If I really didn't- I would be motivated to admit myself for medical evaluation, because it may be indicative of something deeper and more serious.
Hm okay I wasn't sure if you were the type that truly doesn't place value on relationships&family (tho' I did see your signature). In my eyes there's nothing wrong with it if someone truly just doesn't need that tho' it's not usual that someone is like that.
edit: if you meant not feeling anything with regard to medical checkup, nvm, though your sig still sounds like you value relationships like that.
As for the rest of your post. Okay, so it's clear you're pretty young yeah. But it did also kinda make me think that I wasted my time really. Like, why should I try and convince someone who thinks low emotional intelligence is okay and that with it they already know enough and especially, know more than others. And no, objectivity isn't enough to have enough emotional intelligence beyond a point.
No, I'm not gonna claim I have high emotional intelligence because nah I don't. I wasted all my time on these posts simply because I thought you were interested in the topic with your having posted in a thread on emotions, and your signature on a really really close emotionally connected relationship, and I don't want others to get burned like I was. I was just like you with thinking objectivity is sufficient and I get it that you might not believe me how I was like that bc you typed me a Feeler - which I should take as a compliment I guess, even tho' my emotional awareness is still not high - but it's what it is.
I really actually was like you. You are young but I'm no longer young like that. I got through certain complex experiences and before I got there, I got more and more imbalanced with being just objective and getting more and more out of touch with emotions - esp emotions relating to personal stuff of mine or other people's - bc I thought they didn't matter and that they didn't add to an efficient thinking process. People got more and more bothered by that over time and I just thought they were wrong. Again, I was like you, I thought I don't make many mistakes or like not as many as others. That's arrogance though to the max. You are wrong when you think like that.
Be careful to not get any more arrogant than this bc it will definitely be damaging to how you communicate with people. It's maybe not at that point yet but if you continue to ignore the role of emotions in things esp for personal things, and you continue to just believe in objectivity, you will get that imbalanced sooner or later. Don't say you haven't been warned. I speak out of hard experience. Even though I did not consciously think that others suck or anything if they are less objective than me, bc I thought that'd be unfair to say or even think, it did end up coming off like that to enough people at one point. Simply bc of getting out of touch with a big part of life and reality.
You really think that you are different from other people, when it's not the case. Even you yourself say that you need to get advice from "emotionally expressive" and "warm" people. So you admitted there to the fact that emotions do matter in many cases. And I figured you were in this thread because a part of you does want to know more about all this even if objectively it doesn't make sense so far to you.
Damasio's neuroscience work was revolutionary proving that logic does NOT work without emotions. You somehow completely failed to comment on my reference to science proving this. Why, if you are so objective and impartial, why did you leave this out then.
Again, I had to experience that firsthand. And I'm writing down all this because even if you don't get it or don't give a shit, maybe someone else will want to try. After all this is a public forum. Thanks for your helpfulness trying to contribute and thanks for the earlier advice too, but from this point on it would definitely be a waste of time if I tried to convince you of anything about emotions. So no. Other than clarifying some stuff, not going to go on with this. Just go read Damasio, or other scientific research, if you think more "emotional" psychology is bullshit by any chance, surely you don't say science is bullshit tho'.
I'll respond to the points/questions below but I'll try and not get too detailed on any of it anymore. Let science or your own experiences later convince you. I no longer have the patience. I'm tired of your being unwilling to even TRY to process what I'm talking about. I'm tired of having explained some things twice and you just running past it and doing red herrings instead. So yeah this was all I could and would do.
This is working under the assumption that the existing emotional unawareness, or its manifestation, is in itself an issue and/or causes certain, undesirable issues.
It's not an assumption. It's a hard and even scientific fact. Go argue with the scientists on the role of emotions, not me.
I would assume that most 'hard life situations' would generally require, at the core, emotional stalwartness, persistence.
Wrong, that's not enough for all of them. They are necessary but not sufficient always.
The intensity here does not matter as long as what is there gets the job done.
Intensity *on its own* is usually irrelevant, I already indicated that. Again, it does not usually give much info in itself. I won't repeat myself on that more.
I have seem to have gotten by with what I do have- anything more feels like unnecessary noise. I have followed advice on heeding emotions more, and found that it largely did not bring me the desired results.
It takes *years* of work and a *strong* focus on the work, not a few weeks of trying half-heartedly.
Perhaps being more aware of the factors within would clarify the nuance. In which I can say that I can generally discern whether or not it is desirable, but generally I find even that much irrelevant- they can be rather fickle and unreliable
Sometimes it's nuance, sometimes it's vital info. Sometimes it's fickle, sometimes it's deep and significant.
I find that emotions promote certain outcomes, but do not necessarily justify them, at least not alone.
Who said emotions alone are enough to justify anything. Red herring, read Damasio and other research, I'm not doing red herrings.
So yes, in my decision-making process, when asked about what is felt about the matter, my answer is usually 'that is irrelevant' (whether or not the emotion exists). The intensity comes after the emotion itself (after the valence that you mention), and following what I said/my thought process above, that much is far more irrelevant to me, or at least I can't seem to process things using it- or, I have already processed / solved it in another way. Significance can also be measured outside of emotional impact/intensity, but that is an entirely different thing. Why is it not sufficient? That is the question I do have, and do ask, and which I have never received a satisfactory answer for. I can say that while I have not lived for all that long, I have found greater degrees of satisfaction in eliminating emotional nuance, or pursuing things that require less focus on emotional nuance.
Rarely but sometimes there is the kind of intensity when even intensity alone *does* provide info. I had to see that for myself . .....
Yes significance is a diferent thing. It's as if you hadn't even read what I'd said before and I said it twice already. This is part of why I'm unwilling to repeat myself in detail further.
You don't need much nuance to get the advantages from emotions. Reread about the three levels I elaborated on before you jump to conclusions like this.
***
You will get the satisfactory answer to your question if 1) you stop expecting the resources to give it to you magically without you doing any work on it, when it's you yourself not being fully open to hearing new things on emotions 2) you do spend enough time and put enough of your focus intensely on this topic.
None of that is something anyone can do for you. Only you can make that decision.
See, this seems to be a different kind of processing than mine- it places a degree of focus and importance on the emotion itself, so to a degree, almost as if it is 'emotion for the sake of it, but how do I deal with this in a way that is productive?'
It's most definitely not emotion for the sake of it. That would make about zero sense. Like you just want your favourite taste of something but not eat the food itself. Doesn't work like that. Read up on the literature on what *functions* emotions have. Like food has the function of giving you calories.
You already have the objective side well-developed so don't get hung up about how to deal with it in a productive way. If you get more emotional awareness, you just need to apply similar objectivity along with the extra information you got from the emotions. At that point, after you already got that info, it's easy enough to do that.
But yes, it places a "degree of focus and importance" on the emotional side of things, even if it is NOT emotion for just the sake of it. (Which as I said above, is nonsense. No one does that, even the MBTI Feelers don't. As in, the emotions and feelings are always in a further context.) I learned to do that over years. I find it's incredible how much that helps with some things in hard life situations. I can't claim I can do very well emotionally connected relationships yet of the sort I mentioned, but it gives me hope that I will be able to do those too one day. I have already seen some indication of it in the real world too and that's what gives me continued hope that I will get further with it. I would like to believe that it's worth it, all this work.
There is a starting point of emotions and the emotion being felt, and it being important- enough that the person had made a non-conscious decision to follow it, with the manifestation of it being unwarranted criticism (if it wasn't important in some way, it would not have happened, especially not unconsciously). My starting point is not there. If I indeed was frustrated, what I would have done is 1) look into what was making me frustrated 2) see if it is justified. With the answers, it all disappears. I only do what is necessary. That thought process eliminates the resulting action of 'unfair/uncalled criticism'. These points are fair, but do not apply to me, since I do not have those issues.
You're really arrogant and actually *ignorant* if you think you never have any issues like that or that your starting point is not there. No one on Earth has full awareness of their own entire psyche and you are still a human being like anyone else. When you get older and you do get into a hard complex situation where objectivity isn't enough anymore, you'll see, lol
This, I will be brutally honest, was the point where I lost interest in trying to help with this topic in detail. I'll finish up these quick responses then I'm done.
Basically no, you can't claim that you are always aware of your bad moods and of how it affects your judgment, if you at the same time say that you don't need emotions so that your ability to sense little signs of some actually relevant emotions gets severely blunted.
Also strongly related:
"if it wasn't important in some way, it would not have happened, especially not unconsciously"
Wrong. The bad mood may be important for some reason, but the original reason has nothing to do with the piece of work the corrupted judgment gets overly critical about. I.e. more critical than what is realistic, simply because the unconscious emotion slanted judgment. The overly criticised piece of work is where the emotion gets misplaced onto and spilled out without the boss ever noticing that even. In their mind, they were objectively critical as always. Everyone else around the boss will see that the boss was not objective and impartial (let alone fair) with the slanted judgment.
And that was me explaining too much again. Idiotic hope that anything will go over and doesn't just go in one ear of yours and out the other one, lol. ...
And yeah well, taking this example of a criticism going in the wrong place and out of proportion. I do think you are a quite critical person also. I myself was very disagreeable for a long time and I still am, so it's funny that I'd say that. But yeah. It's something that does cause problems. And I'm willing to wager that it does for you too. I just originally didn't care/ignored it for myself too. Until it became a big enough problem.
My focus are also mainly on the practical aspects of the matter- (imagined issue here) "If James is late again, our average monthly evaluation score will be brought down by him." Notice how this does not devalue emotional importance. I am primarily concerned with that end result, my concern is "Maintain the department's monthly evaluation." if that has to do with discovering that James' wife is cheating on him, I also understand that say, therapy is needed to truly and completely resolve the issue- what does "I don't care- do your job," do? All these data points are very important to consider if I want to achieve what I want- logic, rationale, objectivity does not diminish an 'empathetic' end result all the while without it getting personal. These 'emotional nuances' are also valuable pieces of information, and I would hate to be blindsided by that, as much as I would hate to be blindsided by something I did not research on before implementing. That is how my thought process works, and that is how relevant emotions get to become for me, for myself personally.
I mentioned "emotional boundaries". Applies here too. But ofc they cannot be seen very well without enough awareness.
You cannot be actually empathetic while remaining impersonal. You can follow rules for empathetic consideration but it will not be actual empathy so it will be limited.
Btw where you asked
"what does "I don't care- do your job," do?", I don't know where you wanted to get to with that, you never finished that train of thought and so you got vague there. But nevermind that, like I said I don't want to discuss in depth anymore.
You said,
"if I want to achieve what I want- logic, rationale, objectivity does not diminish an 'empathetic' end result all the while without it getting personal"
It does diminish it in personal relationships.
It's a hard lesson to learn. I wrote all this crap and spent time on it all just because I don't want others to learn the hard way but I guess people do that anyway. I.e. learning the hard way.
Now, as for how to deal with it- I do not know. I leave other more emotionally expressive/warm people to do it, or I ask them for advice on what to do/say. Something people do admire me for is my objectivity. I have been told things such as, people having never met someone who manages to be so objective and impartial as a default, as if it is breathing. What this means is that for the most part, I have not encountered such problems, and whenever I do, I have resolved them fairly and owned up to my mistakes. That is one of my more apparent strengths. Not only is this not an issue with myself, it has not been an issue with others, or in general. Whether or not it is due to some kind of emotional awareness that I'm unaware of (the irony), it is a non-issue, and I needn't fix problems that don't exist.
A-a-a, the perfect image of objectivity, fairness, impartiality, lol
Yeah you perfected objectivity, no question about that. (Mocking tone.) I also thought the same about myself before. Again see above about learning the fucking hard way.
This is true, but also sounds like preparing to fail. In short, I tend to be motivated by "If I do X, I can get Y." instead of "If I do X, I can avoid Z." that's a little backwards. It is enough to focus on for contingency plans, etc, but that should probably be on the lower 10-20% end of the spectrum- and though it sometimes is a thin line and becomes one and the same- note the example with James, but that is usually the deviation and not the norm- precisely that small 10-20%. If you are in a situation in which such planning encompasses 80-90% of what you do, I would say jump ship and look for opportunities with better, desired returns elsewhere. I do not walk into something with the presumption or a risk of a high chance of failure if I can help it. (this brings to mind my glorious 96% cautiousness B5 facet. I still laugh about it.)
I wasn't talking about preparing to fail at all, that's just what you read into it.
What you don't get is that unless you live like some hermit, you will eventually NOT manage to avoid some such hard complex situation.
For one. Go get married and have kids with this 100% objective approach, and you'll run into plenty of them.
You can't just run to the "more emotionally expressive/warm people" to do handholding for you for all those situations. No, not even if your wife or husband (idk your gender) is emotionally expressive and warm.
Incidentally, with that you've just admitted that emotions DO have an undeniable role ....... you already need more emotional people to help you out there so you are hardly self-sufficient with all the perfect objectivity, impartiality, fairness that you claim to possess.
There is also the problem that the scenario you mention presumes that following that (the lack of emotional awareness) comes a resulting automatic lack of control- or lacking the resources and insight needed to fix those issues. More than one ways to Rome.
Wrong. To an emotionally connected relationship (Rome) the way leads through increased emotional awareness ONLY. You can try and reason against this until you're blue in the face but you are wrong here. No getting around this hard fact of life when you get faced by it eventually.
And yes, if you do not make yourself aware of things you are unaware of but which need to be made conscious, you do lack control. Simple as that. Period.
Under stressful situations I- and this is a quote from another post I have made on this forum;
"When I'm stressed I get colder and colder, more and more distant and withdrawn. I call it me going off basic processing/my mental energy goes to the essentials and I become more terse and a bit blind to how what I do affects others emotionally. But generally, if I rage it out*, I release the stress very easily. I sometimes hyperfocus on the problem (if a problem is what is causing me to stress) until it's solved."
That's a response to generic stress in impersonal situations sure. Then when it gets bad enough and esp when it gets personal enough - you'll see when you get into those relationships later - it'll no longer be enough.
And I said impersonal situations.
But you can't plan your marriage and family to be an impersonal situation all the time.
and I maintain my rationality doing so, and am still capable of making good choices, and objectively better than I have seen others do (though I would not claim to be the best anywhere). Another non-issue.
Just more lack of awareness and arrogance in place of awareness.
*this is very controlled, and by 'raging', I mean venting, usually off-site, and for the most part doesn't happen at all. A lot do not even realize that there was a problem until the issue is resolved- in other words, not only do I show no indication of 'emotional compromise', but my judgement is also not impaired. I find that focusing on those emotions are very distracting and off the point.
It feels
"distracting and off the point" (instead of being helpful) due to low emotional intelligence.
It takes some (arrogant) guts to claim again that your judgment is not impaired in some situations. Like you are not a human being like the rest of people on Earth. This arrogance is getting ridiculous.
Even Spock failed to answer the question "How do you feel" when the computer asked that next to some other hard technical questions.
You would also have to explain what you meant above by 'getting burned'.
I already said what I meant by it. Learning that my emotional awareness was too low for the degree of emotional attachment I did develop in a relationship.
Learning how much more (than what I was aware of!!) I was actually emotionally attached to someone when it was too late. Learning how much I missed about the relationship's emotional side due to low awareness. That then did lead to issues (and no I wasn't the only one at fault, I'm not saying that!! But I DID have a role too). Learning through lots of pain. A lot of shit overall...
I think that emotional awareness may be important- but it does not stop there. A lot of people who are very in tune with their own emotions are stuck in very disadvantageous and abusive relationships despite their emotional awareness. It is just one factor among many, and one whose absence I consider not necessarily detrimental towards the forming of long-lasting relationships- I already have them, and am already maintaining them, and it has never been an issue. Following that, I would disagree with the implication in your 'unless you never...'- it is not a prerequisite to such long-term relationships happening, or even wanting it. Personally, I am neutral- but would not turn it down, if a good one comes.
Less actual difficulty, more is it efficient, and needed at all?
I don't have patience with red herrings. Who said that emotional awareness on its own is the one magic tool that's needed to resolve everything.
...and yes objectivity on its own is not always the one magic tool either.
The bolded I have to stress separately though. It's too egregious a statement to leave it without a comment.
Have you been married yet for decades? Have you had kids yet? Or are you just talking about friendships and a little dating?
And, where you say you are neutral. You're not neutral. You've picked a side and you are not being fully impartial in this discussion. While you claim you are. I'm pissed off about that and impatient and bored with it.
Again: Why? (other than for the reasons you have mentioned)
If marriage, family life, and managing the most complex hard life situations (esp personal ones) are not enough reasons to you, I can't say more.
The emotions themselves- trees instead of the forest. The noise instead the 'real issue' / essence of the situation. Back at the critical boss example. Maybe such a person from your example would benefit from this emotional awareness that you speak of, but it is not an issue I face to begin with (or- has not caused me issues to warrant something done about it).
You are making zero sense here.
I didn't even mention specific emotions.
This is what I said originally:
"As for human life...yes but that's an extreme example. Think of more basic relationship stuff instead.
As for this extreme example though. You do need feelings to care about human life or see it as significant, and it's quite basic to have these feelings, while for the concept of human life you do not need to engage in complex emotion either. So it's easy enough yeah."
Good luck finding a specific *emotion* here or a specific *detail*. You had to imagine something beween the lines of what I *actually* said to arrive to this idea of yours.
Also nonsense the idea that if you deny or ignore something then it doesn't exist. You may not see the issue - that you claim doesn't exist - but others may very well see it already. For you it may consciously not be an issue yet, sure.
You will have to explain what you mean by this, if it is still relevant in light of my explanation of my thought processes above.
Why would your description of how *objective* evaluation works make this note on *emotional* awareness irrelevant?
Rhetorical question.
As they are two different things ....
All I meant here is that at the beginning of learning something different methods are needed than later. You can't expect yourself to feel X emotion now - let alone get useful information from it - if to feel X emotion the prerequisite is to perceive the most basic components first. If you don't know yet how addition works, you won't get to multiplication, let alone much else.
Many things could be useful for certain things. That is no question. The question here is if it is relevant in pursuing what you want to do. I don't need a medical degree to become a lawyer. Note that I am not dismissing its importance- just like I am not dismissing the importance of doctors just by stating that a medical degree is irrelevant to me. It is just irrelevant in my endeavours, and I have not run into issues justifying needing to focus on it more than I currently do. All in all so far, you have presented me reasons that amount to solving certain and specific issues, and those issues are ones I am 1) willing to contend with (eg; lack of things that are more personal) 2) not experiencing (eg; becoming blindsided by emotions) 3) already having other mechanisms present to deal with (eg; difficult situations). I am always open to someting different, with the condition that those things be practical and relevant to myself specifically.
You want a family, hence yes, it's relevant. (Edit: maybe I misunderstood your first lines but either way, likely you won't avoid certain complex hard life situations even if you don't plan to have a family. So still relevant.)
Medical degree to become a lawyer... No, again you didn't listen when I described the three main levels of emotional awareness. The third level is what would be like getting a medical degree to become a lawyer. Improving (a lot) on the second level is a prerequisite to an emotionally connected enough relationship and family life. I don't mean anything crazy emo by that.
"All in all so far, you have presented me reasons that amount to solving certain and specific issues (...) with the condition that those things be practical and relevant to myself specifically."
Are you serious? I gave 2 overarching general reasons: truly long-term and emotionally close relationships (incl family, kids) & complex hard life situations. "Certain and specific issues" my ass.
And no, you are not
"always open to something different, with the condition that those things be practical and relevant to myself specifically". You judged using close to ZERO information that it isn't practical or relevant to you.
I did not say that you did.
Nah, that was a disclaimer.
Yes, that is what I meant. As in: the notions themselves- you consider them factors that are important in achieving what you want. Reasonable, even advised. We are the same here, but direct that focus on different things.
The hell? You've just expressed that you would go for a medical evaluation if you didn't want a family (edit: unless I misunderstood the first lines but your sig is still there). So I don't value it more than you bc you value it just as much as I do and did in the past too.
As for focus, we used to direct the focus on the same things.
But okay. Go find out the hard way too like I did.
