I divide my experience of the world into three realms: logics, aesthetics, and ethics. I believe it is necessary to seek a roughly equal development in each of the realms. From this standpoint, to treat science, engineering, and technology (which Western society typically regards as “important work”) as what useful people should occupy themselves with forty-plus hours per week; enjoyment and pleasure as something for “free time” on evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations; and ethics as something to possibly devote a few hours to on Sundays — — this strikes me as terribly unbalanced. I believe roughly equal time and attention should be devoted to the different modes of perceiving and relating to and interacting with reality.
Of course, people differ, and each of the three major realms provide various opportunities. In the aesthetics, I like music in particular (also food). Here are a few examples of the kind of music I like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7s-wXZWT5o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBM-Ewt8y8I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhK-zYfFsIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SMvVUyxpvQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOf3B-BqwA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o7Jifdh1kc
A friend on Facebook shared a link to an article that seems slightly relevant. I quote some paragraphs from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucekasanoff/2017/02/21/intuition-is-the-highest-form-of-intelligence/#740c05338602:
“You might say that I’m a believer in the power of disciplined intuition. Do your legwork, use your brain, share logical arguments, and I’ll trust and respect your intuitive powers. But if you merely sit in your hammock and ask me to trust your intuition, I’ll quickly be out the door without saying goodbye.
“I say this from personal experience; the more research I do, the better my intuition works.
“Although this may be a paraphrase of his thoughts on the subject, Albert Einstein has been widely quoted as saying, ‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.’”
I especially like Benny F.’s comment on the value of being rational: “So convenient a thing it is to be a rational creature, since it enables us to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.”
Personally, I think it is a form of foolishness to put one aspect of brain functioning on a pedestal as the “highest form.” Further, I tend to regard my conscious self-awareness metaphorically. It is a squirrel sitting on a branch of a tree in a forest and chattering about how everything that is happening in the forest is a result of this chatter.