I was on vacation last week, for a family trip to the Bay Area. I thought I would blog like crazy, but I didn’t.
Partly it was because of Katrina. As my sister Paola wrote, the storm drowned my thoughts. The sadness, the anger, and the helplessness merged in a total paralysis. I enjoyed reading Nancy’s blog (Nancy, I swear, it’s not just link love this time) because it exploded with energy and links to people who were acting and helping in full force. A ray of hope. But I just couldn’t write.
[Talking about Katrina, I strongly recommend today’s Fresh Air featuring interviews with Christopher Drew and Eric Lipton, two New York Times reporters who have been living and reporting the Katrina aftermath.]
Partly it was me, and some general malcontent with my life. I have been reading (finally) Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, and I reacted to it as some medical students react when they read about illnesses in their handbooks: comparing their symptoms with what the books describe and wondering if they are sick. Goleman says that calm, low-anxiety, hopeful, and optimistic people are the successful ones, and describes the spiral of despair that traps shy, high-anxiety, and pessimistic people (especially children). He has good intentions, that is to convince American society of the need for emotional education and of the dangers of focusing only on cognitive intelligence at the expenses of emotional growth. But at the end, it feels like a hopeless life sentence for those of us who grew up tortured souls in an emotionally inept family environment.
Sorry, Daniel. Maybe I am so negative because your book reminds me of my father’s infuriating remarks when I was a child: “Why can’t you be more cheerful and carefree?” Good question, dad. I wonder if maybe, just maybe it is because my mother is depressed and secretly thinks her unhappiness is somewhat related to my birth, and maybe because of your excessive anxiety (I know you would lock me in a box if you could) and the fact that sometimes, when you feel you are losing control you explode in a incontrollable and violent rage outburst? Just an hypothesis. Or maybe it’s just something I ate?
[Don’t feel sorry for me, I am fine. A little bit bruised, but still alive. My dad improved a lot with age and at the end, he was a good father most of the time. And I gave up on my mother being motherly with me a long time ago.]
September 13, 2005
Coming back
Coming back
September 14, 2005
When I read Goleman’s book a few years ago, it clarified for me a lot of issues I was having in my job and home life — why I was being perceived as I was. I tend to ruminate, and I’m pretty maudlin in general. On top of that, I deal with a weird brain that doesn’t always keep up with things very well and is highly distractable — not because of any lack of character or maturity, but because it’s just wired that way. So all the stuff that Goleman says is valued in western society at large, I struggle with.
It helped me realize that mostly I just need to learn to fake it better, when necessary 🙂 It doesn’t always work, but I try to remember to put on the EI game-face for short spurts of time. It’s exhausting though.
September 14, 2005
I had the same sad feelings when attempting to read “Emotional Intelligence” and then later “Emotional Intelligence at Work”. Yeah, I wish my parents would have pushed my social skills a little further when I was growing up, but hey… what can you really do about it now? You try a little and make the small improvements you can, but you can’t do it at the expense of trying to be someone you’re not. I know the more corporate workplaces really push the EI stuff, but back in the dot.com days (ahh… the golden years…), most of the really smart people were totally eccentric and everybody just loved them. While I think some of Emotional Intelligence is valuable stuff like listening to other’s points of view and acknowledging everyone’s existence, I think it is over-rated. I think plenty of successful people in history were eccentrics, oddballs & outcasts.
September 14, 2005
Hey guys,
we should create our own company of weirdos and then be hugely successful and show them how wrong they are about all this EI thing.
Now, to be fair, I think DG is right in praising empathy, compassion, understanding, and the ability to feel the pain of others. It’s the praise of the hopeful, optimistic, and happy people (the cheerful and the carefree) that I cannot deal with. So, you are telling me that not only they had a wonderful childhood and a supportive and loving family, they are also destined to greatness because of it?
I just don’t buy it. Besides, I read in some place that a difficult childhood makes you smarter.
September 17, 2005
The hurricane stuff kicked the &*$&%& out of me as well, which added guilt because I was 2000 miles away and have nothing to complain about. I didn’t lose my home, family, connections, etc. So I can’t even begin to fathom the emotional toll on those affected.
Staying optimistic (and I am one of those disgustingly optimistic people) in these times is hard. Luckily, seeing compassionate people in action helped me.
Now, I need to blog. I’ve been on the road for client work. I’m gone “quiet”!