Analytical vs. Experiential It is important to experience life, without analyzing it. Analyzing often leads to unhappiness. Not everything in life needs to be figured out. Actually, nothing does. If you experience, then the answers just come to you. What is experiencing? When we listen to music, we experience. Dancing is experiential. Taking in the beauty of nature is experiential. So is sex. These are ways that lend themselves easily to experience. In actuality, we should be experiencing everything. When you experience, you’re not thinking. You’re not second-guessing, you’re not intellectualizing, you’re not worrying. You are being moved by whatever life has to offer you in the moment. You lose sense of time, place, and context. All that exists is the experience. Art should always be experienced. Do not look at a work of art with any sort of knowledge or context. Put those aside for the moment. Experience the art for yourself. What is your gut reaction to it? How does it make you feel? Not what does it mean. That’s less of a priority. If you need to analyze, do it after you leave the work, but it should never take the place of experiencing. Taoists believe thinking is the cause of all problems.