Emotional inteligence
108/661accepting virtually every possible time for the appointment.But Elliot lacked any sense of how he felt aboutany of the times. Lacking that awareness of his own feelings,he had no preferences at all.One lesson from Elliot's indecisiveness is the crucialrole of feeling in navigating the endless stream of life'spersonal decisions. While strong feelings can create havocin reasoning, the lack of awareness of feeling can alsobe ruinous, especially in weighing the decisions onwhich our destiny largely depends: what career to pursue,whether to stay with a secure job or switch to onethat is riskier but more interesting, whom to date ormarry, where to live, which apartment to rent or houseto buy—and on and on through life. Such decisions cannotbe made well through sheer rationality; they requiregut feeling, and the emotional wisdom garnered throughpast experiences. Formal logic alone can never work asthe basis for deciding whom to marry or trust or evenwhat job to take; these are realms where reason withoutfeeling is blind.The intuitive signals that guide us in these momentscome in the form of limbic-driven surges from the viscerathat Damasio calls "somatic markers"—literally, gutfeelings. The somatic marker is a kind of automaticalarm, typically calling attention to a potential dangerfrom a given course of action. More often than not these
markers steer us away from some choice that experiencewarns us against, though they can also alert us to agolden opportunity. We usually do not, at that moment,recall what specific experiences formed this negativefeeling; all we need is the signal that a given potentialcourse of action could be disastrous. Whenever such agut feeling rises up, we can immediately drop or pursuethat avenue of consideration with greater confidence,and so pare down our array of choices to a more manageabledecision matrix. The key to sounder personaldecision-making, in short: being attuned to our feelings.PLUMBING THE UNCONSCIOUS109/661Elliot's emotional vacuity suggests that there may be aspectrum of people's ability to sense their emotions asthey have them. By the logic of neuroscience, if the absenceof a neural circuit leads to a deficit in an ability,then the relative strength or weakness of that same circuitin people; whose brains are intact should lead tocomparable levels of competence in that same ability. Interms of the role of prefrontal circuits in emotional attunement,this suggests that for neurological reasonssome of us may more easily detect the stirring of fear orjoy than do others, and so be more emotionally selfaware.
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- Page 102 and 103: 102/661Gary was emotionally flat, c
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- Page 150 and 151: pain of their own. Throwing oneself
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markers steer us away from some choice that experience
warns us against, though they can also alert us to a
golden opportunity. We usually do not, at that moment,
recall what specific experiences formed this negative
feeling; all we need is the signal that a given potential
course of action could be disastrous. Whenever such a
gut feeling rises up, we can immediately drop or pursue
that avenue of consideration with greater confidence,
and so pare down our array of choices to a more manageable
decision matrix. The key to sounder personal
decision-making, in short: being attuned to our feelings.
PLUMBING THE UNCONSCIOUS
109/661
Elliot's emotional vacuity suggests that there may be a
spectrum of people's ability to sense their emotions as
they have them. By the logic of neuroscience, if the absence
of a neural circuit leads to a deficit in an ability,
then the relative strength or weakness of that same circuit
in people; whose brains are intact should lead to
comparable levels of competence in that same ability. In
terms of the role of prefrontal circuits in emotional attunement,
this suggests that for neurological reasons
some of us may more easily detect the stirring of fear or
joy than do others, and so be more emotionally selfaware.
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