On writing about emotional vulnerability

How writing about your emotions is like a journey back into your life history and breaking down "why" you have the behaviors you have

Diego Rivera - Detroit Industry Murals

For the longest time, I would spend a lot of time writing about things like “industrial policy”, “workforce development”, “infrastructure planning”, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I totally enjoy this type of writing, but I always felt like I was writing too much from the lens of economic efficiency or productivity.

This might be the pragmatist in me - I care about those things, but there’s no emotion to it all. Every time I would attempt to write about my emotions, I automatically back off because I feared expressing my emotional vulnerability.

But abstraction feels much more detached. It can serve to mask one’s true feelings without intending to - and you can’t get your feelings across.

What type of emotions I want to write about?

1. How avoidant-attachment style creates a heightened sense of independence yet can create a heightened sense of distance/fear when trying to build long term relationships?

2. Why some habits/behaviors in life stick and others fail - or when we procrastinate?

3. “People can only understand you to the extent that they understand themselves”

When writing about my emotions, I feel that I’m breaking down my own life history and navigating where and why I have the quirky character traits I have.

To write about emotion means to feel less of a detachment toward society and more of connection w/ the world around you.

I have an avoidant attachment style: coming from an immigrant family, where my grandparents both experienced World War 2, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and moving to a new country, there is a strong distrust of political institutions, afraid of them taking away everything they built their life for.

I’ve adopted their feelings for distance/distrust - it takes a while to build trust with me, because I also have these fears of abandonment.

I unfortunately have a short attention span: this means whatever new skill, behavior, or habit I need to adapt, I need to brute force my way into.

But figuring out which habits stick and which ones die, I really think the ones that stick come from where the motivations were cultivated from. If you did not cultivate those motivations early enough, those habits will die. Because there’s no inner flame - and your inner flame is your competitive advantage when times are tough.

I like designing environments and props, because I grew up playing Legos at an early age. I naturally will feel gravitate toward roles where I can sit for 8-10 hours a day working on environments/props - its that inner flame that creates a consistent habit that keeps you going when others don’t have that same flame.

“People can only understand you to the extent that they understand themselves” is a powerful one. It really requires an examination of one’s own narrative and how their behavior shapes the folks around them.

I think as one gets older, skill matters less, and how we relate/project our identity and authenticity w/ others matters more. Because skill will eventually be automated - we should take advantage of the extra time productivity gains we have to really focus on how we relate with humanity.

To write about emotion means to feel less of a detachment toward society and more of connection w/ the world around you

I really feel that a strong emotional foundation trumps everything else in life - and can shapes every aspect in life - money, family, career, relationships, health/wellness. Without that strong emotional foundation, there will be leaks in how you manage your life both as an individual and w/ the people around you.

Having emotional detachment means not having the right emotional cues to read people. How does one handle conflict resolutions when your team is at its lowest point?

Even if you write in abstractions, as I tend to do, you don’t fall into the abstraction as the pure metric of success/well being. Just because I write about “economic efficiency/productivity” does not mean I ignore the role of strong families in creating a healthy society.

Part of analyzing a team really comes down to knowing about the emotional dynamics that can determine the success and failure of the team

My early career advice is to focus more on building a strong emotional foundation, and choose the trajectory where your frequency levels and vibrations match.

Just because the product is sexy does not mean that it will be successful - it is a result of the team efforts and how the team is able to navigate those emotional dynamics. I pay more attention to these emotional cues now.

The more you understand yourself, the more you save time, money, and energy toward environments that don’t fit you and channeling it to the right spaces.

You no longer need to rely on abstractions to get your point across. You are direct and authentic with how you communicate.

Abstraction is a result of the technological revolution we’ve built for our society. But it also means we create layers for ourselves in society.

We have to admit that just because we step away from abstractions (tech startup jargon, corporate speak) does not mean those institutions will fall apart. Rather, it is acceptance that we have to reconnect on how we empathize with the folks around us.