Reflection: “treaty on my mind and social justice on my heart” by Dr. Martin Ravelo, Quesnel, BC

 

I am so pleased to be emailing you this draft caused by your expression: “treaty on my mind and social justice on my heart.” Wow! Treaty/mind and social justice /heart.  In other terms: treaty is an affair of reason; social justice, of emotion. So right, Sheena!

We have IQ. Do we have EQ? My point is, what do we know about emotion? Of course, everyone knows about the emotion of love. I mean, like a dog loves a bone. The dog will destroy the bone to get the best from it. Or like a person who loves a fellow human being. The former will "destroy" the latter to get the best from him or her. When is this love-emotion of a high EQ? (Love emotion being one of our emotions that are directed toward self, or one of our intra-emotions.) How do we master each of our intra-emotions? What are the other intra-emotions?

Do our schools teach about emotion for years, as they teach about English? We have language at our birth. We speak it at three years old. But then, we have to learn it for years to be literate. We have emotion and function with it from very early in our life. But are we all (most of us) illiterate on emotion?

How high is our EQ in social justice? What do we know about social justice, as one of the emotions that are directed toward others, an inter-emotion? Again, how do we master it, as well as each of the other inter-emotions. Do we know them?

Being illiterate on emotion, on “heart”, is a stumbling block in the treaty development and implementation, as an affair of the “mind”. According to me, it is not enough to be smart. One has to be bright. For this, one has to be very literate both in reason and in emotion; one has to genuinely cultivate both his mind and his heart.

Dr. Martin Ravelo

*Note. On the banner of my Treaty Walks blog I have written, “Please join me as I continue to walk with treaty on my mind and social justice on my heart.”