We Feel Fine / by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar

We Feel Fine / by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar

So, in Meyers-Briggs personality lingo, I am an intuitive feeler (INFJ). I’ve seen this type described more than once as a “dolphin,” essentially navigating the world based on complex emotional echolocation. (warm…warmer…nope cooler again…drat!) How I feel about things is crucial, and I am at least wise about myself enough to know that it is difficult to project how I will feel about something until I experience it.

In practice, what this means is that I make mistakes and “bump into walls” as I figure things out. It can’t be helped; it is my process. Maybe actual dolphins are more graceful in practice.

That most of us are bad at predicting how we’ll feel in a new situation is one of the themes of Daniel Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness. Research sugests that we can understand how we *might* feel about something by talking to someone who is having that experience.

Ah hah! I can use books and other people’s brains to help me narrow down the set of things I need to go out and experience to understand! Amazing. Maybe I can avoid a few walls that way.

For that reason, I find the exploration of emotions aggregated from blogs in We Feel Fine interesting. I don’t yet know how to interpret it. I have to spend more time experiencing it. But, it gives me a sense of being connected to others through the irrational network of emotion. That’s kinda cool all on its own.