Adage II | Emotional Intelligence and Spirituality
Introduction | Prelude
It’s difficult to describe emotions in words, isn’t? The first word that springs up in our head is “feelings” after hearing the word – emotions. The simple reason being – emotions are intense feelings which are better felt than expressed. Even a person who is tight-lipped will express a lot of emotions to the people across him, as a person who loves to prattle. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ states, “In a very real sense we have two minds – one that thinks and one that feels”. In my previous blog, I explained the importance of why thinking is vital to one’s life but, on the other hand, thinking and emotionalism are like 2 sides of the same coin. This other side is labeled as Emotional Intelligence. Therefore, as thinking is to IQ so feeling is to EI. Not all the balls bowled in a cricket match turn out to be legal, in spite some of them are wide which invites penalty on the ballers side. In the same way, not all the situations that we deal with in our mundane lives are intellectually driven, rather most of them are emotionally driven. And so, emotional competencies revolve around personal and social aspects of our life. Personal aspects relate to self-confidence, motivation, self-awareness etc., while social aspects deal with our attitude towards other people, especially when we are in a group or hanging out with our friends. The truth as a matter of the fact is that handling these emotions requires experiences while overcoming challenges. None of us, I assume have learned everything from our mother’s womb and so learning to revere the people around us comes through Emotional Intelligence (EI) rather than Intelligence Quotient (IQ).
Spirituality | Why does it matter?
I recall reading a quote written by C.S. Lewis which stated, “Education without values as useful as it is, seems rather to make man cleverer devil”. The profound meaning of this statement can be easily understood through an allegory. D. L. Moody’s illustration is exemplary, states that If a man is stealing nuts and bolts from a railway track, and in order to change him, you send him to college, at the end of his education, he will steal the whole railway track. I ask, what is missing in this person’s life that makes him commit such an act? The answer is – values. Values which find its ground in a moral framework. The moral framework finds its derivative in a moral law giver and moral law giver in turn relates to the supernatural. An infinite being responsible for the creation and moral framework of our human system. So, defining spirituality in simple terms is “reformation and reshaping which aims to recover the originality of a human soul with strengthening the spirit”.I’m pursuing doctoral degree from North Dakota State University (NDSU) at the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABEN) under Dr. J. Paulo Flores, who’s a precision agriculture specialist at the department. Prior to this, I did my Masters (Research) in 2019 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, where I worked with Prof. B. S. Das, Soil Physics Laboratory, Agricultural and Food Engineering (AgFE) department. As of now, my area of interest includes image processing (UAV imagery) using deep learning tools. Besides, I love to stretch my knowledge and skills on agricultural robotics and automation.