If comfort is happiness and happiness is inexpressible then comfort is inexpressible. Sounds about right to me.  Incontrovertible (though admittedly not hugely informative). But it’s a start. Having absorbed myself assiduously this morning on the balcony ruminating about the logic of life’s elemental premises and conclusions while idly looking upriver at the glistening water and hearing the cacophony of Canada geese assembled overhead in various incalculable patterns, I have derived from this elemental yet elegant logic the straightforward conclusion that comfort is inexpressible. The deduction is immediately reminiscent of the similarly ambivalent talisman, “If she knows why she loves him she doesn’t!” Each inference is the product of a direct and simplified method of reasoning. Yet to say that lovers do not know one another, or that contentment is ineffable, is clearly not without its complications.

For starters humanity in spite of the clinical attraction of logic is seldom defined by rationality. This is not however to suggest that being irrational is a better way to do things. Indeed after ¾ of a century I am more inclined to think otherwise.  Notwithstanding the appeal of emotions and appetites the winner’s circle is in my opinion most frequently inhabited by those who stuck to the domaine of reason rather than the attraction of feeling. I can nonetheless confess openly to the allure of doing otherwise. Whether it were almond butter, carrot cake, a new car, a Chelsea clock, a bronze sculpture, a Persian rug, an oil painting, silver and gold or matters of the flesh, the decision to proceed or not with the deductive process was seldom contaminated by the paramountcy of reason. And it is so plain sailing to make those inductive leaps.

Inductive reasoning is any of various methods of reasoning in which broad generalizations or principles are derived from a body of observations; that is, those concerned with reasoning other than deductive reasoning (such as mathematical deduction) where the conclusion of an argument is certain given the premises are correct; in contrast, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is at best probable based upon the evidence given.

For example, if there are 20 balls—either black or white—in an urn: to estimate their respective numbers, a sample of four balls is drawn, three are black and one is white. An inductive generalization may be that there are 15 black and five white balls in the urn. However this is only one of 17 possibilities as to the actual number of each colour of balls in the urn. There may, of course, have been 19 black and just 1 white ball, or only 3 black balls and 17 white, or any mix in between. The probability of each possible distribution being the actual numbers of black and white balls can be estimated using techniques such as Bayesian inference where prior assumptions about the distribution are updated with the observed sample, or maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) which identifies the distribution most likely given the observed sample.

In short anything other than deductive reason is a crap shoot.  But lest you become immediately disappointed in the process, it is important to keep in mind that this is so by definition. In other words the propriety (or wisdom) of deductive reasoning is by deciphering true. It’s merely mathematical, like 1 + 1 = 2. Otherwise it may constitute no essential truth about life. Consequently the favour of reason is limited. But this does not prohibit the employment of probabilities to colour one’s wallpaper.

Getting older makes some things easier.  The fulfillment of passion for example is both naturally and economically exhausted with age. This makes the absorption of cerebral influence far more conducive. But the finish line is for me a question of balance.  On the one hand I want to maintain a healthy lifestyle; on the other I don’t want to go to my grave having denied myself a butter tart or two. I find the most assured path to both reason and balance is the confession of one’s own limitations and the acknowledgment of the splendour of one’s own backyard. Pretence or the wish to be someone else is a dangerous course to pursue. This means we have the Imperative to accept who we are and the experiences we’ve had. That’s about as axiomatic as it needs to be.