“Learning is most intense and effective when it has an emotional, not just an intellectual, component, when there are no explicit rules and the organism is thrown upon its basic resources for survival. These need not be negative emotions; Plato saw the erotic as an essential component of any real education. Our emotional life lies outside the framework of reason (although it can be examined by reason), and at its most intense we realize that there are no rules or regularities to guide us into new territory. This is an opportunity for creativity, and we often emerge from an emotional crisis with newly learned rules and values."
Pagels, Heinz R.
