You gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life I promise you

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, written by DanielGoleman, published by Bantam Books, 2006.

I started out to read the book out of curiosity after listening to a BBC interview of the Next , Next Generation series with young people (translated to 18-35 year old) from all over the world, asking them of what they want to be, what are their challenges in the future. They came from India, Africa, New York, London, and China. By the end of the interview, the common idea as the most important trait to survive is: the social skills, from communication, relating to people, working with others. These important skill is crucial despite of whatever skills they have to offer, because other skills and demands change as the wind does, along with the advance technology, the happenings (that includes natural, and political disasters).

I grabbed this book, read it, and was not able to put it down, as I was "mute" for two days, even when I was asleep, dreaming about reading this book. DanielGoleman is a brain scientist, a psycholog and doctor, a self described " the author who redefined what it means to be smart." He is smart. The simple language, although I have to grab my pen to write down new "brain related" vocabularies that I haven't heard before. As a scientist, he was able to translate the language to the common mind, and the result, I found that the book was not that I expected. It offers more.

Empathy was the most important trait we can have to be able to communicate with others. Empathy exist in a brain that is not self-observed, which he described to have several forms, one of them is narcicist. Empathy was developed throughout our growth, depending on how our parents raised us, and the amount of encouragements we received, the amount of dissapointments we received during our childhood. My heart sanked when I read this. So, what if some children grew up in the "wrong" environment without love and encouragement? But, I kept reading and found that this is not a "period" in our brain development. These are a "curable" stage, that could be found through a nurturing, understanding partner, or a teraphy. Of course, realizing the "problem" would be the first step.

Without empathy, it is impossible to be a positive impact in the society, a positive impact to those surrounds us. These includes our roles, at work as an employee, or as a boss, or as a co-worker. Empathy is also crucial in our ability to create bonding, in relationship, ability to develop mental stability such as controling our minds to accept and reject situations that would change our emotional stage, such as breaking up with lovers, and our ability to be happy.

Happiness, Mr Goleman said, was a result of a resilient stage of mind, that is constantly working toward a better state of mind. The period of "grieving" is important to return our minds to the state of happiness, realizing the fact, that sometimes things are not working as "planned", that people die, and they come and go in our lives.

The "social brain" itself doesn't exist in the particular part of the brain, but was developed throughout the brain through the connection along the nerves. Mirror nerve, was the brain ability to relate to others. When we kiss, or we're in the state of "madly, deeply in love", the brain developed a substance that is similar to those that made us addicted, metaphetamine (what a surprise), and when we kiss, there's a fireworks in our brain that was developed through the connection of the nerves alltogether, when a couple fight, the brain developed a stage that lower the immune system for a couple of hours.

His explaination doesn't stop in the connection of one person to the other, but he also mention the importance of connectedness in the society that could lower the crime rate! He mentioned the example of this fact in a neighborhood in Boston, where togetherness in the community, such as community gathering, lower crime rates.

A healthy mind (and hence, soul), is important to develop empathy. And the development of the "social brain" and the brain in overall, is not only depending on what we inherited from our parents, but also what we received, able to overcome throughout the years, until the brain reach its maturity, in our twenty somethings (more like twenty four or five).

I am glad Mr Goleman wrote this book. But again, if we think about it, there's no "new" things here. Two thousand years ago, a jewish carpenter mentioned the importance as "loving others" but he didn't only stop there..."as yourself" which, could be translated as "empathy". Once again, science, the human brilliant "discovery" of how the social brain work, is yet another explaination of Jesus' teaching.