Tag: Empathy

All to the payload

Nothing goes to waste. Neither a minute nor an experience, good or bad.

This is not pre-destination. It is how our brain stores and evolves. Millions of calculation, prediction, reflection and reinvention.

Like technology which evolves, so do we. We made a mistake. We did it again. Then we learned. Both David Brooks and Jeremy Rifkin talked about Empathic Civilization and how men have come to relate emotionally.

We (men) were taught at an early age to hunt, to conquer and move on.

e.g. the All-terrain man (NYT Magazine March 20-2013)

If we failed, shake it off with whiskey and move on.

Tough guys don’t dance, or buy-in to empathy, emotional intelligence or group therapy.

Yet studies like the Grant Study found that men do learn from mistakes and adjust in due course.

Partly because the nature of warfare has changed (from hard to software), partly because of women have moved further in the workplace (which gave birth to a bunch of stay-at-home dads).

Whatever the reasons, we do see a generation of sensitive men emerge (or titles like “The End of Men”.

Men who use I-pod, I-phone and I-pad.

Men who drive electric cars (which Tom Wolfe calls the Elf, in his latest Back-to-Blood novel). Men who could be President (Clinton) or just be big-dog supporter of our currently re-elected President.

Not much ego there. Just collaboration across the aisle and across the ocean.

We are living in interesting times: Outgoing Chinese President, and incumbent US  President.

We wouldn’t hear comments as back in Watergate days “I would run over my grandmother for the job” (Chuck Colson).

Now, it’s 2012. The world is tweeting, sharing, Liking, posting, commenting and crowdsourcing.

Utopia? Not quite.

But much better. More empathic a civilization. The late stage of evolution. Grown men do drink milk. Wear tight pants, and do yoga. Yes, I know how you feel. Nothing goes to waste. Those hours of watching and feeding the kids.

It’s well worth it. The bonding at bed-time reading. We have become role-models. For me, I hope my generational “curse” stops here. (unlike the final scene in Exorcist where the young priest, tormented so much he had to take his own life to end the never-ending downward spiral).

I hope for my girls a much better life than mine.

Nothing goes to waste. We transmit those DNA strands and a few variables of our own. It happens to be the first stage of empathic men, last stage of Alpha male.

God bless Aimy and Maily.

Poverty and empathy

Studies show an inverse relationship between socio-economic background and emotional intelligence.

http://geronimarion.posterous.com/emotional-intelligence-linked-to-socio-econom

In short, those privileged kids don’t give a damn how you feel, at work, that is.

Kids whose fathers fell from grace (Madoff, Skilling) committed suicide (former) or died a mysterious death (later). And we all knew what happened with Hearst and Getty‘s.

This brought to mind another paradox: parents can leave behind earthly belongings, but  can’t fill the kids’ void with stuffs. This applies to both rich and  poor families ( millions of rural Chinese children are left to be raised by relatives, while their parents went to work in the cities).

Mr Rifkin recently published a huge book entitled “the Empathic Civilization“.

In it, he traced human evolution, and recent discoveries in neuron sciences to illustrate our  latest stage: empathy. In other words, all those striving should result in better understanding of how others feel.

Growing up in a very narrow alley in the heart of Saigon, I know how people live, love and learn to overlook their differences. We have to. Co-existence in a collective culture helps distinguish differences in kind vs degree.

Back in the 60’s, there were a lot of experiments on sharing the stuff (and a joint too).

But that too became unraveled.

Then, corporations started to pay attention to EQ.

In today’s world, we need to pick team members who are smart (IQ), savvy (EQ) and sociable (SQ). Unfortunately, digital natives seem to progress better on the former, but lack later two (Emotional and Social Intelligence). Bad for business, bad for the overall performance of the team (which needs collaboration instead of compartmentalization).

Fortunately, the study concluded that those skills can be improved.

David Brooks mentioned that students in his NYC Class tend to favor data analysis and decision points.

Corporate training could focus on team building, small-group communication, sales skills (if you can do this, you can do anything) and internship abroad to groom executives with a global mind-set. Fridays (google) off to boost team “play” project. In our 24/7 interconnected world, where human resource now encompasses the globe, we cannot afford a huge blind spot (low EQ).

As we move beyond basic subsistence (food, shelter and clothing), Maslow observed that we next strive for love and understanding. Not just understanding, but empathic understanding of those from other cultures. Like it or not, they will be coming and living on our streets and online. A great attitude toward nature (with other people included) is a legacy worth leaving behind besides “stuff” for our kids, as they live on without doubt in an increasingly multi-cultural society. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/us/05census.html?_r=1&hp