Emotional intelligence - a sound enterprise

Emotional intelligence...how should this notion be approached?
Intelligence has long been thought to be the matter of the intelligible, ie the logos. Whereas emotions are derived from the world of passions, ie the pathos.... Schematically, intelligence would be about what I think, emotions about what I feel.

The notion of emotional intelligence seems to dispel the idea that the distinction is clear-cut and straight-forward.

It is not just intelligence on one side, emotions on the other and nothing in-between. Emotional intelligence is telling us about a mix, a bridge between two worlds. Descartes, the French XVII century philosopher, was applying his mind in ways to discover an intelligible world - a world of what we are sure about, as opposed to what is only illusion, superstition or ever-changing.... "Cogito" - the thinking mind - became the angular stone of what defines human being - cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am.

Towards the end of his life, Descartes was hard-pressed to think and write on the domain of passions, emotions... He too had to deal with this question, whether and how we can either separate or combine thoughts and emotions.

In a simple way, intelligence is what helps us coming up with decision, for which we need to clarify issues, try to understand, share and communicate, using various tools like languages etc...

Emotions are a complex, unclear network of thoughts and feelings... It is important to distinguish between emotions and feelings as emotions are usually expressed... in "body-form": shaking, blushing, smiling, crying, as well as through language... words, signs... Feelings are anchored into every human being without taking any form... they are felt within... in our core.... As such they are felt. They are not perceived by the five senses. Feelings are not about seeing something, hearing or touching... it is an inner-perception. Feelings are just that. They may be triggered by senses or by something we get, some discussion, some ideas coming or passed on to us... Nonetheless feelings will always be of an inner-invisible-intangible-substance: fear, joy, anger, peace, plain satisfaction, plain discomfort...

Emotions will be a result of our feelings... In the same way as light is produced out of electricity, emotions are born out of feelings. You see the light but not the electricity. You see the emotions, but not the feelings. Another way to put it is to look at feelings like fire and emotions like smoke. This analogy highlights the primary aspect of feelings over emotions. It also helps understand the complex nature of emotions: complex in the sense that they are the result of a mix, something equivalent to a combustion, the combination of feelings with thoughts and langage.

These distinctions help us understand the role of emotional intelligence: trying to understand better, to decipher what rules the world of emotions... trace back to the feelings, look at expressing what happens (the mechanisms behind the "combustion"), make sense out what happens, ie allow the intelligence - the meaning, the intention - to emerge in this typically human language.

What does it take to understand the human language being displayed via our emotions and feelings?
What to see through the smoke?
It may be that feelings are not easy to describe. Besides, feeling are states of being, from which actions will follow. Whether I sleep, eat, work, rest, study... many actions are driven by what we see, think and feel.
Whenever we think or see, we also feel. Feelings are there at all time...

Feeling what we feel - becoming aware and conscious about it - is a powerful way to free ourselves from the pain and burden of many heavy emotional states... like stress, fear, worries, or over-excitement, or even intoxication. As we feel our feeling, we take ownership for them and can intelligently, rationally, come back to sound decision making - and it could be simply deciding to stop for a while, to relax or to suspend any action... A French writer - Michel Tournier -  used to say that anger always triggers action, but it is always the wrong action which is being triggered by anger.

Emotional intelligence may be the skill, the art and science of understanding - listening to - what links our feeling to our thoughts and while acknowledging our emotions, in the meantime avoiding the trap of falling into confused emotional states while favoring and fostering true self-expression of what we feel and light-headed, sound, intelligent decision making.