Feb 17, 2005
This morning as I was washing my swimsuit in my little pond near the cabin I am renting here in Peru, I had this thought. "When you tell someone that their son or daughter has died, you are not telling them because you want to hurt them. You are telling them because it is is truth."
Now, though, as I sit here to write this, I realize it is possible to give someone the same information, but in a hurtful way. I'll admit I was feeling hurtful and a bit destructive towards David a couple weeks ago. I have thought a lot about this.
Often I have felt destructive in the past few years. Here is a little story about when I was feeling destructive in Germany a few years ago. (Actually, it was about 7 years ago, which I am a little embarrassed to say, since I obviously still haven't mastered the management of this feeling.).
Now I am thinking about my little pond and the dam I made to hold the water. Several times the dam leaked or the drain system I was using wasn't working. So I took part of the dam part and re-did it. I didn't destroy the whole dam, but I did take it apart to rebuild it. I felt confident that I would be able to do it, so I never felt very frustrated. And I was in control of everything I was doing. I didn't have to get anyone else to change anything for me to be satisfied. I get frustrated when I want something very intensely and I can't get it. This frustration causes me pain. One of the ways I try to stop my pain is by swearing and by criticizing people. I suppose feeling critical is very closely related to feeling destructive. But we have the term "constructive criticism." My criticism hasn't been very constructive lately, if it ever has.
I don't really know what to write about David, Jack, Peter and the field of EI right now. My style has been to be very critical, in a destructive and hurtful way when I have written about people like Dan Goleman. Now I wonder, could I ever have compassion for Dan Goleman. Yes, I could. I easily could if I could see his human side.
Think of a rock. We don't have compassion for rocks. They don't feel pain, (as far as I know anyhow) so there is nothing to feel compassionate about. To me, Goleman is too much like a rock. Too much like a machine. In a way I do feel sorry for him. He is trapped in this image now and he will probably never be able to express his real feelings. He probably never was able to as a young boy. He was probably a sensitive boy and sensitive teenager. He probably still is sensitive. But in the culture he grew up in, and the subcultures, for example the culture of the USA and the subculture of the Jewish religion and tradition, feelings and sensitivity were not valued. "Good" grades and "good" behavior, and appearances, were valued. Keeping the family together was a high value, no doubt.
I am thinking about David again. I started thinking about him and Rob Emmerling. And about how I feel judged by them. I feel judged by a lot of people but they are two who motivate me the most by. I was going to say "hurt" the most but it isn't the same kind of pain as other kinds of emotional pain like having someone I need leave me, like Laura did.
I wonder if David even knows anything about Laura. I wonder if he ever checks my site. Well, one of the ways to get people to read my site is to write about them, I have found out. So that is one reason I want to write about David right now. But it's not the main reason. I am not sure what the main reason is. I think the main reason is to vent. To let out my feelings and thoughts.
Also I would like to help David. I still have some faith in him. I still have some respect for him. I think I have more for him than he has more for me. And I think I understand him more than he understands me. I also think and actually really believe I understand feelings, at least real/personal ones, not just theoretical ones, better than David. And I think and believe I have a better idea of what emotional intelligence can and does mean to human life.
I feel kind of resentful as I write this. I feel resentful because David has....
- been judging me
- been trying to control me
- cut me out of his personal and professional life
I will feel more resentful, maybe, if he doesn't write something in reply to this. Or maybe I will just think that he hasn't been reading my site. I am not sure if I want to write to him to tell him or ask him to read what I am writing now, or let's say if I even want to inform him that I have written to him. I don't think I will write to him. I am afraid he would feel a bit violated, pressured in the sense that he has chosen not to communicate with me.
I can't believe, for example, that he hasn't read what I have written about the MSCEIT test. But he hasn't written me. I might write to him and ask him to tell me what he thinks or give me some kind of response, professionally at least. Personally I can imagine a few of his feelings. He was probably "angry". I say that resentfully, too because he has never, that I remember at least even acknowledged anything I have written about anger. Maybe he doesn't have time, but I am going to keep trying to motivate him to make time I guess. So yeah, I guess I am still trying to control him or at least influence him. And also I am trying to get back some of what I perceive as lost or robbed.
David has never really understood me or taken the time to try. I resent that for a couple reasons I can think of. One is a basic unmet need to feel understood. The other is if he would understand me he could stop feeling attacked, judged, judgmental etc. If he understood me he could be more help to me personally and "professionally." David is very little help to me now in either sense. He used to write me from time to time but I haven't heard from him since about April of this year. I think like a lot of people David feels a little scared of me. He has trouble putting into words exactly what he afraid of though.
Which leads me to why I started thinking about him.
Laura left me the day before yesterday. Today I chatted with Jen and she was so emotionally supportive. Jen is 14. David is or was a little concerned about some of my work and the way I do it. He never explained, though, exactly what he was concerned about.
Anyhow, I would like David to get better at understanding emotions, like his own for example. I think I have some things I could teach him. Like for example, when he said what I write about him hurts. I'd like him to be able to say why it hurts. And what exactly he is afraid of and what hurts the most and what would help him feel better. I would also like to have him do some more thinking on the whole "evil" thing. I don't feel very satisfied with his answers so far. And I would like him to think more about how he feels when he says someone is being "mean." This is what he said in response to some of what I was writing about Goleman. Well, I think he means that he doesn't like to see someone hurting someone deliberately. I think he means he feels pain when someone else hurts someone else deliberately. But he doesn't seem to mind killing people if that is what the President of the USA thinks Americans should do. I say this because I feel resentful about David's level of patriotism and his beliefs about war and the use of weapons to kill people. I feel resentful about his question on the MSCEIT test about the war march thing. I would like David to tell me how he feels about my criticism of this question for example, and what his or whoever's motivation was in putting that question on the MSCEIT test.
It gives me some satisfaction to think that even if David never writes to me again, he will do some thinking about what I have written and at the very least be more careful about what kinds of questions he puts on future MSCEITs simply because he is afraid of me criticizing them. As I've said somewhere if you can't be respected then I guess it is better to be feared than have no influence at all. But I definitely believe things would work better if there were more mutual respect in the world and less fear. Which leads me back to my unmet needs and David.
I have a lot of unmet emotional needs. I have listed them all over this site. It doesn't take a private detective to identify them. I feel resentful that David is not helping me in the least bit with my unmet emotional needs. I think I probably have more than David and probably have for a long time. David has a wife, a family, etc. He is accepted in the world of EI. He has a fancy title. He has a heated house. If I want to heat up the cabin I have to turn on the stove. lol. Ok so that is my choice. But is it my choice that people are judging me and excluding me?
I resent David saying something like "Listen we must" when he was talking to Josh I think about the critics of what he thinks is the field of EI. I say it that way because David doesn't seem to include me in the "field". Pretty much everyone in the "field" has been leaving me out of it. It seems they would all like to think that I don't exist or I am just crazy. But then why is my page on emotional intelligence number one on google, even after Rob tried to sabotage it? Why do so many people write me and thank me if I am just crazy?
Well, I don't think I am crazy. And I resent people treating me this way, or at least excluding me. If you search the EI consortium site, Josh's Six Seconds site, David Caruso's site, Jack Mayer's site you won't find the name Steve Hein anywhere I am pretty sure. Why is that? Because I don't follow their concept of what is "appropriate?" Jack wrote me once and said something like he only wants to link to sites that are focused on research on EI. Well, maybe. But I think he really just doesn't like how I have been criticizing his good friend David Caruso. Or to be fair, let's say that it is one of the deciding factors. He used to have a link to my site even when I had a lot of personal stuff on there. So why does everyone want to ignore me? Why am I so scary? Is it me they are afraid of, or the truth?
S. Hein
Dec. 3, 2005
Lima