimes, it makes things worse. What we say matters. And what is said in love can get twisted by other aspects of character. Selfishness. Envy. Control. Fear. But Reason, I reckon, would do no better. What Reason would say to grief would help little. Reason risks alienation—to say what is reasonable when the occasion calls for Love would be to deny the part of our humanity that needs Love. What Love can say to grief may be clumsy, may hurt, may even go horribly wrong. But Love is what we need in those moments that matter—listening, speaking from the heart—as Shakespeare put it, “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”

The paradox, of course, is there are, indeed, options on what to say. And what we say matters. So how to select the best option? It has been a struggle my entire life to know what to say in the moments that matter. For example, good byes. I reach, scrambling in the dark for anything that mean something. Short good byes are easy. Long good byes feel they demand more import. I think about the movies, about what the characters I love would say. I have images in my mind of how my life is a story, and how I might effect the character I want to be in this story. But this is ego corrupting Love.

Love knows what to say. Love does not always know that it knows. But the part of us that does love, the feeling in the gut, there are words there if we listen. I do not always listen well, and so my Love is clumsy Love, but it is Love nonetheless.

Love brooks no logic or business.

Love does not countenance problems or evaluate solutions.

Love does not set goals or metrics.

Love does not seek profit or self-interest.

Love does not deliberate over costs and benefits.

Love does not give us options.

Love gives us people.

Love gives us one choice.

To be in communion with them, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. Forsaking all others. Just to choose to be with them.