Life has been ruined by compromise - that is the conclusion of history. All that was originally Good, and might have been better, has been dissipated away into expediencies...
But what is it that should be pure? Not the usual ideas; not facts or feelings - because the actual world of our experience is intrinsically intractable, impossible fully to make conform to our hopes (and the pseudo-attempts to do this have been disastrous, albeit in a different way from the compromised muddle we see about us).
It was the great and central insight of Rudolf Steiner (which he himself badly lapsed-away-from - especially in his later career) that Thinking is primary: it is Thinking that can and should be absolute, clear and coherent.
Because Thinking is our personal dwelling, understanding and activity in the universal world of reality.
Not just any and all kinds of thinking - naturally; but a purified Thinking of our true selves functioning at our best and highest; it is such Thinking that should be our primary purpose, and the primary 'location' of our endeavours. Such Thinking is the mode of Final Participation - it is by-means-of such Thinking that we participate in the on-going creation; such Thinking is Final because it is the same mode as divine being - albeit in an extremely partial and incomplete fashion.
If we become distracted from this, and put 'real life' above Thinking then we simply end-up by compromising Thinking itself - and then we are adrift, and deceived.
Thinking is not 'theory' - Thinking (of the kind indicated) is Real Life - indeed it is the only Real Life - since what we generally-suppose to be 'real life' is anything-but.... a tissue of illusions, deceptions, mere images and easily manipulated by the forces of evil.
What we need to do is very simple to state, although difficult to accomplish (difficult but, importantly, not impossible!) and that is to regard our Thinking as primary and absolute; and we must settle for nothing less than the highest conceivable degree of perfection in our Thinking.
And an included and vital part of this perfected Thinking is precisely the gap between Thinking and Feeling, and the gap between Thinking and 'facts'/ observations/ the phenomena of the world apparent to our senses and to science.
There always is and always will be a difference between Thinking on the one hand, and feelings and facts on the other hand. That is a secondary problem - but this is no reason to compromise the absolute integrity of Thinking. No Reason At All...
