Emotional Intelligence

Love Requires Intelligence 

Hate Doesn’t! 

Earlier I wrote a post about social presence after witnessing the latest controversy surrounding a young medical student making disparaging comments about a cadaver and about her medical institution. 

The same incident sparked reactions within the medical community at large. This included our medical class which is connected via a WhatsApp group. A couple of classmates brought up the subject. They favored strict action against the student. Many alumni as well as the union of resident doctors ( MARD) have demanded this student to be kicked out of college permanently. 

We had a lot of group exchanges on the subject. For a while it seemed like I was the only one making the case that this was indeed a black sheep in the family. But her isolated comments or behavior does not discredit the entire institution. She should be allowed to feel sheepish about her behavior one day. Even hardened criminals are given second and third chances in life. This one is still a child( in her twenties!). Her only “ crime “ is to speak badly on social media. To be fair, social media is already going berserk and grilling her mercilessly. We need to be watchful that her punishment is not out of proportion. 

It was reassuring when after a long silence 3-4 voices expressed solidarity with my views. These voices refreshingly differed from the harsh punitive noises on social media. They favored compassion and forgiveness.

The entire circus that has ensued sheds light on more than just the topic of the young generation lacking maturity when presenting themselves in public spaces. An even more disturbing behavior is uncovered by this incident. It is about the nearly automatic and severe reaction from educated and uneducated people alike which leans towards punishing the offender. For the educated, the reaction stems from their own values of morality, professionalism and love for their institutions. For the uneducated, it is simply a means to unload their boiling frustrations. Frustrations that are created from being mostly idle and ignorant. Those are easier to understand than the reactions from the educated sections. 

It is worth trying to understand why intelligent people with good amount of education tend to react harshly to misbehavior. Why they take a punitive approach more easily than corrective approach? Why in their opinion such offense of idiotic talk is weighed in the same measure as a gruesome murder or an armed robbery or corporate fraud? Why giving a second chance is not on the table ? Why they don’t recognize reform as one option? Especially for a young person.

The one person who came to mind when the thought of reform arose was Dr Anand Nadkarni. He came from our institution. Our very own messiah whose career was largely devoted to the rehabilitation of people afflicted by substance abuse. Those denounced by society for their habits. If he was alive today he would more than likely not waste a minute to reach out to the troubled young woman after seeing what she is suddenly bombarded with on social media. He would have recognized the problem for what it really was and handled it sensitively and effectively in such a way that the problem is corrected but the individual is saved. 

Everyone cannot be Dr Anand Nadkarni. That’s a fact. But the educated amongst us can at least show compassion and forgiveness and resist reacting like the uneducated and ignorant folks. Can we? Why do we not? 

That’s the question that needs to be asked more often. 

I have found the answer within myself the hard way! It’s a sad truth. 

Human intellect and emotional intelligence are like twins growing in the same womb. Growth of one often occurs at the cost of another. Logic, reasoning, information processing, memory, judgment, critical thinking, decision making are areas of strength. They begin to dominate without being fully aware of the process. Higher education calls for these brain functions to be super developed and we adapt to the requirements. We are taught about humanity and compassion during medical career but only a few teachers like Dr Manu Kothari in our college really emphasize on those aspects. 98% of the time, these qualities remain secondary at best in our daily work lives. Even the kindness we show our patients is more mechanical than coming deeper from our being. That is NOT emotional intelligence by any means. That is simply reflex emotional behavior. 

If a patient questions our diagnosis or questions our fees our emotional reflexes are activated. If they abide by our rules our reflexes are favorable towards them. The same goes with our peers. If they see eye to eye with us, our reflexes are favorably matched. If they think differently we react unfavorably. Even through non-responding we communicate the unfavorable reaction. By telling them “ forget about it” we show our disapproval of their opinion.  All this is emotional reaction, not emotional intelligence. What really simmers in such emotional reaction is hate, in its primitive form. Love never exists in emotional reactions. Any favorable expression of emotion is just the intellectual ego giving a nod to the other person for thinking the same way as themselves. 

Love exists in its own separate compartment outside of the rational brain! It is a much older, deeper part of our existence than the intellect we focus upon. We neglect it in our bid for survival. By accident or by circumstance, if we are lucky to discover this compartment we can realize how superficial the rational brain is. The emotional intelligence does not want us to not survive. It wants us all to survive, not just one individual. It wants to protect all, even those with shortcomings. Not that it is blind to the shortcomings. On the contrary it is aware of shortcomings of ourselves along with those of others on who we are so ready to pass judgments. It wants to help us overcome the shortcomings, not throw anyone under the bus. Not us and not others. But our intellectual brain doesn’t have the capacity to care for everyone. It can care for a few at the expense of others. It truly has limited capacity. That’s not true of the emotional intelligence system. Its capacity is without limits. 

But it has to be tapped. That takes a lot of introspection. And who has the time for introspection in a world that is moving so fast where you can’t remember what you had for breakfast when you are having your lunch? 

Our college education forced us to develop our intellect. If survival as we see it is our only goal, that much intelligence will be enough. More than enough really. 

But if we seek to have a purpose beyond survival, we need to discover that fraternal twin within us whose growth got stunted while we were tending to the other half.  Only that twin can understand real love, compassion and forgiveness. That one knows that the girl we so want to punish harder, is one of us. We can raise her to be different from how she is now.  It is matter of patience, guidance and love. Just unconditional love that only seeks to see her do well.