[MENTION=39881]Meowcat[/MENTION]: I finally had time to revisit this - 4.5 hours cooped up in a plane. My apologies if I skipped over something important, or repeated something already clarified. I copied the relevant posts to review, and may have missed something.
So here I am too
What is the purpose of an emotion? Yes, I can see that it has a context. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
There's books describing what each emotion does i.e. their purpose, and stuff. Analysing each emotion. I would think you'd find it useful when they really do analyse that as you are analytical yourself right?
But example, anger has purposes of e.g. protection of boundaries, giving you the energy to achieve hard things, or moral indignation.
Seems to me in these situations it is more important to be honest, reliable, considerate, loyal, even generous. If I don't demonstrate these qualities, emotional expression is little more than a facade, advertising for a product that is never delivered. If I do demonstrate these qualities, emotional expression seems at best icing on the cake.
If you do not ever mirror the emotions of your kids*, this will mean invalidating their emotions along with never teaching them about what they feel. I don't mean make them really feely or whatever, just basic emotional intelligence. It's not good to lack basic emotional intelligence.
Being honest, reliable, considerate, loyal or generous will not provide for that.
Again, there's books on this subject too.
So what makes you think that emotional expression is only the icing on the cake for *everyone*, including kids? Where do you get the bravery to claim this about people in general?
(Yes that's a challenging question there, you can call it provocative, but don't take it the wrong way.)
*: I don't mean get emotional in a way you just aren't, being emotional in every little moment... but there are basic and important emotions of kids to pay attention to.
I have been experiencing such a situation over the past year or so, at my workplace. It involves another person and myself, but in a professional context, so I don't know if it would meet your definition of "personal". I have been addressing it objectively, by gathering evidence and asking management to take concrete steps to rectify matters. I have wondered if there is an emotional component driving this coworker's behavior, but that has been mostly curiosity. Even if I knew what that was, attempting to address it on that level would be frowned upon at my workplace, which only reinforces my natural inclinations.
It's personal if it has any personal aspects in the relationship beyond just exchanging formalities.
Interestingly I have discounted any emotional impact of the prolonged stress, until recently. What made me recognize it was realizing that I was getting emotional support from a friend - see, I didn't even recognize that for what it was at first. As this friend told me on several occasions, I can be quite dense.
Oh no no, it's not you, I think many Thinker types can get "dense" about it. Like I think it's kinda "advanced" emotional intelligence for a person with strong Thinking to really grasp what that truly means, i.e.
"if the moderate stress is prolonged, this being distant and colder mode will have a bad effect on relationships".
And yeah. I used to just receive the emotional support - e.g. patient listening, or some emotionally validating sentence/expression etc. - and didn't connect the dots about what that is doing.
Infact, speaking of emotional validation, that was something that was really really really hard for me to understand as to just what the heck it is, or what it is useful for. Surprisingly enough, it is very very useful sometimes.
I'll give you my little theory on that one (ofcourse it's gonna be all about the brain shit lol): emotional evaluation works based on what's good for your brain/body (yes including physically, mentally) in various ways, also we have a brain function where we take other people's opinions and emotional reactions in to keep a social sync, and then if you always get invalidated about what's good for you by others, you may ignore that on a conscious level, staying detached consciously, but if you ignore it then it's going to wreak havoc unconsciously because the emotional evaluation is going to go awry, due to the sync too, i.e. all the things you receive from others are going to remain unmanaged and messed up and cause issues.
That's how it was for me very much for a long time.
I didn't ignore it in all areas or in all situations, just where I couldn't emotionally process it so I quickly ignored the thing and just detached instead. (Automatic mechanism)
And then if you do get validation eventually, it will help sort it out. It will help even your intellect in dealing with it since it'll have to deal with not a hopelessly disorganised mess but it can be made more conscious and dealt with rationally.
I hope that made sense, let me know.
I have come to value the emotional connections I do have with people, especially the friend referenced above, but I don't know how much more of it I could handle. It is like a rich dessert in that a little goes a long way. Emotional overload can come from positive emotions as well as from negative. This means that (1) my small supply of friends close enough to provide such connection is adequate, but also (2) the loss of one is quite hard to take.
I agree actually on the dessert thing, I'm the same way. Just not a very emotional person. Ofc (2) of what you said is a disadvantage
Anyway if you don't mind me asking do you only have friendships or do you plan to have a family too?
Also more on the dessert. It's not the best analogy for how a little goes a long way. But I agree that that is a good way to put it i.e. "a little goes a long way". But I think it's more like it provides a fundamental motivation/drive that way.
While emotions may call my attention to someone needing help, any commitment for me comes from a rational assessment of the situation. This includes determining what sort of help they need, and whether I am in a position to provide it. If I am not, no amount of feeling will elicit such a commitment, and in fact I will consider it a waste of energy. Tearjerker solicitations from charities have little effect on me for that reason.
That there is a red herring. I never said that emotions are enough on their own. None of my posts try to suggest that. When you take into account what's said about emotions, I suggest you keep it in context more than just imagining emotions on their own (because this is a repeating pattern with your posts).
My point was, in some cases you will not create the commitment without the original emotional motivation. Tbh technically you never create commitment without emotional motivation.
This is the point where I tend to throw up my hands and wonder if it is worth it. I don't have time to read up alot on this. I do better with asking people questions, as I am doing here. It comes down to: which of my current activities and pursuits am I going to give up to free up time and energy for this? And will what I gain be worth what I lose?
I must acknowledge that some of my best "forum friends" have been NFPs who have been very patient in discussing these topics with me. The fact that I have taken so little away from those discussions is entirely on me, not them. I think some have overestimated how basic they needed to be, at least to start. With others we have discussed things on a more theoretical level - all well and good, but leaves me no wiser on how to proceed in practice. I think with the friend I referenced above, it was much more practice than theory. I put my toe in the water without even knowing what I was doing, then eventually realized I was in the deep end, but it was all so gradual, gentle, and positive, that the disorientation was manageable. It has been quite a learning experience.
Do you plan to or want to ever to have a family, that's one relevant question for this issue.
I personally don't do better with asking questions than reading up on things - as long as I found the right reading materials - as the question asking is really inefficient to cover complex long material.
NFPs... I don't know, I didn't find NFPs or any Feeling type really to be very useful to start with. I needed a more technical start. While practical too, not just theoretical, like... I can apply what I understand from it.
Also keeping in mind that it's just not gonna work for me like for a Feeling type, like, ever. Gotta always "translate" things for myself and adapt it to myself.
The friend is a good example too though. That if you find someone who you get along with enough, then you can pick up more. Was that an NFP too btw?
As for what was missed, I'll copypaste:
For the former reason given by others: did they not ever give you ANY example of what more you'd get out of life? Have you ever asked for examples and they couldn't give any?
If you reread his list, did any of it make sense for how it can be added value? Or was it too Greek? I'm curious, let me know. (OFB's list earlier in this thread)
Did it make sense when I explained about cognitive empathy leading to bad results in some cases?
Or where I said "They'll just feel the good effects of it."
