So, forcing us to 750 words a day has reap its first “big idea” for me.

I was reflecting a series of conversation I’ve been having with people around the studio lately, about things like how I don’t read fiction, how I have a “split” brain, how I am looking for rigorous principles (read: formulas) in design, how my “the smart guy” is an unnecessary persona, etc.  I had a sense of that the ideas are related somehow.

Then I wrote this in my 750words entry:

“I am so used to analytical thinking as my default mode of engaging with the world that I barely know I how I feel, let alone other people. This is the crux of my inability to empathize.”

My analytical processes “crowd out” empathy, even for myself.  Not necessarily in an extreme way (I am no Vulcan), but just subtly and almost insidiously.  It is so natural to me it has even become a part of my self identity.  

When I see someone (myself included) do something, the first question that comes to mind is never, “how do they feel?” but always, “What is the reason for this?”  This first thought subtly biases all the subsequent possible thoughts.  I have, quite unconsciously and as a matter of habit, ignored the realm of emotional intelligence.

Perhaps this is how I will get that order-of-magnitude breakthrough in thinking that I have been searching for.  I have to break out of analytical thinking as a comfortable default, and instead immerse in and learn to navigate that murky emotional space.

In the words of Paul Pangaro, “I need a new language.”