[OT] Personal project

[Curry Kenworthy]

Good topic.

I see that society has a lot of trouble from people worshiping at the 
altar of emotion.

Emotion is very useful, but it's similar to a sensor - ideally 
(functioning correctly) it raises awareness and provides additional 
input about important things in your environment and in yourself. Those 
things affect your survival - danger, disease, industry, help, needs un/met.

As long as people use emotion appropriately (using the tool for what it 
does well) they should generally benefit.

But when emotion is elevated to a goal in itself, or applied to every 
task as a supertool to solve everything, there is chaos. People can be 
perfectly happy doing something great - or equally happy doing something 
very destructive to themselves or others. Emotion is not a reliable 
final judge of good and bad paths or solutions. It's only a useful 
indicator that something COULD be going well or badly. It's a good tool 
to bring the condition to our attention, but we have better tools for 
solving many problems.

Likewise, people with an overwhelming primary goal of feeling 
happy/appreciated/fun/excitement etc (or the flip side, avoiding various 
negative or bland emotions) can cause all sorts of problems around them. 
This is where you see those weird situations with a lot of time wasted 
because they are pursuing a totally different angle. It can affect an 
entire company or government office. I have seen real-life examples 
where the community actually suffers as a result.

For example (but this a true story, just names and industry removed) a 
manager who feels inferior may develop persuasive verbal and nonverbal 
skills specifically to influence people and advance personally in 
career. But having already secured - through persuasion and networking, 
or sometimes through corruption - a position that is above his or her 
actual management abilities and knowledge/skills of the profession, the 
same manager is worried someone will learn the dark secret and something 
bad will happen.

Actually the job position remains fairly secure, at least at first, and 
logically all this person would need to do is simply focus on the job - 
do things properly, brush up on skills, improve, utilize the best 
employees, become more honest and professional - but such people can't 
see that because emotion is still in charge.

Instead they focus more than ever on building the persuasion and 
networking, forming a clique to manage perceptions and basically control 
thoughts and decisions - which transforms the workplace from 
results-oriented to friends-oriented. The manager is preoccupied with 
this and with the web of intrigue, leaving no chance for actual learning 
and improvement. Office conflicts are frequent, solutions are bizarre, 
coverups and shenanigans are commonplace, good workers with real 
knowledge are feared and punished or suppressed. Customer service and 
provided services take a dive, employee turnover increases, and the 
business or government office suffers all kinds of headaches.

Many similar happenings. Anytime someone is more in pursuit of either an 
emotion or a personal agenda rather than the task at hand, things go 
badly. In some cities multiple offices and industries are screwed up by 
these types of situations, plus corruption - ending in (depending on the 
department or business in question) everything from postal mail blowing 
down the street in the wind, to rabid animals running rampant, to 
clogged traffic, and of course long customer lines and disorder at the 
grocery store.

Less dramatic but still far reaching - decisions and industries driven 
by psychological or emotional needs (such as overcoming feelings of 
inferiority by pursuing grandeur) are often not the soundest decisions 
and directions. It's a big show to bolster the star. That affects the 
end consumer and so on - their lives are often enriched, ironically, but 
usually there are unnecessary headaches and unpleasant side effects that 
come with it. It could be even better if driven more by sound reasoning 
and less distracted by emotional factors.

I believe that achieving happiness is most efficiently and permanently 
achieved not by pursuing happiness itself, and certainly not by putting 
happiness or fear of various emotions in the driver's seat, but rather 
by either doing something well, or else doing something good.

But by doing good or doing it well - I don't mean virtue signaling or 
acting a part, again in pursuit of emotion or approval or appearances 
rather than the true characteristics of the thing itself - that's 
another HUGE route that leads to crazy and disastrous results. What 
looks great playing a role on TV is not the best approach in real life, 
so acting is not the same as doing. Again a very real-life example with 
names and titles removed, often with literally life and death 
consequences depending on the industry. Which kind of doctor do you want 
- the guy who plays a doctor on TV, or the guy who plays a doctor in the 
hospital (in other words a real doctor who is driven primarily by 
appearances and popular trends and social status), or the real doctor 
who really focuses on doctoring? :D

And when people cater to emotion, honesty often goes out the window. 
They constantly have to rationalize, distract, and persuade just to 
avoid facing reality or allowing others to see reality. That's a big 
problem everywhere- and especially in coding; logic is based on true vs 
false, and when people are fuzzy on that in daily life, it doesn't help 
their scripting skills. Rationalizing looks like logic, but the 
cause/effect relationship is reversed.

Finally, coming to terms with who and what you are, and the reality of 
your situation and our world. I live everyday with physical limitations 
that many would find extremely difficult to cope with - wheelchair 90% 
of waking time, going outside my home (or overdoing any physical 
activity) oiften makes me exhausted and sick, I've had to give up or 
adjust everything from hobbies to personal interaction to showers. I've 
lost a great deal.

But I'm happy every day, no emotional troubles (although plenty of 
physical pain and discomfort) because I use emotion as a useful sensor 
and tool in the areas where it excels, but I do not put it on a pedestal 
or let it run my life in areas where it is not the best available tool. 
Logic works best for me, generally speaking! Emotion is good too, but 
it's most useful when kept in its proper place. Just like an oil gauge 
is important for your car, but it should not be the reason and purpose 
for driving, nor should it steer. Ironically the pursuit of happiness, 
at least when taken to extremes or put at the center of life and 
decision-making, is probably the LEAST efficient route to achieving 
happiness. :)

Best wishes,

Curry Kenworthy

Custom Software Development
"Better Methods, Better Results"
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