Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  I asked this specialist in liver tumors about the dangers of a liver biopsy spreading an existing malignancy, or even encouraging it in a borderline tumor. He dismissed my concerns with a wave of his hand, saying, instead of answering, that I really did not have any other sensible choice. I would like to think that this doctor was sincerely motivated by a desire for me to seek what he truly believed to be the only remedy for my sickening body, but my faith in that scenario is considerably diminished by his $250 consultation fee and his subsequent medical report to my own doctor containing numerous supposedly clinical observations of obese abdomen and remaining pendulous breast . In any event, I can thank him for the fierce shard lancing through my terror that shrieked there must be some other way, this doesn’t feel right to me. If this is cancer and they cut me open to find out, what is stopping that intrusive action from spreading the cancer, or turning a questionable mass into an active malignancy? All I was asking for was the reassurance of a realistic answer to my real questions, and that was not forthcoming. I made up my mind that if I was going to die in agony on somebody’s office floor, it certainly wasn’t going to be his! I needed information, and pored over books on the liver in Barnes & Noble’s medical textbook section on Fifth Avenue for hours. I learned, among other things, that the liver is the largest, most complex, and most generous organ in the human body. But that did not help me very much. In this period of physical weakness and psychic turmoil, I found myself going through an intricate inventory of rage. First of all at my breast surgeon—had he perhaps done something wrong? How could such a small breast tumor have metastasized? Hadn’t he assured me he’d gotten it all, and what was this now anyway about micro-metastases? Could this tumor in my liver have been seeded at the same time as my breast cancer? There were so many unanswered questions, and too much that I just did not understand. But my worst rage was the rage at myself. For a brief time I felt like a total failure. What had I been busting my ass doing these past six years if it wasn’t living and loving and working to my utmost potential? And wasn’t that all a guarantee supposed to keep exactly this kind of thing from ever happening again?

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  No one was dancing. The teachers, the chaperones, the parents, the hundreds of Jewish kids in their yarmulkes—they froze and stared aghast at us up on the stage. I was oblivious. So was Hitler. We kept going. For a good thirty seconds the only sound in the room was the beat of the music and me on the mic yelling, “Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Put your hands in the air for Hitler, yo!” A teacher ran up behind me and yanked the plug for my system out of the wall. The hall went dead silent, and she turned on me and she was livid. “How dare you?! This is disgusting! You horrible, disgusting vile creature! How dare you?!” My mind was racing, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Then it clicked. Hitler had a special dance move called o spana va. It means “where you work” and it was very sexual: His hips would gyrate and thrust, like he was fucking the air. That was the move he was doing at the moment the teacher ran out, so clearly the dance was the thing she found so disgusting. But this was a move that African people do all the time. It’s a part of our culture. Here we were sharing our culture for a cultural day, and this woman was calling us disgusting. She was offended, and I was offended by her taking offense. “Lady,” I said, “I think you need to calm down.” “I will not calm down! How dare you come here and insult us?!” “This is not insulting anyone. This is who we are!” “Get out of here! You people are disgusting.” And there it was. You people. Now I saw what the deal was: This lady was racist. She couldn’t see black men dancing suggestively and not get pissed off. As I started packing up my gear, we kept arguing. “Listen, lady. We’re free now. We’re gonna do what we’re gonna do. You can’t stop us.” “I’ll have you know that my people stopped people like you before, and we can stop you again.” She was talking, of course, about stopping the Nazis in World War II, but that’s not what I was hearing. Jews in South Africa are just white people. All I was hearing was some white lady shouting about how white people beat us before and they’ll beat us again. I said, “You will never stop us again, lady”—and here’s where I played the trump card—“You’ll never stop us, because now we have Nelson Mandela on our side! And he told us we can do this!” “What?!” She was so confused. I’d had it. I started cussing her out. “Fuck you, lady. Fuck your program. Fuck your school. Fuck your whole people. Let’s go, guys! We’re out!” We didn’t walk out of that school. We danced out. We danced down the street pumping our fists in the air. “Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler!

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: That man lusts, although he wills not to lust, is due to a disposition of the body, whereby the sensitive appetite is hindered from perfect compliance with the command of reason. Hence the Apostle adds (Rom. 7:15): “I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind.” This may also happen through a sudden movement of concupiscence, as stated above. Reply to Objection 2: The condition of the body stands in a twofold relation to the act of the sensitive appetite. First, as preceding it: thus a man may be disposed in one way or another, in respect of his body, to this or that passion. Secondly, as consequent to it: thus a man becomes heated through anger. Now the condition that precedes, is not subject to the command of reason: since it is due either to nature, or to some previous movement, which cannot cease at once. But the condition that is consequent, follows the command of reason: since it results from the local movement of the heart, which has various movements according to the various acts of the sensitive appetite. Reply to Objection 3: Since the external sensible is necessary for the apprehension of the senses, it is not in our power to apprehend anything by the senses, unless the sensible be present; which presence of the sensible is not always in our power. For it is then that man can use his senses if he will so to do; unless there be some obstacle on the part of the organ. On the other hand, the apprehension of the imagination is subject to the ordering of reason, in proportion to the strength or weakness of the imaginative power. For that man is unable to imagine the things that reason considers, is either because they cannot be imagined, such as incorporeal things; or because of the weakness of the imaginative power, due to some organic indisposition. Whether the act of the vegetal soul is commanded?Objection 1: It would seem that the acts of the vegetal soul are subject to the command of reason. For the sensitive powers are of higher rank than the vegetal powers. But the powers of the sensitive soul are subject to the command of reason. Much more, therefore, are the powers of the vegetal soul. Objection 2: Further, man is called a “little world” [*Aristotle, Phys. viii. 2], because the soul is in the body, as God is in the world. But God is in the world in such a way, that everything in the world obeys His command. Therefore all that is in man, even the powers of the vegetal soul, obey the command of reason.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  53. When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. GLOSS. (non occ.) After first mentioning the prayer of Christ, St. Luke goes on to speak of His betrayal wherein He is betrayed by His disciple, saying, And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. He says, he that was called Judas, holding his name as it were in abhorrence; but adds, one of the twelve, to signify the enormity of the traitor. For he who had been honoured as an apostle became the cause of the murder of Christ. CHRYSOSTOM. For just as incurable wounds yield neither to severe nor soothing remedies, so the soul when once it is taken captive, and has sold itself to any particular sin, will reap no benefit from admonition. And so it was with Judas, who desisted not from His betrayal, though deterred by Christ by every manner of warning. Hence it follows, And drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Unmindful of the glory of Christ, he thought to be able to act secretly, daring to make an especial token of love the instrument of his treachery. CHRYSOSTOM. (Conc. 1. de Laz.) Now we must not depart from admonishing our brethren, albeit nothing comes of our words. For even the streams though no one drink therefrom still flow on, and him whom thou hast not persuaded to-day, peradventure thou mayest to-morrow. For the fisherman after drawing empty nets the whole day, when it was now late takes a fish. And thus our Lord, though He knew that Judas was not to be converted, yet ceased not to do such things as had reference to him. It follows, But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss? AMBROSE. It must be used I think by way of question, as if he arrests the traitor with a lover’s affection. CHRYSOSTOM. And He gives him his proper name, which was rather like one lamenting and recalling him, than one provoked to anger. AMBROSE. He says, Betrayest thou with a kiss? that is, dost thou inflict a wound with the pledge of love? with the instruments of peace dost thou impose death? a slave, dost thou betray thy Lord; a disciple, thy master; one chosen, Him who chose thee? CHRYSOSTOM. But He said not, “Betrayest thou thy Master, thy Lord, thy Benefactor,” but the Son of man, that is, the humble and meek, who though He were not thy Master and Lord, forasmuch as He has borne himself so gently toward thee, should have never been betrayed by thee.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  John raised his head, and his face was full of scrambled signals. His eyebrows twitched, and his cheeks flared. He shook his head harder. “This song,” he said at last, “is shit. This song and the next song, and the one when you flip the record over and crank up the volume on your terrible crackling speakers.” Jane took a step back, stunned. She reached for her throat. “You don’t like it?” “I don’t like it,” John said, tossing the Yellow Pages onto the couch and rising up. The cords of his pajamas swayed either side of his huge, angry erection, but he was beyond caring. “No. I don’t like the crass verse, melody or chorus. I don’t like sitting up all night listening to you croon and cackle and weep into your pillow…” Jane’s blue eyes pricked. She scrubbed at them roughly with the back of her hand. “…I don’t like lying in bed running through the ways I could short out the power in your flat or slip sleeping tablets into your water supply or set fire to my own flat and claim the insurance and have enough to move away somewhere I would never…” John took a step forward. He was a good foot taller than Jane, but she’d never really noticed until now. He leaned in so close Jane could see the candle flames reflected in his eyes. “… ever have to hear your infantile, pox-ridden, crapulous gutter music for the rest of my life.” Jane, the girl who had spent her life in a shouting match with the universe, suddenly went quiet. She looked up at John’s dilated pupils. His fists hung by his sides, clenching and unclenching. Between them, his moderate but obvious erection waved gently back and forth like a conductor’s baton. She bit her lip. Covered her eyes with her hand. When she started shaking, John reached out and nearly touched her, but he couldn’t do that, wouldn’t do that. Had he scared her? If he held her now it would make it worse. Invade her space. He couldn’t. “Oh God,” he said, “I’m sorry.” Jane made a stifled, uncertain noise. John blew air through his pursed lips, gritted his teeth, and grabbed her shoulders. Immediately, her knees buckled, and she sank into his arms. John tried to maneuver his cock out of the way, but it kept insinuating itself between them. “Jesus, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” John said, placing a hand lightly on the back of her bowed head. He could smell her hair. Bubblegum and cigarette smoke. She shook in his arms, and the movement made him doubly uncomfortable. Jane pulled her face out from where it nestled in John’s armpit. Smudged mascara had given her black-ringed panda eyes, but they were dry. She grinned. “Frighten me? Unlikely, mister. John.” Her mouth—satin and juicy and soft and tender—was so close he could feel her breath on his face.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  works of art, and you can often read or feel the restrained anger behind them. We are all so careful and correct that when we feel the carefully channeled anger in a film or a book or wherever it is, it is like a fresh wind. It attracts all of our own frustrations and resentments and lets them out. We recognize that it is something real and authentic. In your expressive work, never shy away from anger but capture and channel it, letting it breathe into the work a sense of life and movement. In giving expression to such anger, you will always find an audience. Power is required for communication. To stand before an indifferent or hostile group and have one’s say, or to speak honestly to a friend truths that go deep and hurt, these require self-affirmation, self-assertion, and even at times aggression. —Rol o May 17 Seize the Historical Moment The Law of Generational Myopia You are born into a generation that defines who you are more than you can imagine. Your generation wants to separate itself from the previous one and set a new tone for the world. In the process, it forms certain tastes, values, and ways of thinking that you as an individual internalize. As you get older, these generational values and ideas tend to close you off from other points of view, constraining your mind. Your task is to understand as deeply as possible this powerful influence on who you are and how you see the world. Knowing in depth the spirit of your generation and the times you live in, you will be better able to exploit the zeitgeist. You will be the one to anticipate and set the trends that your generation hungers for. You will free your mind from the mental constraints placed on you by your generation, and you will become more of the individual you imagine yourself to be, with all the power that freedom will bring you. The Rising Tide On May 10, 1774, sixty-four-year-old King Louis XV of France died, and though the country went into the requisite mourning for its king, many French people felt a sense of relief. He had ruled France for over fifty years. He left a country that was prosperous, the preeminent power in Europe, but things were changing—the expanding middle class craved power, the peasantry was restless, and people in general yearned for a new direction. And so it was with great hope and affection that the French people turned to their new ruler, King Louis XVI, the grandson of the deceased king, who was a mere twenty years old at the time. He and his young wife, Marie Antoinette, represented a new generation that would certainly revitalize the country and the monarchy itself. The young king, however, did not share the optimism of his subjects. In fact, at moments he was on the verge of panic. Ever

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  The soldiers became drunk. They shouted cheers to the king and oaths to the monarchy. They sang ballads ridiculing the French people in the raunchiest terms. They grabbed handfuls of the tricolor badges and ribbons that symbolized the revolution and trampled them with their boots. The king and the queen, so despondent of late, took this all in with undisguised delight—it was a taste of years gone by, when the very sight of the royal couple inspired such displays of affection. But news of what had transpired at this banquet quickly spread to Paris, and it caused outrage and panic. Parisians of all classes suspected that the king was planning some sort of countercoup. They imagined the nobility returning under Louis’s command and exacting revenge on the French people. Within days, the king learned that thousands of Parisians were now marching on Versailles. They were armed and dragging cannons. He thought of escaping with his family but hesitated. Soon it was too late, as the mob arrived. On the morning of October 6, a group of citizens penetrated into the palace, killing everyone in their path. They demanded that Louis and his family be escorted back to Paris, so that the French citizens could keep an eye on him and ensure his loyalty to the new order. Louis had no choice: he and his traumatized family piled into a single carriage. As they made their way to Paris, surrounded by the crowd, Louis could see the heads of the king’s personal guard paraded on long pikes. What shocked him even more was the sight of so many men and women surrounding the carriage, dressed in rags, thinned by hunger, pressing their faces to the window and swearing at him and the queen in the vilest language. He could not recognize his own subjects. These were not the French people he had known. They must be outside agitators, brought in by enemies to destroy the monarchy. Somehow the world had gone mad. In Paris the king, his family, and the few courtiers who had remained with them were housed in the Tuileries, a royal residence that had been uninhabited for over a hundred years. Within a week of his arrival in Paris, the king received a visit from a strange man whose face and manner frightened him. It was Georges-Jacques Danton, now one of the leaders of the French Revolution. On behalf of the French people, he had come to welcome the king to Paris. He explained that he had been a member of the King’s Council, and he reassured the king that the people were grateful for his submission to their will and that there was still an important part for him to play as a monarch who swore allegiance to a new constitution. Louis could barely listen. He was transfixed by the man’s enormous head, by the strange outfit he wore (black satin breeches over white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, a mix of fashion styles

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  inside we might have some doubts as to its truth, and so we go an extra mile to convince ourselves—to believe in it with great vehemence and to loudly contradict anyone who challenges us. How can our idea not be true if it brings out in us such energy to defend it, we tell ourselves? This bias is revealed even more clearly in our relationship to leaders—if they express an opinion with heated words and gestures, colorful metaphors and entertaining anecdotes, and a deep well of conviction, it must mean they have examined the idea carefully to express it with such certainty. Those, on the other hand, who express nuances, whose tone is more hesitant, reveal weakness and self-doubt. They are probably lying, or so we think. This bias makes us susceptible to salesmen and demagogues who display conviction as a way to convince and deceive. They know that people are hungry for entertainment, so they cloak their half-truths with dramatic effects. Appearance Bias I understand the people I deal with; I see them just as they are. We see people not as they are, but as they appear to us. And these appearances are usually misleading. First, people have trained themselves in social situations to present the front that is appropriate and that will be judged positively. They seem to be in favor of the noblest causes, always presenting themselves as hardworking and conscientious. We take these masks for reality. Second, we are prone to fall for the halo effect —when we see certain negative or positive qualities in a person (social awkwardness, intelligence), other positive or negative qualities are implied that fit with this. People who are good-looking generally seem more trustworthy, particularly politicians. If a person is successful, we imagine they are probably also ethical, conscientious, and deserving of their good fortune. This obscures the fact that many people who have gotten ahead have done so through less-than-moral actions, which they cleverly disguise from view. The Group Bias My ideas are my own. I do not listen to the group. I am not a conformist. We are social animals by nature. The feeling of isolation, of difference from the group, is depressing and terrifying. We experience tremendous relief when we find others who think the same way we do. In fact, we are motivated to take up ideas and opinions because they bring us this relief. We are unaware of this pull and so imagine we have come to certain ideas completely on our own. Look at people who support one party or the other, one ideology—a noticeable orthodoxy or correctness prevails, without anyone saying anything or applying overt pressure. If someone is on the right or the left, their opinions will almost always follow the same direction on dozens of issues, as if by magic, and yet few would ever admit this influence on their thought patterns. The Blame Bias I learn from my experience and mistakes.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  My mom thought everything was funny. There was no subject too dark or too painful for her to tackle with humor. “Look on the bright side,” she said, laughing and pointing to the half of me covered in dark berry juice. “Now you really are half black and half white.” “It’s not funny!” “Trevor, you’re okay,” she said. “Go and wash up. You’re not hurt. You’re hurt emotionally. But you’re not hurt.” Half an hour later, Abel showed up. At that point Abel was still my mom’s boyfriend. He wasn’t trying to be my father or even a stepfather, really. He was more like a big brother than anything. He’d joke around with me, have fun. I didn’t know him that well, but one thing I did know about him was that he had a temper. Very charming when he wanted to be, incredibly funny, but fuck he could be mean. He’d grown up in the homelands, where you had to fight to survive. Abel was big, too, around six-foot-three, long and lean. He hadn’t hit my mom yet. He hadn’t hit me yet, either. But I knew he was dangerous. I’d seen it. Someone would cut us off in traffic. Abel would yell out the window. The other guy would honk and yell back. In a flash Abel would be out of our car, over to theirs, grabbing the guy through the driver’s-side window, screaming in his face, raising a fist. You’d see the other guy panic. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” When Abel walked in that night, he sat down on the couch and saw that I’d been crying. “What happened?” he said. I started to explain. My mother cut me off. “Don’t tell him,” she said. She knew what would happen. She knew better than me. “Don’t tell me what?” Abel said. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s not nothing,” I said. She glared at me. “Don’t tell him.” Abel was getting frustrated. “What? Don’t tell me what?” He’d been drinking; he never came home from work sober, and the drinking always made his temper worse. It was strange, but in that moment I realized that if I said the right things I could get him to step in and do something. We were almost family, and I knew if I made him feel like his family had been insulted, he’d help me get back at the boys. I knew he had a demon inside him, and I hated that; it terrified me how violent and dangerous he was when he snapped. But in that moment I knew exactly what I had to say to get the monster on my side.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  “Oh, please! You’re worried about what the world is thinking? Worry about this world! Worry about what your family is thinking!” Abel towered over my mother. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t get angry. “Mbuyi,” he said softly, “you don’t respect me.” “Respect?! You almost burned down our house. Respect? Oh, please! Earn your respect! You want me to respect you as a man, then act like a man! Drinking your money in the streets, and where are your child’s diapers?! Respect?! Earn your respect—” “Mbuyi—” “You’re not a man; you’re a child—” “Mbuyi—” “I can’t have a child for a husband—” “Mbuyi—” “I’ve got my own children to raise—” “Mbuyi, shut up—” “A man who comes home drunk—” “Mbuyi, shut up—” “And burns down the house with his children—” “Mbuyi, shut up—” “And you call yourself a father—” Then out of nowhere, like a clap of thunder when there were no clouds, crack!, he smacked her across the face. She ricocheted off the wall and collapsed like a ton of bricks. I’d never seen anything like it. She went down and stayed down for a good thirty seconds. Andrew started screaming. I don’t remember going to pick him up, but I clearly remember holding him at some point. My mom pulled herself up and struggled back to her feet and launched right back into him. She’d clearly been knocked for a loop, but she was trying to act more with-it than she was. I could see the disbelief in her face. This had never happened to her before in her life. She got right back in his face and started shouting at him. “Did you just hit me?” The whole time, in my head, I kept thinking the same thing Abel was saying. Shut up, Mom. Shut up. You’re going to make it worse. Because I knew, as the receiver of many beatings, the one thing that doesn’t help is talking back. But she wouldn’t stay quiet. “Did you just hit me?” “Mbuyi, I told you—” “No man has ever! Don’t think you can control me when you can’t even control—” Crack! He hit her again. She stumbled back but this time didn’t fall. She scrambled, grabbed me, and grabbed Andrew. “Let’s go. We’re leaving.” We ran out of the house and up the road. It was the dead of night, cold outside. I was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and sweatpants. We walked to the Eden Park police station, over a kilometer away. My mom marched us in, and there were two cops on duty at the front desk. “I’m here to lay a charge,” she said. “What are you here to lay a charge about?” “I’m here to lay a charge against the man who hit me.” To this day I’ll never forget the patronizing, condescending way they spoke to her. “Calm down, lady. Calm down. Who hit you?” “My husband.” “Your husband? What did you do? Did you make him angry?”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “It’s just so fucking dangerous for you to go back to the life,” I argued. “Don’t you remember why you quit?” That last thing I said was a big mistake. I realized it when she picked up the nearest dish and sent it sailing across the room in my direction. I ducked. “You condescending, motherfucking son-of-a- bitch,” she shouted. “Don’t you think I know the life better than you do, you bastard?” We were both quiet for a moment. I decided to do the dishes. Milli leaned up against the kitchen counter with her arms folded across her breasts watching me. “T just can’t stand the thought of any guy, anybody hurting you.” I said it as quietly as I could. Milli grabbed a dishtowel and started drying the dishes. It was a good sign. “How do you think I feel,’ she asked, “when you’re bouncer at the bar on the weekends and there’s a fight?” She got herself all worked up again. “For christsakes what’s the fucking difference between you being a bouncer and me working as a hostess?” “A dancer,” I clarified. “You know I’d be wortied every fucking minute you were late from your shift.” “Well, fuck you then. That’s your problem, baby, not mine.” Milli did a double take at me and dropped her gaze. I thought maybe she was sorry she had said that. “T’m sorry,” she told me. “It’s just I can’t stand it when someone does this moral thing with me.” “Goddamn you!” Now I was yelling. “Ever since you met me you’ve been waiting for me to make one fucking mistake, say one wrong thing about you being a pro.” “An ex-pro,” she said sarcastically. “It’s no goddamn joke. I never laid any bullshit on you about it. You know that. But every time we have a fight you’re lying in wait, just hoping you'll make me so mad I'll make a mistake. Then you could leave.” Milli smiled for the first time since I came home and told her I’d been laid off. “What’s so funny?” I asked sullenly. Stone Butch Blues W5 “T like you,” she said softly. I turned back to the sink and shook my head so she could see that I was exasperated. She turned me around. There was a teally warm look on her face. She kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back. Then I turned around to finish the dishes. She turned me around again. “We have to pay the rent. It’s just for a while. I don’t like it any better than you do.” I laughed. “Bullshit!” She raised one eyebrow, daring me to pursue it. “There’s parts of the life you like a lot,’ I told her. “I know that.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Roz sat back in her chair and nodded as though she really understood. Then she said, “I don’t know what your problem is, but this is a clinic for women who are sick and you’re using up the resources right 9 now. “What?” “You may think you’re a woman,” Roz continued, “but that doesn’t mean you ate one.” My anger ignited. “Fuck you,” I shouted. She leaned back in her chair and smirked. “What a very male thing to say.” Stone Butch Blues 257 I felt my face grow purple with rage. “Fuck all of you!” I got up to leave. A doctor blocked my exit. “What’s going on in here?” she asked. Roz must have made a gesture I couldn’t see. The doctor nodded. “(Come with me,” the doctor said. I followed her into the hall. “What’s going on?” she asked me. I sighed. “I have a vaginal infection.” She searched my face with her eyes. “Have you taken any antibiotics recently?” I brightened. “Maybe. I took something a couple of months ago for a bad cough.” She nodded. “How long have you had the vaginal infection?” I shrugged. “A couple of months.” Her eyes widened. “You’ve had this for a couple of months and you didn’t do anything about it?” “Well, I was hoping it would go away.” She smiled slightly. “Let’s take a look. Come with me.” I stiffened with fear. Too much had already happened to me here. I couldn’t let her touch me there. “I can’t,” I told her. “Please. It’s been hard to do this. I just can’t.” She watched the emotions I couldn’t hide. “This is a prescription for Monistat.” She scribbled 258 Leslie Feinberg on a pad. “It should stop the itching and burning sensation. Next time you take antibiotics, eat a cup of yogurt each day.” I wondered if she was pulling my leg about yogurt. “You believe me, don’t you?” I asked her. She shrugged. “You might be a man. But if you are a woman, I don’t want to send you away. It doesn’t cost me anything to write you out a prescription. When’s the last time you had a pap smear?”’ I froze. She pressed. “Within the last three years?” I dropped my eyes, but she wouldn’t let go of the question. “Within the last five, six?” I shook my head. “TI don’t know what that is,” I admitted. When I looked up she had tears in her eyes. “Now I believe you,” she said. “Why?” I asked her. “Plenty of men don’t know this stuff either, do they?” She nodded. “Yes, but they don’t feel ashamed. Who’s your regular doctor?” “T don’t have one.” She continued to watch my face in a way that unnerved me. “Td like you to come back for an examination and a pap smear.” “Sure,” I lied. I doubted I'd be able to get up the emotional energy to face the scene in the reception

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  One day I came home from work and found Theresa stewing in anger at the kitchen table. Some of the lesbians from a newly formed group on campus had mocked her for being a femme. They told her she was brainwashed. “I’m so bad,” Theresa thumped the table. “They told me that butches were male chauvinist pigs!” I knew what male chauvinist meant, but I couldn’t figure out what it had to do with us. “Don’t they know we don’t deal the shit, we get shit on?” “They don’t care, honey. They’te not going to let us in.” “Should Jan and Grant and Edwin and I go to one of these meetings and try to explain?” Theresa put her hand on my arm. “It won't help, honey. They’re very angry at butches.” “Why?” She thought about the question. “TI think it’s because they draw a line—women on one side and men on the other. So women they think look like men ate the enemy. And women who look like me are sleeping with the enemy. We’re too feminine for their taste.” “Wait a minute,” I stopped her. “We’re too masculine and you’re too feminine? Whatdya have to do, put your index fingers in a meter and test in the middle?” Theresa patted my arm. “Things are changing,” she said. “Yeah,” I told her, “but sooner or later they'll change back.” “Things don’t change back,” she sighed, “they just keep changing.” I slapped the table. “Then fuck those people. Who needs them, anyway?” Theresa frowned and played with my hait. “T need the movement, Jess. And so do you. Remember you once told me about a factory you worked where the guys didn’t want the butches to come to the union meetings?” I nodded. “Yeah, so?” She smiled. “You told me Grant said to hell with the union. But you knew the union was a good thing. You said what was wrong was keeping out the butches. You tried to organize to get the butches into the union, remember?” Theresa held me tight against the warmth of her body and kissed my hair. She gave me time to think about what she’d said, instead of shooting off my mouth. I felt scared, so I got up and started making dinner. Theresa just sat at the kitchen table looking out over out backyard. I wished we hadn’t traveled to meet friends at the bar in Rochester that weekend. If we’d just stayed home, I wouldn’t have gotten busted. But that was wishful thinking. I lay on a precinct cell floor, alone in a strange city, my mouth pressed against the cold concrete. I wondered if I was close to death because I seemed to be drifting away from the world. Only two things tethered me to life—one was the feel of the cold stone against my lips, the other was the faint strains of a Beatles tune coming from a radio somewhere in the jail. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Look at how he played each of the antagonists in his path. With Clark, he carefully fed his arrogance and deliberately made him irritable, so that he would quickly agree to the auction just to get rid of Rockefeller, without thinking too deeply about the consequences. Colonel Payne was a vain and greedy man. Give him plenty of money and a nice title, and he would be satisfied and surrender to Rockefeller his refinery. For the other refinery owners, instill fears about the uncertain future, using the SIC as a convenient bogeyman. Make them feel isolated and weak, and sow some panic. Yes, his refineries were more profitable, as shown by his books, but the other owners failed to reason that Rockefeller himself was just as vulnerable as they were to the ups and downs of the business. If only they had united in opposition to his campaign, they could have countered him, but they were made too emotional to think straight, and they surrendered their refineries with ease. When it came to Scott, Rockefeller saw him as a hothead, enraged by Standard Oil’s threat to his preeminent position in business. Rockefeller welcomed the war with Scott and prepared for it by amassing vast amounts of cash. He would simply outlast him. And the angrier he made Scott with his unorthodox tactics, the more imprudent and rash Scott became, going so far as to try to crush the railroad strike, which only made his position weaker. With Benson, Rockefeller recognized the type—the man enamored with his own brilliance and wanting attention as the first one to defeat Standard Oil. Putting up obstacles in his path would only make him try harder, while weakening his finances. It would be simple to buy him off in the end, when he had grown tired of Rockefeller’s relentless pressure. As an extra measure, Rockefeller would always strategize to make his opponents feel rushed and impatient. Clark had only one day to plan for the auction. The refinery owners faced imminent doom in a few months unless they sold to him. Scott and Benson had to hurry up in their battles or face running out of money. This made them more emotional and less able to strategize. Understand: Rockefeller represents a type of individual that you will likely come across in your field. We shall call this type the sophisticated aggressor , as opposed to the primitive aggressor . Primitive aggressors have very short fuses. If someone triggers in them feelings of inferiority or weakness, they explode. They lack any self-control, and so they tend to not get very far in life, inevitably bullying and hurting too many people. Sophisticated aggressors are much trickier. They rise to top positions and can stay there because they know how to cloak their maneuvers, to present a distracting façade, and to play upon people’s emotions. They know that most people do not like confrontation or long struggles, and so they can

• From Best Erotic Romance

  She shook things loose in his head—distracting things like anger and resentment and a dumbstruck, confounded desire to saw his own ears off. These unpleasant emotional stirrings kicked around in his head like the hated bass beat. Four hours, he thought. If he could make it through another four hours, he could get up and snort coffee and escape to the peaceful cell of his office. Only now he was angry. The monstrous hormone-riddled hysteric downstairs was howling, with her throaty, rough-honey voice, and bombs were going off inside John’s head. He imagined drilling holes in the floor, shooting a fire extinguisher through her letterbox, tying her up and forcing her to listen to Brahms at 100 decibels. He could call the police. They rarely showed up in this neck of the woods and would hardly bother for a minor neighborly row, not unless there were firearms involved—and John didn’t have any on hand. Probably a good thing, overall. Downstairs, the music paused. John took a deep breath. Silence crept into his ears like an old friend. And then it was the Moaning Young Men, as John referred to them in his head. The song was called “Last Night Love.” Or if you looked at it another way, the very last fucking straw, and the thing that was enough to make a usually calm and placid man roll out of bed and land on the floor with a resounding thud that would have alarmed an average human being but made no difference whatsoever to the noise freak below him. Insouciant, juvenile guitar riffs accompanied John as he pulled up his loose-fit pajama bottoms and made for the door. Outside, the sound echoed tinnily in the stairwell, and John, shrinking under the fluorescent tube lights, cursed the fact he’d so far failed to make it out of the ghetto and anywhere near the hillside monastic retreat wreathed in majestic clouds that he so often dreamed of. Or the suburbs, even. The concrete steps were cold underfoot, but he hardly noticed. He was trying not to listen to the voice in his head that had started its familiar old chant—the litany of injustices and everyday atrocities that had appalled him from his earliest awareness, through an offhand adolescence and his silent, thoroughly desperate early adulthood. The music grew in volume as John’s ego raved and ranted, taunting him with visions of the sleep-deprived misery he’d have to face the next day, so that by the time he arrived at the downstairs flat’s door, he was ready to curl up his fist and pummel his future into submission. What would he do? Could he overcome his habitual kindness and tendency to gracious politesse and make some pithy, outraged statement? He might swear at her. Yes, he might. John knocked, hard. Four minutes later, he knocked again.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  likes and dislikes. Later in life we often lose contact with our own preferences for things, deeply influenced by what others are doing and by the culture. You are subtracting such external influences. The deeper you make this connection to your calling, the more you will be able to resist the bad ideas of others. You will engage that internal guidance system. Put some time into the process, working with a journal if necessary. You are developing the habit of assessing and listening to yourself, so that you can continually monitor your progress and adjust this calling to the various stages in your life. If you are young and just starting out in your career, you will want to explore a relatively wide field related to your inclinations—for instance, if your affinity is words and writing, try all the different types of writing until you hit upon the right fit. If you are older and have more experience, you will want to take the skills you have already developed and find a way to adapt them more in the direction of your true calling. Remember that the calling could be combining several fields that fascinate you. For Jobs, it was the intersection of technology and design. Keep the process open-ended; your experience will instruct you as to the way. Do not try to bypass the work of discovering your calling or imagine that it will simply come to you naturally. Although it may come to a few people early in life or in a lightning-bolt moment, for most of us it requires continual introspection and effort. Experimenting with the skills and options related to your personality and inclinations is not only the single most essential step in developing a high sense of purpose, it is perhaps the most important step in life in general. Knowing in a deep way who you are, your uniqueness, will make it that much easier to avoid all of the other pitfalls of human nature. Use resistance and negative spurs. The key to success in any field is first developing skills in various areas, which you can later combine in unique and creative ways. But the process of doing so can be tedious and painful, as you become aware of your limitations and relative lack of skill. Most people, consciously or unconsciously, seek to avoid tedium, pain, and any form of adversity. They try to put themselves in places where they will face less criticism and minimize their chances of failure. You must choose to move in the opposite direction. You want to embrace negative experiences, limitations, and even pain as the perfect means of building up your skill levels and sharpening your sense of purpose. When it comes to exercise, you understand the importance of manageable levels of pain and discomfort, because they later yield strength, stamina, and other positive sensations. The same will come to you by actually embracing the tedium in your practice.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Frustration is a sign that you are making progress as your mind becomes aware of higher levels of skill that you have yet to attain. You want to use and embrace any kind of deadline. If you give yourself a year to finish a project or start up a business, you will generally take a year or more. If you give yourself three months, you will finish it that much sooner, and the concentrated energy with which you work will raise your skill level and make the end result that much better. If necessary, manufacture reasonably tight deadlines to intensify your sense of purpose. Thomas Edison knew he could take far too long to realize his inventions, and so he developed the habit of talking about their future greatness to journalists, overselling his ideas. With publicity, he would now be put in the position of having to make it happen, and relatively soon, or be ridiculed. He would now have to rise to the occasion, and he almost always did. The great eighteenth-century Zen master Hakuin took this further. He became greatly frustrated by the particular koans (paradoxical anecdotes designed to spark enlightenment) presented to him by his master. His lack of progress made him feel desperate, so he told himself, in all seriousness, “If I fail to master one of these koans in seven days, I will kill myself.” This worked for him and kept on working for him, until he attained total enlightenment. As you progress on your path, you will be subject to more and more of people’s criticisms. Some of them might be constructive and worth paying attention to, but many of them come from envy. You can recognize the latter by the person’s emotional tone in expressing their negative opinions. They go a little too far, speak with a bit too much vehemence; they make it personal, instilling doubts about your overall ability, emphasizing your personality more than the work; they lack specific details about what and how to improve. Once recognized, the trick is not to internalize these criticisms in any form. Becoming defensive is a sign they have gotten to you. Instead, use their negative opinions to motivate you and add to your sense of purpose. Absorb purposeful energy. We humans are extremely susceptible to the moods and energy of other people. For this reason, you want to avoid too much contact with those who have a low or false sense of purpose. On the other hand, you always want to try to find and associate with those who have a high sense of purpose. This could be the perfect mentor or teacher or partner on a project. Such people will tend to bring out the best in you, and you will find it easier and even refreshing to receive their criticisms. This was the strategy that brought Coco Chanel (see chapter 5) so much power. She began life from a position of great weakness—

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  The key to success in any field is first developing skills in various areas, which you can later combine in unique and creative ways. But the process of doing so can be tedious and painful, as you become aware of your limitations and relative lack of skill. Most people, consciously or unconsciously, seek to avoid tedium, pain, and any form of adversity. They try to put themselves in places where they will face less criticism and minimize their chances of failure. You must choose to move in the opposite direction. You want to embrace negative experiences, limitations, and even pain as the perfect means of building up your skill levels and sharpening your sense of purpose. When it comes to exercise, you understand the importance of manageable levels of pain and discomfort, because they later yield strength, stamina, and other positive sensations. The same will come to you by actually embracing the tedium in your practice. Frustration is a sign that you are making progress as your mind becomes aware of higher levels of skill that you have yet to attain. You want to use and embrace any kind of deadline. If you give yourself a year to finish a project or start up a business, you will generally take a year or more. If you give yourself three months, you will finish it that much sooner, and the concentrated energy with which you work will raise your skill level and make the end result that much better. If necessary, manufacture reasonably tight deadlines to intensify your sense of purpose. Thomas Edison knew he could take far too long to realize his inventions, and so he developed the habit of talking about their future greatness to journalists, overselling his ideas. With publicity, he would now be put in the position of having to make it happen, and relatively soon, or be ridiculed. He would now have to rise to the occasion, and he almost always did. The great eighteenth-century Zen master Hakuin took this further. He became greatly frustrated by the particular koans (paradoxical anecdotes designed to spark enlightenment) presented to him by his master. His lack of progress made him feel desperate, so he told himself, in all seriousness, “If I fail to master one of these koans in seven days, I will kill myself.” This worked for him and kept on working for him, until he attained total enlightenment. As you progress on your path, you will be subject to more and more of people’s criticisms. Some of them might be constructive and worth paying attention to, but many of them come from envy. You can recognize the latter by the person’s emotional tone in expressing their negative opinions. They go a little too far, speak with a bit too much vehemence; they make it personal, instilling doubts about your overall ability, emphasizing your personality more than the work; they lack specific details about what and how to improve.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  is tiring, and those serving the aggressor are constantly taking hits to their self-esteem. With most aggressors, the turnover is high and the morale low. As the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles once wrote, “Whoever makes his way into a tyrant’s court becomes his slave, although he went there a free man.” — Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First, you must stop denying the reality of your own aggressive tendencies. You are on the aggressive spectrum, like all of us. Of course, there are some people who are lower down on this spectrum. Perhaps they lack confidence in their ability to get what they want; or they may simply have less energy. But a lot of us are in the mid-to-upper range on the spectrum, with relatively strong levels of will. This assertive energy must be expended in some way and will tend to go in one of three directions. First, we can channel this energy into our work, into patiently achieving things ( controlled aggression ) . Second, we can channel it into aggressive or passive-aggressive behavior. Finally, we can turn it inward in the form of self-loathing, directing our anger and aggression at our own failings and activating our internal saboteur (more on this later). You need to analyze how you handle your assertive energy. A way to judge yourself is to see how you handle moments of frustration and uncertainty, situations in which you have less control. Do you tend to lash out, grow angry and tense, and do things you later regret? Or do you internalize the anger and grow depressed? Look at those inevitable moments in which you have gone past the guardrails and analyze them. You are not as peaceful and gentle as you imagine. Notice what pushed you into this behavior, and how during such times you found ways to rationalize your behavior. Now, with some distance, you can perhaps see through those rationalizations. Your goal is not to repress this assertive energy but to become aware of it as it drives you forward and to channel it productively. You need to admit to yourself that you have a deep desire to have an effect on people, to have power, and to realize this you must develop higher social and technical skills, must become more patient and resilient. You need to discipline and tame your natural assertive energy. This is what we shall call controlled aggression , and it will lead to accomplishing great things. (For more on this, see the last section of this chapter.) Your second task is to make yourself a master observer of aggression in the people around you. When you look at your work world, for instance, imagine that you can visualize the continual war between people’s different levels of will, and all of the intersecting arrows of such conflicts. Those who are more assertive seem to rise to the top, but they inevitably display signs of submission to those

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I smiled. “Bet you your glove we will.” The grin melted off Boney’s face. He loved his first-base mitt the way most people love their puppy dogs. He kept it in his locker at work every day, even in the wintertime. “And if you lose?” he countered. All eyes turned toward me. The smile grew back on Boney’s face. “If you lose, Goldberg, you gotta kiss me.” “Ewww, yecch,” everyone moaned. Some of them spit on the ground for emphasis. “C’mon,” I told the other butches, “let’s get our equipment.” Jan shook her head as we gathered on the field in a huddle. “T don’t know about this,’ Grant muttered. “Look,” I admitted, “I made a mistake, OK? I knew it the minute the words were out of my damn mouth. I’m sorry. All we can do is play our best game and I'll take the consequences.” Grant threw her glove down and put her hands on her hips. “We’ll all pay if we lose, that’s what’s so fucked up about it.” Frankie intervened. “She said she was sorry. So let’s win, OK?” That was easier said than done. The men’s team scored two runs in the first inning. We couldn’t seem to handle the field at all. I wondered why we were playing so poorly. After all, most of the guys weren’t in great shape. We played every week. Maybe we were intimidated because we believed they were better than us. I suddenly got a sick feeling in my stomach when I realized three innings might not be enough for a team of he-shes to overcome out fear. “C’mon,” I said as we huddled between innings. “Can’t we show them we got power?” We scored two runs, but the guys scored two also. We were two runs down. Between innings, Frankie asked what would happen if we tied. Jan exploded. “Listen to this shit,” she growled. “Why don’t we just admit we lost the game now, huh? Why even play another inning?” Her voice got real low and menacing. “This is no fucking joke. You just think what it’d be like to have to watch Jess kiss Jim Boney. I’m not gonna stand by and let that happen.” That was my friend, Butch Jan. We took our positions to play, and play we did. We scored three runs—five to four, our favor. But when Frankie headed into home plate, Jim Boney smacked her on the back so hard with the ball she hit the dirt. We all charged Boney, ready to kill him. Jack and his assistant closed ranks with Boney. No one could tell if all the men were squared off against the he-shes, or if it was just those three guys against us. Duffy rushed up between the butches and the men. “Jack, you took Frankie out, you fucking bastard. If they’re down one man, so’s your team. You’re out of the game.” Stone Butch Blues 93