emotional intelligence is the quality
that enables us to confront with
patience insight and imagination the
many problems that we face in our
effective relationship with ourselves
and with other people the term emotional
intelligence may sound odd we're used to
referring to intelligence just as a
general quality without on picking a
particular variety a person like possess
and therefore we don't tend to highlight
the value of a distinctive sort of
intelligence which currently does not
enjoy the prestige it should every sort
of intelligence signals and ability to
navigate well around a particular set of
challenges
mathematical linguistic technical
commercial when we say that someone is
clever but add that they've made a mess
of their personal lives or that they
require a fortune
but are restless and sad or that they
are powerful but intolerant and
unimaginative we're pointing to a
deficit in what deserves to be called
emotional intelligence in social life we
can feel the presence of emotional
intelligence in a sensitivity to the
moods of others and in a readiness to
grasp the surprising thing that may be
going on for other people beneath the
surface emotional intelligence
recognizes a role for interpretation and
knows that for example a fiery outburst
might be a disguised plea for help or
but a long political rant may be
provoked by hunger or that concealed
within a forceful jolliness may be a
sorrow that has been sentimentally
disavowed in relation to ourselves
emotional intelligence shows up the
skepticism around our emotions
especially those of love desire anger
Envy anxiety and professional ambition
the emotionally intelligent refused to
just trust their first impulses or the
inherent wisdom of their feelings they
know that hatred may mask love that
anger may be a cover
sadly and that we are prone to huge and
costly inaccuracies around whom we
desire and what we really want emotional
intelligence is also what distinguishes
those who are crushed by failure from
those who know how to greet the troubles
of existence with a melancholy and it
points darkly humorous resilience the
emotionally intelligent appreciate the
role of well handled pessimism within
the overall economy of a good life
emotional intelligence isn't an inborn
talent it's always the result of
education specifically education in how
to interpret ourselves in where our
emotions arise from in our childhoods
influenced us and in how we might best
navigate our fears and our wishes in the
ideal society it would be routine to be
taught emotional intelligence from the
youngest age before we've had the
opportunity to make too many mistakes
it's because we have until now not taken
emotional education seriously enough
that our species has grown ever more
technically adept while retaining the
level of wisdom of our earliest days
with catastrophic results we are now
evolved monkeys with nuclear weapons it
appears that the fate of civilization
depends on our capacity to master the
mechanisms of emotional education before
it's too late
an emotional education means something
far beyond just normal education as
we've conceived of it to date though it
should ideally include courses in every
year of school or college emotional
education is more than something that
should just take place in classrooms at
the hands of teachers and come to a halt
around the age of 21 the central vehicle
for the transfer of emotional
intelligence is culture from its highest
to its most popular level culture is the
field that can ritualize and
consistently promote the absorption of
emotional intelligence the lessons might
be embedded in a tragedy or a TV series
a pop song or a novel a work of
architecture or a YouTube film we
envisage the entire apparatus of culture
or a subtle mechanism designed to point
us towards greater emotional
intelligence we will never progress as a
species and will indeed grow into ever
greater technologically armed menaces to
ourselves until we've accepted the
challenges and opportunities are
properly educating ourselves in
emotional intelligence our technical
intelligence is great of course it's led
us to tame nature and conquer this
planet but a wiser saner future for the
human race must depend on a capacity to
master and then seductively teach one
another the rudiments of emotional
intelligence while there is still time
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