Jean of Arc -a military leader who transcended gender roles and gained recognition as a savior of France.
Did she really?
Hang on! Before cooking me on a stake, for having questioned the sanctity of a martyr, take a moment to listen to me!
....and Welcome back! You have just passed the test and you have proven to be a human, and an emotionally intelligent one! Congratulations!
Now, back to my argument.
Did Jean of Arc improve the world by choosing to push head first against a power which was clearly larger and stronger than her own? Could it be that she was caught in an amalgam of intense emotions which blurred her thinking?
Maybe for a week or two she did make people think about her Why, then the everyday life took its course.
She could have done better, I mean - stayed alive, if the people of that times would have known everything we know now about neuroscience. If they could only listen.
Just like the Christian hero, Jesus, who by sacrificing his body and supposedly living the life of a pristine child in a men's body, Jean of Arc also made a new consciousness available in the world, which is amazing, impressive, possible as an idea but -is it working?
Shall we also mention all the modern self sacrificing anonymous saviors who manage to be the talk of the internet for 2 hours and be forgotten the next day?
Why do heroes need to become virtuous machines who know to keep a straight line, till they get to their bloody, glorious end, instead of understanding the human nature and keeping this self awareness, self love and acceptance at a steady level without any blood or drama involved? The drama makes for good books and blockbusters - sure, which to my amazement some cultish groups are trying to reenact in their own lives, believing that the story was real.
To what extend does self sacrifice do any good- long term? I am thinking long term, you might want to remember that.
We are taught to adulate heroes and saints, to learn from their capacity to transcend their human nature and in this case genders, but...does the day to day life improve anyhow for those who are left with the burden of eternal admiration and the responsibility of a life to live?
Do men stop being violent and abusive, to name just a few human shortcomings, all of a sudden? Do women stop being weak, victims and abused, to name some other human shortcomings, or, to the other extreme- do they stop transforming in military leaders who deny their humanity, which causes men going all the way down the femininity trap and refuse any real responsibility ?
No.
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
I only came to reading this book now, while I was busy with a cohort of other similar books, where the same theme is being taken under scrutiny.
It sees that the problems humans have while interacting with other humans are having a greater impact than anything else. Want it or not, humans are interconnected, affecting and influencing each other in all possible ways, for life.
Developing the capacity to establish and maintain a healthy, life long connection with those around you, the family you were blessed with (or not!) colleagues and life partners - this is a marathon many people simply can't sustain.
Luckily, only a few out of this majority decide to become saviors of the world, for a moment. I still fail to see what is so great about self sacrifice, to me this is more speaking about lack of abilities, support, love, lacking people who come to help instead of waiting for a Lamb to say: "kill me and all will be good".
So yeah, this is what the book is about -how not to be a dead Lamb but an aware human who understands and is able to adapt to their surrounding reality in an appropriate manner.
Let me tell you what I've underlined in the books, otherwise you'll have to read it. It's that kind of thing.
Things I've underlined :
"To this day these limbic structures do much or most of the brain's learning and remembering, the amygdala is the specialist for emotional matters. "
"One reason we can be so baffled by our emotional outbursts, then, is that they often date from a time early in our lives when thins were bewildering and we did not yet have words to comprehending events. We may have he chaotic feelings, but not the words for the memories that formed them."
"The prefrontal cortex executes working memory- and, remember, is where the feelings and emotions meet."
"What seems to set apart those at the top of competitive pursuits from others of roughly equal ability is the degree to which, beginning early in life, they can pursue an arduous practice for years and years. And that doggedness depends on the emotional traits - enthusiasm and persistence in the face of setbacks - above all else."
"There is perhaps no psychological skills more fundamental than resisting impulse."
"...lack of a basic element of social intelligence, the ability to recognize what is apt and what is inappropriate in give-and-take."
What I found essential to become aware is this distinction :
Emotional Skills :
Identifying and labeling feelings
Expressing feelings
Assessing the intensity of feelings
managing feelings
Delaying gratification
Controlling impulses
Reducing stress
Knowing the difference between feelings and actions
Cognitive Skills :
Self-talk - conducting an "inner dialogue" as a way to cope with a topic or challenge or reinforce one's own behaviors
Reading and interpreting social cues - for examples, recognizing social influence behavior and seeing oneself in the perspective of the larger community
Using steps for problem-solving and decision -making : for instance, controlling impulses, setting goals, identifying alternative actions, anticipating consequences
Understanding the perspective of others
Understanding behavioral norms (what is and and is not acceptable behavior)
A positive attituded toward life
Self-awareness - for example, developing realistic expectations and about oneself.
Behavioral skills:
Nonverbal - communicating through eye contact, facial expressiveness, tone of the voice, gestures, and so n
Verbal - making clear requests, respond effectively to criticism, resisting negative influences, listening to others, helping others, participating in positive peer groups
...and I'll stop here :)
A woman makes a plan by Maye Musk
Maye Musk is the example of a woman, in my not so humble view here, who has a high level of Emotional Intelligence, as her life story proves.
After all the trouble she had had and overcame, she could have chosen to end herself and become a martyr for a day, but she had and still has the strength, the endurance and the persistence to keep going while finding solutions to all the difficulties.
She could have also chosen to stop trying, staying in those life conditions which were harmful - violence, denial of self, an abusive culture and marriage - the father of Elon Musk that is, accepting in this way the status quo, the power of another human over her, a more powerful, well positioned human being.
But she didn't. Why ?
There is probably an impossibly long answer, turning esoteric, philosophical, supranatural and psychological, all at the same time , an answer I don't have, but what is clear to me is that she just didn't give up, no matter what happened. And look at her now, citing Selena Gomes.... of course! (hehe)
In this book she is really honest and blunt sometimes, whish works for me 100% - why hide behind appearances anyway? For social acceptance sure, but ...at the end of your life, will that give you solace and internal peace?
And the advise she is giving here, honestly its the basic things, the natural way of life from which we have taken distance and seem to be refusing to live.
Die Wut in mir der Mini-Podcast zu Wut-Life-Balance
This one! This is a rather short podcast, Why so short? which is hosting a couple of women who accepted to talk about their way of managing Anger.
I find this so touching and also so sad because the world we live in, which we have created or inherited, lead us into becoming these angry creatures trying to survive while not being able to talk freely about the emotional struggle, because the accepted face is the Happy face, not the Real face.
Listening to these women talk about their difficulties to keep up the happy face, while facing the dead reality made me think a lot...
Code Girls by Liza Mundy
I am about to finish this book but I would prefer that it didn't stop. This is a "normal" story of women being alive, you might say, why does it impress you so much?
Well, I guess the writer did a great job writing it- it feels like being in the middle of the events, feeling the feelings and hearing the sounds, historical sounds of trams passing by, the bombs, the tension, the women stepping up (because the men realized that Women are also capable humans beings). In fact, Liza Mundy is a journalist and non-fictional writer masterfully using words to created images and then a whole movie in my head, with this book.
As the title is informing us, during the Second World War there were these code breaking women, who were recruited for their outstanding results, either from the university or while they were searching for employment. There were announcements to which some of the women responded, those who either had no other work options- remember this was a time when technology was a field which excluded women, or they had just finished their studies- most often in the fields of Foreign Languages and Math.
This is also a story of emancipation, women going out to work, living on their own, having their own money and the possibility to choose, walking away from "Jean of Arc " World toward "Beyoncé" world.
Things I've underlined :
" In 1942, only 4 percent of American women had completed four years of college. In part because women were denied admission to so may places [...]"
"Knowledge of Latin and Greek; a close study of literature and ancient texts; facility with foreign languages; the ability to read closely, to think, to make sense of a large amount of data : These skills were perfect."
" The Office of Strategic Services was avidly recruiting women, as was the FBI."
"Four things essential for cryptanalytic success: perseverance, careful methods of analysis, intuition and luck."
This book is about Agility: while the world was literally falling apart, going though Hardship with a serene Mind, knowing that they would fail and learn. It is the story of Endurance and Perseverance, these women did not get the praise and the golden medals Men get for being alive, but they persevered and did their job well. This is the story of a kind of Women I would like to become one day.
Shoot for the Moon by Richard Wiseman
In conclusion, let's finish on an outstanding note.
In this book we learn about the mindset which pushed humanity beyond physical and mental barriers.
We started by looking at Jean of Arc who tried the same thing but she was way, way ahead of her times and was punished for that, for having had ideas out of the That World.
Maybe , just maybe, what we need to learn from her example is that we need to have ideas and we need to try to change our world in a better, kinder, truer version, which would make life for all living creatures possible and better.
Now we are living in a world where having ideas is possible, they need to be the strangest, strongest Ideas, which would propel us, yet again - outside of the World.
The "World" I am talking about is of course a mental construct -as I think Life itself is, but I am not going to risk becoming steak again!
It took Humanity a few years of trying to go to the Moon and explore the Unknown, I am intentionally leaving out the intrigues between nations here. Reading the book makes me realizes that the idea- Let's go to the Moon (before the Russians get there!) could have been dismissed and ignored, just like so many other great ideas are treated, IF the idea wasn't enforced, planned, followed up and put in practice in an assiduous, constant, daily pursuit. Which can't do anything else but make us think :
Isn't every day, the Day - time to pursue our ideas, dreams and yeah... live trying?
This book is a playground for me - it talks about Creativity vs the Closed Mind, Innovation from Imagination, tragedy, risk and being reckless, learning from Failures, never giving up, habits leading to success, fear and the confrontation of it, being prepared for anything because everything can happen and everything contains a grain of Truth.
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