Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence 

EI is an organizing framework for categorizing abilities relating to understanding, managing and using feelings.

Components (facets) of EI:

Emotional literacy: knowledge and understanding of one's emotions and how they function.
Emotional fitness: trustworthiness and emotional hardiness and flexibility.
Emotional depth: emotional growth and intensity
Emotional alchemy: using emotions to discover creative opportunities. 

What are emotions for?

E are powerful social signals. They send us quick, powerful, physical messages that allow us to respond to our environment. They also enable us to communicate voluntarily  or involuntarily. 

Classifications of E: 6 basic and distinguishable Es: happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, and fear.

As I copied the above words from a think book, I gained an insight as to why I was interested in the subject. While most humans---including the despicable, hypocritical, cowardly, insincere phonies that I know personally--- aim to evince emotional stability and maturity in order to gain love and respect, I focus on sincerity and authenticity in expressing my feelings because I am more interested in  true knowledge not only about the physical processes on this planet and beyond, but also about the essence and character of those humans with whom I happen to interact. In other words, I don't wish to gain love and respect because I happen to be "nice" and "mature", but because I am real, reliable, and respectful of facts, truths, and logic. Of course, it is important to be "nice" and "mature" because one must show a modicum of respect and consideration in interacting/communicating with others, but very often what is seen as nice and mature breaks down under pressure and turns into ugly and phony.  I've seen too many instances of this phenomenon; that's why I prefer to deal with people who seem to be bland and unexciting. The ones who appear to be  nice and mature are the ones who put me on guard. 

On the other hand, when one decides not to be nice and mature, and wants to show contempt, one wants to send a signal to others, a sort of warning prior to going to war. The problem is that most of us fail to realize that others may take the signal of contempt as an act of war, instead of a merely a pre-war gesture, and decide to retaliate in full force. Therefore, a wise man should always avoid all gestures of contempt. I am not a wise man, unfortunately, and thus am always happily and readily repaying all gestures of contempt with my own. Having written all the above, I sadly recognize that most problems I have in this world are out of my own making because of emotional immaturity. We get angry because we get ignored. We get infuriated because somebody showed us contempt. Meanwhile there are real sorrows, real heartaches from war, from trying to scrape together enough food for the supper. We must have perspectives where the priorities lie. We must learn not to take ourselves too seriously to the point of falling madly in love with ourselves since nobody else does. Everybody else is busy to take care of themselves, of trying to survive. They have no time for us. The problems we face are our own. We must learn to solve them on our own terms. We must deal with our sins and shortcomings, and the terrors of accidents and afflictions in our own ways. Nobody can live our lives for us although sometimes we wish there were such a person. Living can be a terrifying and lonely experience. But what am I babbling about? I am one of the most confused and terrified men on this planet. However, I have a quality that is best described as a whimsical reality that sometimes borders on and even ventures into the absurd.

It's very sad when you look into the personals section of a high-brow publication like the New York Review of Books and see accomplished people in their late 60s and beyond, advertising themselves in the hope of finding a friend in the twilight of their lives. If they have none at their age, it's a bit too late. I do realize the need for love and friendship has no age limitation, but that does not mean loneliness and the search to alleviate it is not a sad thing. And then we have an experience as worthy of discussion as loneliness: combat or anything close to it. Combat could be other than the military version. It could be financial or medical.  Combat is not where you might die---although that does happen---it is where you get to survive another day and to keep on living. That's where the power of the revelation lies. You get to know if life is worth the combat you must put yourself through every day. I suppose suicide ensues when one decides the effort to put into combat is not worth the satisfaction one gets out of it. Some people do get tired from fighting. 

But others never get tired of fighting, of combat if they hold fast to their conviction, to their hearts of hearts that what they are fighting is the noble cause, the test of the worth of their being and existence. For these people, the fight against the Chinese encroachment and incursion into Vietnam's territory is such a just and noble cause. 

War brings out the best and the worst from all of us. It tells us who we are. Ladies and gentlemen, if tomorrow, China lands troops on the coast of Vietnam and its planes drop bombs and rockets on Vietnam's cities and military installations, will any of you bother to sign up to defend Vietnam if the VC issues a SOS and asks for the participation of all Vietnamese to defend the fatherland? Will any of you be willing to push aside the lessons of 1945 and just to focus on fighting the common and implacable and historical enemy, the Chinese?