How to improve emotional intelligence?

I used to be more social until I got redpilled in politics. This year was perhaps the worst year to get redpilled, since my university is extremely liberal and extremely political. While I never went as far as to become a white nationalist or anything, it instilled a sense of cynical awareness of the corporate-influenced news, I can never return to any popular ideologies floating around. When people are literally crying after the election turns out, I'm simply the odd one out, and I get ostracized for it.

So right now, I'm stuck in a rut with just my girlfriend and our mutual friends that I get along with at a less tryhard university. But I'm disappointed that I can't find make friends at my university or at least network effectively. My childhood was pretty atypical, and I'm surprised I can even get laid, desu. If I had to be extremely honest with myself, though, I would say that I've had okay relationships with people in the past, but my lack of "emotional intelligence", as I understand it, has handicapped them.

So there you have it. Kinda autopiloted alright until my first crisis of schema. And I don't see how I can dig myself out of it. I just want a basic foundation so I can immerse myself in it until I no longer need it.

I always felt that equanimity was the ultimate form of emotional intelligence, since you end up transcending your conditioned reactions to internal and external stimuli. Could you elaborate on why you think emotional intelligence is related to "hedonism"?

This. Human interaction is not something you can learn completly in books, sure you can conceptualize it, but you need to experience it first.

go away reddit

>it turns out that for most people, the meditation is required.
Sure, but there are many many paths to stop having faith in hedonism. Meditation is a meme in the west and not practiced as much in the east as the media makes us believe.

I remember hearing of a man who learned how to swim exclusively from reading books on swimming.

I say Books can do ANYTHING!

Did he really know how to swin before he actually went to swim? I say he only (really) learned how to swim the moment he jumped to a pool.

You improve it by going outside and talking to people. Try to understand them, communicate, share your feelings. If you are looking for a book that does this for you, then you are doing it wrong.

He probably sucked at it, swimming is 99% muscle memory.

But without a foundation on swimming, would he have known anything?

I say he learned to swim the moment the concept was put inside him

The point isn't whether he did it to our perfect expectations, the point is that he strove to learn a foreign concept, and achieved it to his individual standards.

>start swimming
>get basics down after lots of practice, but still feel like an amateur, don't get the "gestalt"
>go read books, watch videos, get coaching
>knowledge is tested through practice, which is now more challenging but more fulfilling
>increase swimming ability ten-fold, see far more to the art of swimming than you did before
>interchange swimming with literally any skill that requires practice

is resorting to a conceptual framework too abstract for you people to understand or am I dealing with brainlets spouting meme-tier garbage here

See I just don't get it anymore. It all feels like an exercise in futility. Somehow I lost the ability to ask the right questions or manage my feelings in synchronicity, or something like that.

Read Virginia Woolf. Start with Mrs Dalloway.

user, as other anons said, emotional intelligence is learnt through experience. Experiences of people, of places and of stories. Also in looking at yourself and at how you came to where you are right now. Stuff you don't want to look, your traumas and issues, and deal with them so they don't run all over your perception of the world. We learn a lot of things of how it is to be in this world from our parents and as children. We learn to act in a certain way in order to deal with those things, even if we are unaware. So you gotta reconnect with that as well. Accept the other and yourself as for what they are, which is very hard and takes a lot of pain too. You must not give in on your desires.

I'm no master but I think non-reactivity is a huge part of EI. We get all kinds of emotional reactions to what we see and think. The key is to be mindful and allow only skilfull ones to proceed.

of course, it's easier said than done.

Go see a psychoanalyst. I've been going to a lacanian psychoanalyst for 5 years now and never would I imagine I could reach such nuanced parts of myself, and most of all, of experiences with others, even though it can hurt sometime. That is, of course, analysis is not about "knowing yourself" as some people put it, if there is no uneaseness towards something in your life, you have no reason to go. But once you do, it's a hell of a spiral all the way and back again.

This.

One other way to develop empathy is by understanding how myths work. Try to imagine that purest form of ideology, the three-act Hollywood screenplay. In that form there has to be a protagonist, antagonist, a resolution, *closure.* pay close attention to this last one, the subtle mechanisms that human minds have for wrapping things up in nice bows. People do this in real life as well, often without realizing it. But things are rarely if ever closed up all the way.

You could read Being & Time as well, think about what H was getting at with 'the enframing.' I would say that empathy is basically synonymous with not enframing the other, with giving them a little breathing space to be when they're in your company, allowing them to reveal themselves and all that other wonderful jargon H uses. He was wrong about a few things, but in terms of techne/poeisis I think he nailed it. I tend to think that we all have the same butterflies in our stomachs like that now, so...

But yeah, basically, just listening.

I am actually reading Being and Time right now as part of a class. This is perhaps the most useful advice I've been given besides being figuratively told to continue bashing my head against a wall. What section of B&T is this?

I think I'm not a good listener either. But I find it hard to not get lost when other people are talking, if I can get them talking. I don't know what questions to ask, and unfortunately, few people seem to appreciate silence in another person's company.

I honestly can't remember offhand, just that after I got over the language I was in a fucking trance about Being for about two months afterwards. I'd recommend getting a good companion and just trying to get through it, it's really worth it.

It's not even like it's rocket science advice, it just...makes sense, to wait, to allow something to happen instead of forcing things to happen Because Reasons. Changes your whole mentality, to just let things be, to give the other person a chance, to just wait attentively. Once you see it it won't get unseen, you'll realize how much stuff people say that begins with 'I' and so on is said for the sake of saying it, that people don't even know why. They do it because they have to, because they're in a hurry, in pain, whatever.

And you don't even have to have any cures. Lacan talks about 'words trapped in the body.' To me at least being empathetic just means giving people a chance to let go of a thing, you don't even have to have a rejoinder or an answer. It's the empty spaces that count. We're primed to get nervous around dead air, awkward silence, etc. But now I think that filling those spaces in with idle talk is infinitely worse, because there's no end to that either. And it multiplies.

Anyways. Blah blah. Good luck my man, hope you enjoy studying the book. No need to bash your head against the wall either. Silence is way cool.

Just because you're not imaginative enough to fill the 'dead air' doesn't mean everyone should be like that. Do you really think Joyce and Kafka had moments like that? I bet they were always talking about something interesting. It's part of being human to talk. Take your "Silence" to your grave.

When you distract yourself to numbness because you can't stand being silent or still for a even a moment, that's a big problem.

I agree. I have too much silence, and I want that to change. Otherwise, I'm going to miss out on a lot of experiences. I'm not going to have any shortages of silence any time soon, given how extremely introverted I am.

Oh Yeah? and if you step on a pile of shit you'll stink. Portentous drivel. Dude, get a life.

Just be who you are. Fuck the rest. All the great writers were introverts to some degree. Veeky Forums is cancer when it comes to life advice. Don't listen to them..... or to me.

If you find something that interests you, i bet you'll find a way to say or do the things that you want to.

FUCK THIS DEPRESSING THREAD

It changes depending on the person and circumstances. One person is distracting themselves and unable to handle the silence, but for another the silence is a moment to collect and process. Listening and experiencing

It's easily to generalize and say that everything will fall into place, but there is a thing called mental hygiene and knowledge to help you achieve deeper spiritual and emotional connection to the world, alongside the accomplishment you talk about. No one's forcing anything, maybe you're in the wrong thread

>take your "silence" to the grave!

If this did not sound like a rad Street Fighter victory quote I would be so mad right now. Fortunately that's not the case.

Anyways, I'm not saying other people should shut up. If people want to talk, great! Especially if they're literary geniuses. Nobody should feel compelled to be silent if they don't want to be (and good luck trying to make anyone remain silent for long).

Really, the only people we can tell to be silent are ourselves. We can do this alone in a kind of a meditative way, or with others, in perhaps a related sense, this sense we might call empathy, a consciousness or attentiveness that enables someone to speak or think.

A lot of this stuff is in Chinese thought too, how things we might assume as good only appear once something even better has already fallen away. That manners, for instance, appear once naturalness is lost...I totally believe this. There is always a kind of higher contentment or serenity which is possible. But only when you are given a chance to reflect on it. So sometimes that opportunity presents itself when you are in the company of another, and who perhaps refrains from giving advice, also.

>does not see the benefits of Mental peace and solitude

You can, you know watch your step and avoid the shit. Also you may even use it as fertilizer .

The only thing I ever want to talk about is politics or psychology, but the topics seem only interesting to me, and my opinions would get me ostracized anyway. I want to change perspectives and improve my social life, but I don't know how because of low emotional intelligence. I don't really know what to listen to, nor do I have an easy time asking good questions. Living in silence is a flaw, not a virtue, to the extremes that I do it.

START WITH THE GEEKS

CONTINUE WITH THE ILLUMINATI

>emotional intelligence

It's a bunch of rubbish

>emotional intelligence, aka managing your emotions and detecting emotions in other people, is just a matter of where you are on the extraversion-introversion spectrum

Peterson, pls. what about the introverts with emotional intelligence?

>the phone call that defeated the Russians

>How to improve emotional intelligence?
LSD
DMT
'Shrooms

>randomly making sense of the field through illicit drugs instead of having a systematic approach

Nice trips.

>illicit drugs
>Implying something is bad because the State prohibits it.

>randomly making sense...instead of having a systematic approach
>Implying drugs can't be part of a rigorous practice.
>Implying having occasional peak experiences can't give one valuable insights.
>being a boring-ass prude.

I will make you a favor, read "The New Psychology" by William Walker Atkinson, then read "Rhetorica ad Herennium". First book is about knowing yourself, and while some people will become pricks, by watching the pic I here posted you'll understand that being a prick is a trap. Second book is all about memory and how to speak.

Then for all that is sacred, read "The Belief in a Just World" by Melvin J. Lerner, and understand /pol/ is full of establishment worshiping marketers and retrograde spooks.

>implying that pragmaticly noting the legal dangers to a particular approach is equal to moral condemnation
>implying that I personally don't approve

Breaking passive-aggressive greentext, it's not that I'm against psychedelics. Hell, one time I followed a tek and extracted DMT, but then I decided that I wasn't ready to appreciate it. Again, I don't want to take it willy-nilly, especially for the sake of identifying, organizing, and channeling emotions in both my life and with other people. Hell, I hear so much about the importance of "set and setting", but nobody has ever written a guide or given some concrete examples of how to best create a positive "set and setting".

See where I'm coming from? Where is emotional intelligence 101? Where is psychedelics 101? I'm not interesting in turning into Syd Barrett, thank you very much, and surely there must be a safer, more basic way of approaching this on a day-to-day basis.

Solitude, stillness, silence.

Let me preface this by saying that I partially agree with you. I think that picture is disingenuous in a way, though it's not totally wrong. I don't think the "redpill", in its purist form, is a hindrance if you let it take over your life. I haven't removed myself from the gene pool in vicious hatred of the world, and like I said before, I haven't gone full "white nationalist" or anything. Hell, I'm studying at an Ivy League right now... if I were a white nationalist, I would have killed myself already.

If anything, the redpill has helped me be a "realist" about life in ways that are fundamentally positive, i.e., stop romanticizing women and simply look for traditional women in places that common sense dictates they'd be, like church, book clubs, etc., instead of clubs. I love my relationship right now, and it's probably the only right decision I've made in years. I've learned to embrace masculinity, and I could continue to treat my partner as an equal because she embraces femininity.

Unfortunately, my social life has suffered. You never go back to seeing things the way you used to before the red pill. Like I said before, I will never identify with fellow students who were crying because of the election because I knew that they believed in propaganda meant to support the concentration of wealth in the hands of a partisan elite through the guise of progressivism.

And because of a general schema crisis, I just don't know how to interact with most "normies" anymore, and I wish I could just return to a time where I could focus on how we're all facing similar pleasures and struggles, not on what bullshit ideology you follow. It's like you're constantly being asked to take a stand on issues where you know the general foundations were rotten to begin, and it's M-A-D-D-E-N-I-N-G how pointing out this fact of reality turns you into a social pariah.

I was on autopilot for most of life, so I don't even know where to begin except boring conversations where I don't even know how to ask questions and nobody asks me the right questions that don't lead to either boredom or revulsion. I will take a look at those books, however. Thank you for making an earnest effort to help me out.

emotional intelligence is a pseudoscientific myth

Just pretend. Don't invest yourself in that character. Just project what is necessary for you to function in whatever situation. What you will project depends on what information is presented, and how objective your analysis of it is.

Is understandable that you claim to agree with /pol/, but instead ones must have a eagle eye view of what is happening to that board.

I do agree, and I am with you, most people which whom we could call "normies" are mostly brainwashed by a politicized media with its own agenda. And is true, Trump could make good things if he were here to fight against the establishment (as he has proven to do until now).

But if one was to reach a conclusion parting from false premises, like all being fault of immigrants, even the economy, or fail to understand the truth behind terrorism, and why the refugees escaping from the wars are the fault of european countries and United States openly giving weapons and actually starting a war in their countries, then one still will fail.

False premises serve to prolong bad actions, and then create more, and the spooks, the worshipers, the trolls don't care to solve measures, only to proselytize and put in motion their own agenda. The board, even Veeky Forums, is full of people from a extreme right wing forum which once flooded Veeky Forums, and they push their nazi agenda here. Is part of Veeky Forums's history by now, but the consequences are still relevant.

Take everything with a grain of salt, because as you said, your are not yet so far as being a white nationalist. You might as well not think you are the antithesis of every "normie", as not to surrender to yet another label, imposed by an agenda little to do with your own interests.

I don't know how to meaningfully pretend. Should I take an acting class? Practice by trolling /pol/?

Don't turn /pol/ into a caricature. Demographic replacement through forced immigration and selective birth rates is seen as a means to an end, a deliberate policy enacted by the elite. Nobody "blames all (only) immigrants and refugees" for their problems, even if it's partially motivated by ethnic animosity. Look up Harvard economist George Borjas and the Rivkin project—mass immigration is a one-stop to declining wages and mass consumerism. I don't care if "we" (meaning our corrupt or incompetent leaders) caused the crisis. I never wanted a war in the first place to fight Russia and build pipelines, so stop trying to destroy my country's social cohesion.

The fact of the matter is that it's all part of "Trickle-down economics" 2.0, except it is designed to raise living costs and bend the rules of business, fundamentally rigging the economic system against the little guys by destroying opportunity, instead of modifying the taxation system like the old Trickle-down economics, which doesn't mitigate economic opportunities insofar as it adjusts how much you get to keep of the product of your labors. Like I said before, I'll never place race realism over ethics, because I believe that we are all equal under law and under God and I believe in human potential, but you never stop looking at the world without "redpilled" cynicism, simply because you know you're dealing with people who think they can play God with human diversity by pitting us all against one another.

>I don't know how to meaningfully pretend. Should I take an acting class? Practice by trolling /pol/?

By staying detached.

this book is bullshit, there is no support of EI in the psychometric literature

sage

you still start with the premise of experiencing though, conceptual framework is only a secondary resource.

Keep repeating that it's pseudoscientific without making an argument. Maybe it'll stick the third time around.

If I didn't experience anything, I wouldn't know that I had a problem. This is why I can't stand insufferable people who meme "durr go out and do it". Well, I did it, and after some reflection, I find my competence lacking. I'd rather be proactive instead of realizing that I fucked up and hurt other people months after the fact, thank you very much.

Again, I agree with much. Trickle-down economics is an excuse to the subjugation of the middle class and the destruction of the opportunities of social mobility. I could even tell you that immigration helps lower wages and raise unemployment, although the ethnic replacement is far fetched.

Now, if you insist in align yourself with ideas that portrait the immigrants as the biggest threat, and not the establishment directly, you'll find yourself alienated from all conversations pertaining humanists discussion. Because, after all, one do become a caricature while being drawn to wrong rationales and failed reasoning.

Refugees are a consequence, and also victims, and also the prime reason to deviate any productive conversation of politics towards an scapegoat, covering the establishment, and ending in nothing. If you don't accept it deeply, and don't focus your critics to the establishment, you will continue to be and feel an stranger to all discussions with the commoners of these days.

That is all I can say, good luck.

>the ethnic replacement is far fetched.

FYI, the ethnic replacement is meant to lower resistance to otherwise cancerous economic policies by either disguising it as ethically progressive or by fostering enough division to prevent a labor movement resurgence. The endgame is to fundamentally change the culture, debasing the traditional institutions that incidentally limited capitalist exploitation so the people can be easily controlled and exploited through mindless consumerism. In other words, Pat Buchanan meets Theodor Adorno's culture industry.

The rest of your post is essentially virtue signaling. If I must repeat myself, I don't blame immigrants for following incentives, I would love to see them succeed in their own communities, and I would even welcome a select few to join my own, but that doesn't mean I won't stand up for my community and do what's necessary to protect our borders. There are two angles of attack that I have to defend myself from—the useful idiots who believe in the globalist delusion or are instruments of it, and the elite themselves who understand the bigger picture and orchestrate the agenda.

Imo the problem is you make the assumption that there's a fix. Consider that there is no fix and that's a good thing. Consider that emotional intelligence is a burden and your imitation of it would get you nowhere (and that would be a good thing too, ironically, but you're even better off now). Consider how much people like me suffer because we relate to everyone. Not saying this for "bragging rights" whatsoever. It's not worth it man. You cuck yourself. You can't function normally. It's a good "strategy" when you're a kid but as an adult it's 99% pointless suffering without reward. It's not worth it. Especially for a vain purpose like literature appreciation.

My advice: Fuck Joyce, authentically b yourself, read your Wittgenstein and create something. Not being able to stop reading something, that's GOD speaking to you my bucko!

You just described Brazil.

>My advice: Fuck Joyce, authentically b yourself, read your Wittgenstein and create something. Not being able to stop reading something, that's GOD speaking to you my bucko!

I refuse to commit myself to specialization because that destroys perspective, especially considering that now, during my formative years, is when I need it most. Right now, I feel like I'm suffering because of overspecialization, since I have a hard time connecting with my fellow man in the present and from the past. Just because I'm naturally good at things doesn't mean that I should neglect other fruitful pursuits that will help me grow as a person, as challenging as they would be.

...

The mindless consumerism and hedonism also.

It's a shame this thread got derailed into politics. I think it would be best to define emotional intelligence, outline its practical uses, debate whether it's a meaningful/real concept, and list useful resources and exercises to increase it. Ultimately, it would be nice to find a connection with literary masterpieces to see whether an author's emotional intelligence, in addition to their obvious general intelligence, contributed to the depth of their works.

>define emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capability of individuals to recognize their own, and other people's emotions, to discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and to manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt environments or achieve one's goal(s).Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.

Generally, emotional intelligence is useful for sorting yourself out and helping you understand and interact with other people. I think the best way to observe in literature is to look for complex relationships between characters—high emotional intelligence leads to emotional depth. Is anybody here familiar with The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway?

Shrooms are a good start though

Set and setting is this simple: be in a familiar or at least comfortable place, and try to be calm and in a good mood.

Pic related

Are you telling me that nobody has read The Sun Also Rises?

Hold up, why the fuck would emotional intelligence be useful for appreciating literature? I don't get it. For example: The Sun Also Rises. A man travels with other men, brings along a women that results in him getting cucked, and talks about how life is pointless. Wow, where's the emotional depth there, besides the fetishism of masculinity?

HURR DURR DO DRUGS LMAO YOU'LL FEEL BETTER

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO WORK TO APPRECIATE LIFE BECAUSE HERE'S A MAGIC SHROOM TO DO IT FOR YOU

>why the fuck would emotional intelligence be useful for appreciating literature?
I don't think anyone in this thread has said that EI would be useful for appreciating literature though, you just assumed that. Read the OP again.
Also, I'm pretty sure druganons work and only consume drugs as a hobby just as much as you read a book. /pol/ please leave

Emotional intelligence is almost described as its own form of communication. An author with high "emotional intelligence", if it existed, would communicate ideas that would take high emotional intelligence to appreciate. Otherwise, what's the point of the phenomenon, if it's not meant to describe the nuances of emotional dynamics in humans?

Think for yourself. There are ideas that become immediately obvious from the initial premises. As far as I'm concerned, it's all hogwash. See
Also, I never said that people who use drugs don't work. I was mocking the fact that it results in easy enlightenment. Wow, you're 0/2 on reading comprehension today, aren't you?

EI can be interpreted as the analysis and understanding of non-verbal communication, so it studies a particular form of communication. An author with high EI would take a reader with high EI to appreciate as much as any niche book needs an according reader to fully communicate its ideas.
I myself don't think any literature work can give any real insight whatsoever in this topic. It's a matter of philosophy and daily life, though it can be teached and learned with these two resources.

What two resources? I don't think Bertrand Russell teaches much about emotional intelligence.

Philosophy and daily life.

>emotional intelligence
stop falling for buzzmemes

>Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capability of individuals to recognize their own, and other people's emotions, to discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and to manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt environments or achieve one's goal(s).Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.

This doesn't sound like a meme. I've read Jordan Peterson's criticism of the idea, and I think that it's wholly unfair to write off the idea as a combination of the "big 5 personality traits". It seems like a skill that requires something analogous to fluid/crystallized intelligence, albeit with emotions, context, politics, etc. And it's not something that can be found in certain fixed personalities. How can you explain emotional intelligence as a certain type of extroversion when introverts and extroverts can express it? Is it now the ability to self-regulate and modulate the ranges of certain "big 5" personality traits?

I think it's painfully obvious that you won't get much useful discussion in Veeky Forums, the Internet hub of literary memelords and spergs. I wish I could contribute, but I'm just as clueless.

>boycott blockbusters and avoid pop music

Why? If you just don't like it then fine, don't listen to it, but why would you avoid it just because?

you don't improve emotional intelligence by reading a book
go outside and interact with people

Read the thread dumbass.

its 77 replies long !

Shitpost somewhere else then. Nobody is interested in basic bitch socialization, especially since you can hit a wall if you're not perceptive without a basic foundation and some guided practice.

We're here to explore whether "emotional intelligence" can contribute to the depth of literary works and whether it's necessary to appreciate said depth. If you're not interested in contributing, then don't waste our time.

Interpretation of politics is integrated in emotional intelligence, empathy in human beings.

Spend more time with women. By that I mean through platonic, honest, open-minded and deep conversations.

Yes, I mean it

Read Crime and Punishment (Pevear translation). Not even meme'ing, it helped me sort myself out. You'll love it, it's a real page-turner.

Haven't read through the read to see the other responses, but in my experience, the way to improve your emotional intelligence is to get therapized/self-actualized. Meaning, you need to get in touch with your own feelings and understand their meaning and causes. Being able to identify and put words to your own emotions is one of the core elements of modern psychology. If you feel weak in this area, try speaking to a therapist or reading about childhood emotional neglect, which is probably the cause of it. Cheers.

Kafka suffered parental abuse and never received treatment. It wasn't really his fault.

Bump. Really like this thread.

...

literally every drug is better than that pseudo guide in your pic.
this shit makes me mad. some of the facts and drawings are simply wrong, only two "scientific" sources, utopian promises... this is what makes men unfree. fuck you.

What exactly is bad about hedonism? Everxthing is ephemeral. So what is the argument which makes any way of facing and dealing with life better or worse than another one? (Except maybe moral behaviour in a given social context)

>Kafka
>emotional intelligence

wtf? emotional intelligence wasn't the factor that enabled them to write great literature you nutcase. they didn't grind their point score to a certain level, they were lucky enough to

*be chosen by a celestial muse
*live in a charmed millieu at a special time,
and
*work hard at writing

You sound like you've been reading too many self help books, man.

blockbusters has been out of business for years

>It wasn't really his fault.
No. He could have had a better life; he could have been happier. His end was his own responsibility.

unironically read how to make friends and influence people.

you need something that will incite you to action, not more thought

>I don't even know where to begin except boring conversations where I don't even know how to ask questions and nobody asks me the right questions that don't lead to either boredom or revulsion.

again dude, you have to read Carnegie's book. It's good at helping you with exactly this.

Did you ever analysed Kafka, Joyce, Schnitzler or Cechov in depth? They had great inside in the human soul, they were the pioneers of psycho-analytical thinking.