Emotional Intelligence

Thank you subconscious. 

For somehow being able to manage living in the constant agony I was suffering. I mean, the body acted as it should, despite my emotions telling otherwise. For example, when I started studying japanese. I remember I first started using textbooks only, and it was boring. But still I insisted on doing it. Or yet, despite being against my own will (I might not like doing it, or barely had time to do it, or even didn't trust my skills), to behave accordingly the other person's wishes.

Which leads me to the subject of this post. Emotional control, or Emotional Intelligence.

In my first year in Japan, being surrounded by people from China and people coming from the "Russian empire" I started asking many whys. Because behaviors were different, that I couldn't understand.

When it comes to Japanese and Chinese culture, I have had an interest in it for some years, but it intensified in Japan. And so I started trying to understand my classmates even better. During the first year, I only read on japanese culture. I even read a very famous book, called "Kokoro" (heart-brain) to see how the human relationships developed there (because I knew the story, and had had a similar experience and was having one too). 

Then, when I saw myself alone (right after entering my master's degree) I started getting more bored. And the reading time increased substantially. The main subject of my reading craze is mostly the human being. I have read about the brain, love, drive, chinese and japanese culture, leadership, emotional intelligence, ego, willpower, crime psychology, talent, grit, sex, economics, psychoanalysis, among other things.

Undoubtedly all this reading has given some fundamental life skills, among them, and still in development, Emotional Intelligence. So people, read!

I am now able to understand how my childhood affected me. I understand and think about my behaviors.  I went to Portugal for around 2 months and came back better. How the people around me in Portugal influenced me, and how those people behave and thinking about it, fascinated me. What was supposed to be normal, was now a novelty. The ability to analyze your own and other cultures is perhaps - for those interested at least - the awesomest skill one can gain when going abroad for a long period.

Nevertheless, The most serendipitous discovery is the ability (?) I'm now gaining to hide my true self. If I'm not mistaken, it's like when you keep your own emotions to yourself. Or learning how to control those emotions so that they go away in the moment. I now realize I was in constant emotional disruption, all the time. With everyone. Except with family (with exceptions) and my best friends. Coming to Japan without any ally was monstrous to my emotions. And I didn't even realize it. If I felt the things I felt by that time, now, that I'm more conscious, I'm positive it would feel really, really bad.

What's funny is that, I know myself without that "mask". Without hiding my true self. However, the interesting part is, since this is all new to me, I don't know how I behave with the Emotional Control "mask". In Japan people feel other people's hearts and feelings. And since I was so damaged before, a lot of people knew it, without me even me even realizing. And these feelings were keeping my brain from developing normally. And abstained me from good friendships, with my brain functioning in "people from the outside" mode only. When I see (there's at least one living in the same building as me) people from my Japanese class I feel different. It's like I feel I could be with them without major restraints. Because even though I haven't interacted with them for a while, somehow I trust and miss them.

I think that if I had had been able to go beyond this emotional disability since way earlier (what's the normal age?) I think even during my life in Portugal I could have had much more fun than I did.

But past is past, and what matters is this moment, emotionally wise. And the hope for a good future.