Emotional Intelligence | Stevehein.com

More emails from Kel

July 1

I've been thinking about the way society treats "mental disorders" and other such problems.  Whenever someone trys to cope with their emotional problems in some unhealthy way, society tries to give them some other unhealthy way to change that.  Medication, "therapy", activity, etc are all used to try to make a person drops their coping strategies.  While the intent to make them stop doing something unhealthy is good, noone ever seems to address the real problems.  Let's just say that people don't try to ask "Why?"  It seems they always treat how you are dealing with a problem rather than the problem.  Noone ever goes to the root causes of issues.  Why is the person addicted to something?  Clearly they are addicted because the addiction has more power of dominating the conscious mind than whatever emotional troubles the person has.  They are trying to forget their troubles using an external force that is addictive.  Let's not try to change how they are forgetting their troubles.  Let's find out what the troubles are and fix them.  Instead of jumping out of the ship to try to push it in the correct direction, let's use the steering mechanisms the ship already has to correct its course.

I believe that I am addicted to video games because I am lacking a sense of direction in my life.  I have never been able to set goals for myself because I am unable to recognize my ambitions.  I basically have no clue what I want to do in life.  So I have gone the route of trying to find hapiness in games and relationships with other people who play lots of games.  So far, it has allowed me to be happy, but I just don't feel satisfied.  Recently, I have begun playing lots of online games.  I seem to be using these games as a substitute for normal human communication.  All my relationships with other people seem to be so shallow.  There is no genuine talk about feelings and actual personal issues.  I always feel like I'm wearing a mask around other people.  In fact, I have gotten so good at wearing a mask that I can literally listen to one conversation a person has and then walk up to them and socialize with them with no problems at all.  It is fairly difficult to do the mask thing when you get many different people in on a conversation together since you have to change so much depending upon who you want to please more.  I like making people happy, but I do it in a way that is very unhealthy for myself.  I feel like a chameleon, I have to change colors to blend in.

And btw, I am a very generous person when it comes to giving away money to causes that I think are worthy.  It gives me great satisfaction and my parents dissaprove of how much I give away since they want me to be able to move out and be on my own asap.  But anyways, the places I have giving away my money to don't seem very worthy after reading your site so much.  I think I might stop giving to them.  So since your cause is quite worthy of being funded, ask me for support if you ever need money.  Don't feel guilty of using me or what not, I will GLADLY give you money if you need it.

And btw (some more!), God does love you and is real regardless of whether he is a "divine being" or if he is just a fabrication created inside the brain to fill a need for love, trust, justice, peace, acceptance, understanding, knowledge, wisdom, etc.

And btw (3rd time! PPPS: ha!), your writing is really good and thought/emotion provoking.  I don't think there has been a single page on your site where I haven't cried a point while reading it.  And what I said about spelling/grammer errors earlier, the people who care about those things a lot probably aren't emotionally sensitive enough to care about the information on your site anyways.

July 1 again!

(note from steve..some links dont work now. probably u have to pay to get old articles)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/07/01/antidepressants.warning.ap/index.html
When will people learn that using drugs to control people's emotions messes them up...?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/07/01/kicking.the.net.ap/index.html
Yes, clearly being addicted is a problem that's need solving and apparently it causes the "suffering from depression, nervousness, fear and unwillingness to interact with others, panic and agitation. They also have sleep disorders, the shakes and numbness in their hands."  Other than the numbness in their hands, I would say that none of those are caused by the addiction.  All of the other problems probably existed before the addiction.  I would say most of the problems helped cause their internet addiction and are signs of unmet emotional needs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8424429/
It's sad and sort of funny in a way how medical professionals label people and spend most of their time trying to figure out who is abnormal and who isn't rather than helping people.  And who says what hyperactive and inattentive mean?  I mean really now, are these problems?  I guess society would say yes they are problems because obviously you have to be completely absorbed by people when they talk to you if they are more "important" than you.  And you have to be ready to answer them the instant they ask you a question.  And your response must be exactly what they wanted!  And if you weren't paying attention to them and are honest about it they will get very upset with you!  Not like you can help it that you aren't interested with what they are saying, doing, etc.  If I could care less about the history of ancient Europe, why would I know the answer to a question about it?  Why should I care?  Who are you to tell me what I "need" to know?  We apparently must be "informed" and "learn the lessons that history teaches us".  And then they don't even "inform" us about our emotions which when neglected are the cause of all the problems in history anyways!  They give us specific examples of stupid things that have happened, but they don't even try to teach us how to not make stupid mistakes.  So... don't enslave people or else they will eventually rebel?  Oh wait, you are enslaving us and we do rebel.  Why else would you call us rebellious?  And why else would we feel enslaved?  What a bunch of hypocrits.  Teach me something useful to humanity rather than "educate" me about something I could care less about.  College is slightly better since you can pick what field you want to be in.  And they generally give you some choices about what classes you need to graduate.  I'm 1/2 of the way to a 4-yr degree, and I'm only getting it so that I can continue working in computer programming since that is what I love.  There is no way I'm going back to college for anything else.  A 4-yr degree is enough to bear, I don't want to live my whole life in college.  "But you will get paid more."  Why would you deserve more pay?  Because you have a piece of paper that says you have suffered for so many years and need payment for it or else you will feel like crap?  Maybe that is it.  But I could care less about being paid more.  Since when is money something that needs to be hoarded?  There are more than enough resources on this planet for everyone to live happy lives, why do we feel a need to hoard it to ourselves?  I thought money was based on the concept of currency, something to make trading resources and skills that we have for something we need/want much easier.  But apparently greed has settled in and stolen the throne of money from currency.  Now even time is equated to money.  Apparently you can buy time if need be.  Too bad worrying about money will probably make your life shorter.  I guess I'm going to stop now since these monitors at work are so horrible my eyes are telling me to quit.

July 5

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/farout/story/0,13028,1496694,00.html
It's so sad that people have found out the obvious solutions to society's problems and backed the solutions up with studies, but everyone just ignores them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/lastword/story/0,13228,1476269,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/interview/story/0,12982,1517194,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1517186,00.html

I liked reading a lot of the articles on that site today.  The authors of most of the articles are very thoughtful and use commonsense to judge things they see in the world.  It feels good to know there are other people in the world who think about things deeply and can see through society's perceptions.

July 8

July 8

Go ahead and make a page on me. 

And the poem would be about my smile, but I guess it could be about the little boy I once was!

I noticed you don't capitalize at all in your emails.  I wonder why you don't.  It's always interesting to see someone who doesn't capitalize names, "I", etc.  What is your reason?  I have heard some people say it doesn't feel natural to them to use capitalization for names since it puts more importance into the name than the person behind it.  Of course if you haven't noticed I don't even use people's names most of the time. And that would be because... I don't associate names well with people.

I've been reading your journal section and have found out you think a lot.  And that's a good thing!  I think a lot also and have troubles sleeping because I can never stop thinking.  My mind thinks about my values, my religion, video games, etc.

Please send the response to my home email address or talk to me on MSN since I'm going home now.

lol

I don't think I could not capitalize words cause I do
it unconsciously now! And yes, you can use my real
name if you want. Any yes, I knew that you wouldn't
instantly create the page. I've noticed in some of
your writting that you say you can normally tell a lot
about a person just by looking at them. The same is
true for me. People call me judgemental though when I
tell them what I think about a person when I see them.
Like, "Don't judge a book by its cover!" Why not?
The cover of the book has lots of important
information on it and if you read the cover carefully
you might notice things that you don't want to read
about. Like how you looked at the people who have
comments on the back of a book praising it. If they
are not people you agree with than why would you want
to read a book they praise?

I feel kinda ingored(4) by you because you don't write
that much when you respond to me. But I bet you feel
pretty overwhelmed(6) by what you do and the amount of
things I write to you!

--- steve hein <> wrote:

>
> hey kel
>
>
> i dont capitalize cuz its faster not to! thats the
> only reason!
>
> and about ur page, can i use ur name kel or do u
> want me to use another. if
> so let me know what name ud like!
>
> steve
>
> ps but it will be a few days at least before i do it

July 11

It's so sad reading about the articles of the abused teens you talk to.  From what I have read, there have been no happy endings to any of their stories.  I certainly hope that you can actually do something for Ocean.  It makes me so sad ; ; (that is how japanese people show crying in the game I play online, they do all of their emotions in the upright position unlike the western sideways :( stuff)

I wish I could do something to help ^^; (another japanese style emotion, smiling but also sweating a bit because of worry, etc)

Reading that introduction chapter of "Wisdom in Feeling"... lol.  That is just great, bunch of nothing right there.  Like: "Hi, these people did some research on some stuff and I don’t even summerize the findings of their research." 

"In contrast, the detail-oriented focus facilitated by unpleasant affective feelings encourages bottom-up information processing that is stimulus driven, deductive, and engenders the careful scrutiny of incoming information." 

Isn't the author stating that the feelings that cause people to be analytical are unpleasent?  Or are the feelings having an unpleasent affect on the author?  Or does the author just not like the feelings that make him analytical and prefers the feeling of making sense?  Or is he hinting at his own unpleasentness of writing this phidish introduction that he didn't really even want to write?  The world may never know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop... yes, what a mystery indeed!  >.< (those japanese again, frustration, confusion, etc)

Maybe I can teach you some japanese while I'm at it, this line always works:

Watashi no inu wa neko desu
(My dog is a cat.)
O.o (japanese again, shows interest, "that's odd", etc)

Hahahahaha, you now know the smilies that I use when I play online and a useless, nonsensical phrase in japanese! ^^

Juy 12

Subject : Something I found while looking up King County, Washington

"Tips to help keep your kids safe...

- Teach your children to trust their feelings. Let them know it's okay to say NO to things they feel are wrong. Never belittle any fear or concern your child has, real or imaginary.

- Tell your child that anything that makes him or her uncomfortable or suspicious should be reported immediately to you and to school officials."

From the King County Website in Seattle, Washington: http://www.metrokc.gov/sheriff/prevention/child_safe

Well, since all I can do now is wait for xx's response, I must sit here and wait.  I return to my previous thoughts, do I want to leave my life here and go and travel with you.  Perhaps.  I always wondered what I would do in my free time if I went with you and travelled around.  As a programmer and a lover of games, it would be natural for me to create a game.  I have wanted to create a game that would be in RPG style and mostly text based.  I was going to make it open ended and allow the players to explore the world on their own and make their own decisions of what they want to do.  Perhaps your knowledge of emotional intelligence would help me in the process of making interactions with people in the world so much more real.  Perhaps making friends could be a goal that someone could pursue in the game.  It would be nice to be open ended that much.  I think I could do it.

Another link he sent once...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/08/12/design.style/index.html ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ?

"Instruction and schools are now being designed around the needs of kids"

It's encouraging that people realize there are problems with the schools and want to fix them, but do they really know how to fix them?