Sometimes I doubt the worth of my work. I start thinking, "maybe feelings really are weak and irrational. Maybe I'm weak and irrational for caring about them!" It's like I recorded this tape growing up, and despite a decade of experience with EQ and all the research we and others conduct, those tapes keep playing. I guess they are a kind of "voice of conformity," a self-protection from going outside the norm. Usually I take a deep breath and keep risking.

Every once in a while, I see or experience something that helps me remember that no matter what the "tapes" say, emotions are real and they drive us. One example is the most fascinating tool I've ever seen on the web: We Feel Fine. It is digital art based on millions of people's feelings.

The script scans hundreds of thousands of web logs (Blogs) looking for phrases with "I feel...," extracts the feeling word, and rolls it into a piece of constantly changing digital art. There are over 4 million entries in the database (with slightly more feelings expressed by men, by the way). There are six ways of viewing the data, from a random-swirling universe of dots and colors, to a linear catalog.

Each time I've explored We Feel Fine, I've been stuck by the complexity and power of feelings. We are swimming through this chaotic current, sometimes finding glorious beauty, often finding terrifying depth or obscuring darkness.

Watching "Murmers" (one of the views available in We Feel Fine) makes it so real, so present for me. I sit for a few minutes and watch the living current of emotion in all its extremes. Messages scroll by like the data creating the world of the Matrix, but this is the often hidden language of the human experience:
:: "i feel like i'm drowning in it all (11 mins ago /
:: from a 15 year old, Straford, Ontario, Canada)"

:: "i feel so lucky to have them as my parents (11 mins
:: ago / from a 23 year old in effingham illinois
:: united states)"

:: "i feel lied to and used (11 minutes ago / from a 21
:: year old in louisville kentucky united states when it
:: was cloudy)"

:: "i feel the best i have in my entire life (8 mins ago /
:: from someone)"

A quick analysis of the data in "Mounds" shows how "unfine" so many of us are. Over 298,000 people are feeling bad, guilty, sick, sorry, down, alone, sad, lost, stupid, or tired. Meanwhile 165,000 people are feeling good, well, happy, great, comfortable, or free.

The good news, perhaps, is the most common feeling expressed (128,000 all by itself): "I feel better." That's hopeful! Of course, it means all those people were feeling bad enough to want to feel better. I mean how often do you say, "I felt ecstatic yesterday - and better today!"

So how are you feeling today? And what are you going to with it? Exploring the site, I'm feeling compassionate, hopeful, intrigued, concerned, and not alone.

If you're wondering how others are feeling, check out We Feel Fine (http://www.wefeelfine.org/). Click on "Open We Feel Fine" and then, when it says to, click in the middle of the screen. Mouse-over some dots. Down on the lower-left are the links to the other views.

**Warning: The tool extracts data from real, uncensored blogs which often contain expletives. If you click you on a dot, for example, you will see the sentence from the blog. **

We Feel Fine was conceived and created by Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar, you can read about them on the site. Hats off for creating such a remarkable interface to the human experience.

Thanks for reading,
- Josh

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©2006 Joshua Freedman, Director, Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network (www.6seconds.org). Please subscribe to EQ News for updates on emotional intelligence, EQ Reflections for personal stories like this, or VitalSigns for EQ Leadership for practical advice for leaders. www.6seconds.org