An Open Letter to David Brooks and the Daniel Golemans of the World. You Have the Ear of the World & I Don't. Please Consider My Insights in Your Future Works

    WASHINGTON, DC, April 29, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- David Brooks recommends self-restraint, self-erasure and self-suspicion. It is the same old concept of the self being evil. In the context of the latest breakthroughs in the mind sciences the evil of religion and philosophy is the emotionally challenged brain of neuroscience. Thus it is not about self-restraint, self-erasure and self-suspicion; it is about healing the emotionally challenged brain.

The time has come to uncover the mystery of wisdom with the knowledge we have gained through the breakthroughs in the mind sciences. The saving and losing of souls can be translated into the saved soul is one's emotionally healthy human nature and the lost soul is one's emotionally challenged human nature. Sin can be translated as emotionally challenged behavior and holiness can be translated as emotionally healthy behavior.

Brooks defining humility as "the awareness that you are an underdog in the struggle against your own weakness" is misunderstanding humility. Humility does not involve negative behavior at all. It has nothing to do with considering one's own self as weak, low or less worthy than others. Humility has nothing to do with being suspicious of one's own self/abilities. Humility is the empowering quality of human nature that enables one to be so absorbed with living in the now that one has no conscious thought of self-identity.

Humility is selflessness which is totally different from being insignificant and powerless. Selflessness generates the power of a pure life. A selfless person does not feel helpless and insignificant; on the contrary the selfless person basks in pure confidence of total trust of others. A selfless person feels pure emotional happiness where a soothing current of pure pleasure seeps physically through the body; making the body physically and emotionally super healthy, happy and relaxed. Selflessness generates the pure self.

The pure self is the very embodiment of pure love. Pure love basks in the total confidence of the beloved. It feels being the center of the lover's universe, the lover here being the whole human family irrespective of class, creed or gender; savoring the pure goodness of pure peace. The biochemical effects of feelings of peace nourish the physical body putting the mind and brain at ease, full of pure wisdom. Imagine how a lover feels in the presence of his/her beloved; a selfless person has the same experience with everyone across the board; minus the physical attraction. Selflessness/humility generates super mature emotional intelligence/health; the cure for the current mess in society and in education.

Again David Brooks observes, "To nurture your Adam I career, it makes sense to cultivate your strengths. To nurture your Adam II moral core, it is necessary to confront your weaknesses." Translated into science it means Adam 1 is the mind projected self and Adam 11 is the brain projected self. So for Adam 1; get the highest quality mind education while for Adam 11 it is not about confronting your weakness; it is about healing your weakness, which boils down to healing your emotionally challenged brain.

Consciousness is an iceberg where the mind consciousness is visible and the brain consciousness is below the radar screen. The mind knows healthy/good/truth behavior and wants to behave accordingly but the brain in the majority of cases is emotionally challenged and so physically incapable of good/emotionally-healthy behavior. Unfortunately most of these books by our great sages like Brooks and Daniel Goleman bring us to the well but without providing the means to pull up the water. Their insights try to teach the mind but it does not work as the mind is already struggling to be good. It is the emotionally challenged brain that needs to be cured which our sages ignore.

In America Adam 1 has all the opportunity for excellence in developing the mind's educational potential but for the majority it is Adam 11 that gets messed up on account of parents and society miseducating the brain.

It is well established that man becomes wise by old age. What happens is that the emotional baggage; in the majority of cases the trophy self image of being the best, creates an emotionally challenged over confidence that blocks wisdom. Over decades reality grinds out the emotional baggage: the trophy self image, enabling the brain to become wise. Why wait for decades of life experiences to grind out the emotional baggage; you can recommend brain therapy and wisdom seminars. We already have therapies that make the subnormal into normal; we must use the same to make the trophy self image disappear. More important why let the trophy self image take root in the first place? David Brooks has recommended emotionally healthy upbringing/parenting; but it gets drowned out and lost with all his other recommendations.

There are many paths to a wise/emotionally-healthy America. We raise our daughters humble and our sons macho. The DNA of wisdom/emotional-intelligence/emotional-health is selflessness that generates humbleness. Thus humbleness is wisdom. So we raise our daughters wiser/emotionally healthier. Again say you have two sons; one is humble and the other macho; which one is more likely to commit emotionally challenged behavior? By just raising our sons humble we will be changing America into a much emotionally-healthier/wiser/happier/richer society. In other words if you want to bring down crime, drug addictions, class divide, poverty, unhappiness, suicide, sleeplessness, restlessness, student failures etc. then use your bully pulpit to ensure raising both sons and daughters humble. Humbleness is the one way ticket to an emotionally healthier America. American health, happiness and prosperity will come from an emotionally humble/healthy America. Imagine if David Brooks woke up America and the world to this one solution to health, happiness and prosperity; humbleness as emotional-intelligence which is emotional health.

Selflessness and humility are symptoms of an emotionally healthy brain and so it is not about Brooks' goal of the recovery of "a vast moral vocabulary and set of moral tools nor is it about unsparing demands on oneself". It is about healing the emotionally challenged brains.

Still I am a big fan of David Brooks. In his latest book he is describing all the attributes of wisdom for building character without mentioning wisdom. There is a big problem with singing the virtues of wisdom's attributes instead of just singing the virtues of wisdom.

The way the wisdom way works is that wisdom is a tree, its attributes are the fruit. Cultivate the tree and the attributes will follow effortlessly. Try to cultivate the attributes of wisdom and it will remain a struggle just as you cannot produce the fruit without the tree. No wonder for thousands of years our sages have been trying to cultivate the attributes of wisdom with little success. Our current sages from David Brooks to Daniel Goleman are repeating the same mistakes, as they are putting the cart before the horse; they are proposing the creation of fruit without planting the tree.

David Brooks comes very close to describing wisdom as the key to character building - he mentions humility. Humility is the face of selflessness; where selflessness is the force that produces wisdom. In fact the DNA of each and every attribute of wisdom is selflessness. Wisdom is selflessness and selflessness is wisdom. A perfect example is the story of Adam and Eve. They are living a life selflessly engrossed in the now. Along comes Satan; replacing selflessness with a greedy self image. They go from being selfless; without any emotional baggage to loaded with all the attributes/baggage of ignorance/evil/emotionally-challenged-brains. Just replacing selflessness/humility with a negative self identity takes them from wisdom to ignorance.

What a big difference David Brook's book would have made if he had described wisdom as the character builder. Then he would have proposed cultivating the wisdom tree instead of proposing the same old struggle of trying to produce the attributes/fruits without the wisdom tree. David Brooks is removing quite a bit of the fuzziness from character but he still falls short of describing wisdom as the character builder.

I hope David Brooks wakes up the world with his next book; to wisdom/humility/emotionally-healthy-brain being the one and only tool for a moral society.

The 4th R Foundation is a non-profit education research foundation that researches informal/emotional intelligence education, human nature, brain, mind, conscientiousness, self, wisdom, life coaching, adult reeducation, shyness, self-image, emotional brain baggage etc.

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