Anxiety

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.

Page 10 of 501 · 20 per page

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The process of deliberation contains endless degrees of complication. At every moment of it our consciousness is of an extremely complex object, namely the existence of the whole set of motives and their conflict, as explained on p. 275 of Vol. I. Of this object, the totality of which is realized more or less dimly all the while, certain parts stand out more or less sharply at one moment in the foreground, and at another moment other parts, in consequence of the oscillations of our attention, and of the 'associative' flow of our ideas. But no matter how sharp the foreground-reasons may be, or how imminently close to bursting through the dam and carrying the motor consequences their own way, the background, however dimly felt, is always there; and its presence (so long as the indecision actually lasts) serves as an effective check upon the irrevocable discharge. The deliberation may last for weeks or months, occupying at intervals the mind. The motives which yesterday seemed full of urgency and blood and life to-day feel strangely weak and pale and dead. But as little to-day as to-morrow is the question finally resolved. Something tells us that all this is provisional; that the weakened reasons will wax strong again, and the stronger weaken; that equilibrium is unreached; that testing our reasons, not obeying them, is still the order of the day, and that we must wait awhile, patient or impatiently, until our mind is made up 'for good and all.' This inclining first to one then to another future, both of which we represent as possible, resembles the oscillations to and fro of a material body within the limits of its elasticity. There is inward strain, but no outward rapture. And this condition, plainly enough, is susceptible of indefinite continuance, as well in the physical mass as in the mind. If the elasticity give way, however, if the dam ever do break, and the currents burst the crust, vacillation is over and decision is irrevocably there. The decision may come in either of many modes. I will try briefly to sketch the most characteristic types of it, merely warning the reader that this is only an introspective account of symptoms and phenomena, and that all questions of causal agency, whether neural or spiritual, are relegated to a later page. The particular reasons for or against action are of course infinitely various in concrete cases. But certain motives are more or less constantly in play. One of these is impatience of the deliberative state; or to express it otherwise, proneness to act or to decide merely because action and decision are, as such, agreeable, and relieve the tension of doubt and hesitancy. Thus it comes that we will often take any course whatever which happens to be most vividly before our minds, at the moment when this impulse to decisive action becomes extreme.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  It may be remarked in passing, that the inhibition of a movement no more involves an express effort or command than its execution does. Either of them may require it. But in all simple and ordinary cases, just as the bare presence of one idea prompts a movement, so the bare presence of another idea will prevent its taking place. Try to feel as if you were crooking your finger, whilst keeping it straight. In a minute it will fairly tingle with the imaginary change of position; yet it will not sensibly move, because its not really moving is also a part of what you have in mind. Drop this idea, think of the movement purely and simply, with all breaks off; and, presto! it takes place with no effort at all. A waking man's behavior is thus at all times the resultant of two opposing neural forces. With unimaginable fineness some currents among the cells and fibres of his brain are playing on his motor nerves, whilst other currents, as unimaginably fine, are playing on the first currents, damming or helping them, altering their direction or their speed. The upshot of it all is, that whilst the currents must always end by being drained off through some motor nerves, they are drained off sometimes through one set and sometimes through another; and sometimes they keep each other in equilibrium so long that a superficial observer may think they are not drained off at all. Such an observer must remember, however, that from the physiological point of view a gesture, an expression of the brow, or an expulsion of the breath are movements as much as an act of locomotion is. A king's breath slays as well as an assassin's blow; and the outpouring of those currents which the magic imponderable streaming of our ideas accompanies need not always be of an explosive or otherwise physically conspicuous kind. ACTION AFTER DELIBERATION. We are now in a position to describe what happens in deliberate action, or when the mind is the seat of many ideas related to each other in antagonistic or in favorable ways.[485] One of the ideas is that of an act. By itself this idea would prompt a movement; some of the additional considerations, however, which are present to consciousness block the motor discharge, whilst others, on the contrary, solicit it to take place. The result is that peculiar feeling of inward unrest known as indecision. Fortunately it is too familiar to need description, for to describe it would be impossible. As long as it lasts, with the various objects before the attention, we are said to deliberate; and when finally the original suggestion either prevails and makes the movement take place, or gets definitively quenched by its antagonists, we are said to decide, or to utter our voluntary fiat in favor of one or the other course. The reinforcing and inhibiting ideas meanwhile are termed the reasons or motives by which the decision is brought about.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  7. Saint Making in the Middle Ages Many small, informal communities sprang up, often with advice from a spiritual director at a nearby church. They might take formal vows before a bishop or simply decide on their own to live as religious. They worked or begged for a living, served the poor, and spent time in prayer and contemplation in private houses. They were known as Beguines, pinzochere, and bizzoche and by other terms. A few communities in the area of modern- day Belgium grew quite large, as thousands of women banded together to provide a safe harbor for the many women who flocked to the city looking for work. They ran businesses, hired themselves out as servants, and lived otherwise normal lives. Some of these experimental communities met with great success, but some proved susceptible to charismatic preachers who led them astray, giving rise to anxiety about accidental heresies. The line between orthodoxy and heresy in this period of foment and heady experimentation was so vague, some scholars argue, that it was simply in the eye of the beholder. Reading Andrews, Frances. The Early Humiliati. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Bartlett, Robert. The Hanged Man. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ——— . Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Simons, Walter. Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Slocum, Kay Brainerd. The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries. New York: Routledge, 2018. Vauchez, André. Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 53 8 Mendicants: Francis of Assisi and Louis of Toulouse T he 13th century saw a boom in new orders, which also heralded a wave of new saints: charismatic founders, inspired preachers, and devoted servants of the poor. None is more famous than Francis of Assisi. This lecture addresses his life as well as that of a little-known saint, Louis of Toulouse. Both men were born into comfortable family circumstances, experienced a conversion in early adulthood, and followed the vita apostolica, “apostolic life.” Their paths to sainthood say a great deal about the challenges facing new saints and the new barriers to sainthood that arose during the tumultuous later Middle Ages. 54

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  Dominique finds herself unaceountably nervous. She knows what will happen when they reach her room, and it’s something she assumed she wanted, but now she wonders whether she’ll be up to it, whether her body will respond as it should, or whether she’s just going through the motions now because she thinks this is what she needs. He seems like a lovely man and an interesting and sensitive lover, but what if he’s not enough? What if what she really wants is Michael? “You’re worried,” he says. “I can feel it. Your wicked past is rising to haunt you, isn’t it? A man.” She says, “It’s that obvious?” “A beautiful young woman, alone at the Hotel Arensen. You don’t have to be a genius to figure it out. About four or five months ago, I'd say. And now you’re wondering if you still have it, if you still have anything left to give.” “Right months ago,” she says. She doesn’t comment on the rest of what he’s said. “Eight months ago? It’s worse than I thought.” The subject is uncomfortable, so she asks, “Tell me, Mr Lord. Just _ what is it you do here at the hotel?” “Sheldon, please,” he says. She can see his teeth in the darkness as he smiles. “You’re going to hate me. I don’t have a regular title, but 16 Valerie Grey I’m a kind of facilitator. I help plan people’s activities here, the things they want to do at the hotel.” “Volleyball games? Basket weaving? Things like that?” He’s amused. “People come to us for all sorts of reasons. Most of them are just looking for fun, but some of them come to us with real problems. Sex can be a powerful force for changing people. I facilitate that change.” “Tike a therapist?” “Not exactly. And not a surrogate either, not any more. Those days are behind me. Now I simply recommend therapies, things that might help. Of course, for special cases .. .” Dominique watches one of the black swans stand up and ruffle its feathers. It beats its wings uneasily, and she can see the moonlight gleaming off the onyx feathers. Then it settles down and tucks its beak under its wing. The thought that comes to her is an ugly one, but she has to ask. “Ts that why you picked me out? Do I look like someone who needs therapy?” Again, he is amused. “Of course not. In any case, you’d have to request our services.” He’s silent for a moment, then asks, “Is that what you want?”

• From Cultish (2021)

  But other people find themselves needing more time and careful thought. Luckily, we have System 2. The economist Stacie Bosley once did an experiment to demonstrate how Systems 1 and 2 pan out in pyramid scheme recruitment. She set up shop at a state fair and handed willing passersby $5 in cash, telling them they could either keep the money or try her “Airplane Game” (which is like a condensed version of a pyramid scheme). Some people took one look at the offer and said, “No way, lady. I’m keeping my five bucks. That’s a scam.” Other people took time to process it, looked at all the rules, assessed, and finally told her, “No, this is a bad deal.” They came to the same conclusion, but via System 2 instead of System 1. Then there were people who deliberated carefully, but lacked the tools to do that well—the cognition, the literacy—so they decided to play the Airplane Game after all. And then there were those who just impulsively played the game and got screwed that way. Impulsivity, says Bosley, is a common diagnostic indicator of people’s vulnerability to fraud. It’s not totally clear why some people have a System 1 Spidey sense for pyramid schemes, quack health cures, and other too-good-to-be-true messaging while others don’t. Some researchers say it might be related to differences in trust that stem from early childhood—the theory being that when you develop trust as a little kid, it sets a lifelong expectation that the world will be honest and nice to you. All sorts of childhood exposures could cause a person to become more or less trusting. Some people, like my dad, might have had their trust damaged by an absent parent, or another kind of trauma. Certainly, when you add factors like stress and financial hardship, some people choose to ignore their skeptical instincts and find themselves neck-deep in a shakedown anyway. As much as I’d like to take full intellectual credit for my exquisitely sensitive scam nose, I know that my disdain for pyramid schemes likely correlates to the fact that I am privileged enough to have no urgent need for their promises. Sociologists also say that higher education and training in the scientific method generally make people less gullible. And for better or for worse, so does being in a bad mood. In several experiments, researchers found that when someone is in a good mood, they become more innocent and unsuspecting, while feeling grumpy makes one better at sensing deception. Which has to be the most curmudgeonly superpower I’ve ever heard. v. My favorite line I’ve heard MLMers use to defend their business is “This isn’t a pyramid scheme. Corporate jobs are the REAL pyramid scheme.”

• From A Way of Being (1980)

  The World of Tomorrow, and the Person of Tomorrow I have long had a keen interest in the future. This is a world of change, and I take pleasure in trying to discern the directions in which we are moving, or will move. I am convinced that at this point we are going through a transformational crisis, from which we and our world cannot emerge unchanged. But I like the analogy drawn from the Chinese language, in which the same character stands for two meanings: “crisis” and “opportunity.” I take the same view—that the very difficult crises of tomorrow represent equally great opportunities. I speculate about these in this chapter. In a very real sense, I regard this paper as a fragile one. I am exposing my thinking in process, as it is at the present time. It contains ideas I have not formulated before, and infant ideas always feel shaky. It tries to draw together many vague thoughts which have been cropping up in my mind during this past year; ignited by sparks from my reading. This is particularly true of the first part of the chapter. Then I draw on both current and past experience as I endeavor to picture the person who will be able to live in this transformed world. I have an uneasy feeling about this chapter, a feeling I have experienced before. In some vague way I believe that what I am saying here will someday be fleshed out much more fully, either by me or by someone else. It is a beginning, an outline, a suggestion. So in all its infant awkwardness and imperfection, I present it to you. It pictures where I am now, in relation to the future. ... What does the future hold? There are many people who now make it their business to try to predict our future, but all of such work is, at best, informed speculation. Scientists can predict, with almost absolute accuracy, the date and hour of arrival of Halley’s comet in 1985, but what the human world will be like on that date, no one knows. The reason can be given in a phrase: the existence of choice. Edward Cornish (1980), president of the World Future Society, puts it well: The 1980s—more than any previous decade—will be a period in which human choice will operate more decisively than ever before. The rapid development of

• From Cultish (2021)

  In his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton writes that with these stock sayings, “the most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.” So while loaded language is a cue to intensify emotions, semantic stop signs are a cue to discontinue thought. To put it most simply, when used in conjunction, a follower’s body screams “Do whatever the leader says,” while their brain whispers “Don’t think about what might happen next”—and that’s a deadly coercive combination. Thought-terminating clichés are by no means exclusive to “cults.” Ironically, calling someone “brainwashed” can even serve as a semantic stop sign. You can’t engage in a dialogue with someone who says, “That person is brainwashed” or “You’re in a cult.” It’s just not effective. I know this because every time I witness it happen on social media, the argument comes to a standstill. Once these phrases are invoked, they choke the conversation, leaving no hope of figuring out what’s behind the drastic rift in belief. Contentious debates aside, thought-terminating clichés also pervade our everyday conversations: Expressions like “It is what it is,” “Boys will be boys,” “Everything happens for a reason,” “It’s all God’s plan,” and certainly “Don’t think about it too hard” are all common examples. Among New Age types, I’ve also heard semantic stop signs come in the form of wily maxims like “Truth is a construct,” “None of this matters on a cosmic level,” “I hold space for multiple realities,” “Don’t let yourself be ruled by fear,” and dismissing any anxieties or doubts as “limiting beliefs.” (We’ll discuss more of this rhetoric in part 6.) These pithy mottos are effective because they alleviate cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable discord one experiences when they hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time. For example, I have an acquaintance who recently got laid off from her job, and she was lamenting to me about how beside the point it felt when people responded to her bad news with “Everything happens for a reason.” The layoff was due to a mix of crappy, complicated factors like the tanking economy, poor company management, implicit sexism, and her boss’s mercurial temperament—there was no one “reason.” But her roommates and old coworkers didn’t want to think about those things, because doing so would make them anxious, suddenly hyperaware of the fact that life fundamentally bends toward entropy, which would conflict with their goal of appearing sympathetic.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  I have no idea what all of these people are afraid of, but to marketers, the world is filled with fears that must be conquered. Maybe they like this rhetoric because it makes online sales and marketing seem like some kind of epic adventure rather than the drab, soul-destroying job that it actually is. Marketing conferences are filled with wannabe gurus and thought leaders who work themselves up into a revival-show lather about connecting with customers and engaging in holistic, heart-based marketing, which sounds like something I made up but is actually a real thing that really exists and is taken seriously by actual adult human beings, which makes me want to cry. Except I’m also fascinated by this world. Part of me fantasizes about becoming one of these phony gurus. Some of these people make a lot of money, and all they do is fly around the world giving speeches. Part of me figures that if Brandon the pool installer can become Brandon the multimillionaire author and motivational marketing speaker, why can’t I? To become a marketing wizard, I will first have to survive here for a few years, and that means finding a way to fit in, which won’t be easy, not only because I’m fifty-two years old, which is exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, but also because the atmosphere is so different from that of a newsroom. I had expected the transition might be rough, but even so, I’m taken aback by how much I’m struggling. The weird language and the relentlessly chipper attitudes are both the polar opposite of the world I know. Reporters are trained to hate corporate jargon and to eliminate it, not to engage in it. We’re expected to be cynical and skeptical, not to be cheerleaders. Another challenge is that HubSpot has so many meetings. Like most journalists—and, I would argue, most sane people—I detest meetings. At HubSpot they have meetings all the time, even for little things. Instead of just pulling up a chair and talking for five minutes, at HubSpot people will scan your calendar—everyone keeps their calendars online—and send you an invitation for a meeting in a block of time that you’ve left open. Anyone can call a meeting for pretty much any reason. I don’t want to look like a grumpy old man, so I just click yes on every invitation. Some mornings I come to work and find my calendar packed with back-to-back meetings for random things that have nothing to do with my job: brainstorm with the funnel team; learn what the e-book team has planned for next quarter; listen in on a conference call with our “social media scientist,” a competitive weightlifter who lives in Las Vegas and basically does nothing; talk to a salesperson who thinks she can sell our software to a newspaper in Orange County, California. I attend everything. I’m here to learn. I want to be a team player.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  No one ever did. Bear in mind that I’ve met some of these people. I would not call them friends, but I know them, and they know me. One director lives in my town. We have mutual friends, and our kids are about the same age. We’ve had coffee together. Nevertheless, I heard nothing. Remember the HubSpot culture code? Remember the stuff about HEART, and how the T stands for “transparent”? The culture code deck contains a slide with a paraphrase of the famous Louis Brandeis quote about sunlight being the best disinfectant, and another slide that says, “We are radically and remarkably transparent.” When it came to my situation, apparently these principles were no longer operative. Steven Cash, my attorney, contacted HubSpot general counsel John Kelleher asking for information. Kelleher bounced Cash to Goodwin Procter. A lawyer at Goodwin Procter offered no information and would not even say which law enforcement agencies had been alerted. Days after that conversation, however, Cash got a call from an assistant U.S. attorney who said she was investigating the case with agents from the FBI’s cyber-crime division. I met with them in September 2015. Even after the meeting, I still had no idea what HubSpot had done. The FBI gave me a “victim identification number,” and I received a letter from a “victim specialist” at the FBI who said I could call her if I had questions. I called once and left a message, but never got a call back. Later I would hear some crazy stories. One was that the spying involved “Dumpster diving,” meaning that Volpe, or someone working for him, had gone to my house and dug through my trash, trying to find a manuscript. I tried to imagine Volpe out in my driveway in the middle of the night, digging through bags of used cat litter. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Another story, told to me by several present and former HubSpot employees, is that when Volpe was fired, HubSpot held an all-hands meeting to explain the news to employees, and Halligan and Spinner were sobbing. I also heard that the scandal began when a whistleblower inside the company ratted out Halligan, Volpe, and Chernov to the general counsel or to a member of the board. I have not been able to find out if this is true, or who the whistleblower might be. On October 9, 2015, the assistant U.S. attorney told my lawyer that the government did not plan to bring any charges related to the case. The AUSA would not say what her investigation had uncovered. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. At first glance it might seem that since no charges were brought, nothing bad had been done to me. But the AUSA herself told me, during my interview, that the government might find evidence of illegal activity but decide not to invest resources to pursue the case. Clearly, Volpe did something.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  54 A new class of “untouchables” ( chandalas ), who had been thrown off their land by the incoming Aryans, now took the place of these aspiring workers at the bottom of the social hierarchy. 55 City life was exciting. The streets were crowded with brightly painted carriages and huge elephants carrying merchandise from distant lands. People of all classes and ethnicities mingled freely in the marketplace, and new ideas began to challenge the traditional Vedic system. The Brahmins, therefore, whose roots were in the countryside, began to seem irrelevant. 56 As often in times of flux, a new spirituality emerged, and it had three interrelated themes: dukkha, moksha, and karma. Surprisingly, despite this prosperity and progress, pessimism was deep and widespread. People were experiencing life as dukkha —“unsatisfactory,” “flawed,” and “awry.” From the trauma of birth to the agony of death, human existence seemed fraught with suffering, and even death brought no relief because everything and everybody was caught up in an inescapable cycle ( samsara ) of rebirth, so the whole distressing scenario had to be endured again and again. The great eastward migration had been fueled by the Aryans’ experience of claustrophobic confinement in the Punjab; now they felt imprisoned in their overcrowded cities. It was not just a feeling: rapid urbanization typically leads to epidemics, particularly when the population rises above 300,000, a sort of tipping point for contagion. 57 No wonder the Aryans were obsessed by sickness, suffering, and death and longed to find a way out. Rapid change of circumstance also made people more conscious of cause and effect. They could now see how the actions of one generation affected the next, and they began to believe that their deeds ( karma ) would also determine their next existence: if they were guilty of bad karma in this life, they would be reborn as slaves or animals, but with good karma, they might become kings or even gods next time. Merit was something that could be earned, accumulated, and finally “realized” in the same way as mercantile wealth. 58 But even if you were reborn as a god, there was no real escape from life’s dukkha, because even gods had to die and would be reborn to lower status. In an attempt to shore up the now-vulnerable class system, perhaps, the Brahmins tried to reconfigure the concepts of karma and samsara: you could enjoy a good rebirth only if you strictly observed the dharma of your class. 5 9 Others would draw upon these new ideas to challenge the social system. In the Punjab, the Aryans had tried to fight their way to “liberation” ( moksha ); now some, building on the internalized spirituality of the Brahmanas, were looking for a more spiritual freedom and would investigate their inner world as vigorously as the Aryan warriors had once explored the untamed forests. The new wealth gave the nobility the time and leisure that was essential for such introspective contemplation.

• From Cultish (2021)

  To enter ritual time, some symbolic action typically must take place, like singing a song, lighting a candle, or clipping on your SoulCycle shoes (really). Rituals like these signal that we’re separating this religious thing we’re doing from the rest of our daily life. And there’s often an action at the end, too (blow out the candle, repeat “namaste,” unclip the shoes) to get us out of ritual time and back to everyday reality. There’s a reason the word “sacred” literally means “set aside.” But an oppressive group doesn’t let you leave ritual time. There is no separation, no going back to a reality where you have to get along with people who might not share your beliefs, where you understand that performing a mantra or citing the Ten Commandments in the middle of lunch would be a violation of the unspoken rules for how to be. With destructive groups like Scientology, the Moonies, the Branch Davidians, 3HO, The Way International (a fundamentalist Christian cult we’ll talk about later), and so many others, there is no longer a “sacred space” for that special language. Now words like “abomination,” “curse,” and “lower vibration” or whatever unique vocabulary the group uses holds that almighty power all the time. In American culture, religious language (particularly Protestant language) is everywhere, informing secular choices we make without us even explicitly noticing. I recently came across a frozen low-fat mac ’n’ cheese meal with the word “sinless” printed on the packaging. Conjuring the devil to talk about microwavable noodles felt a touch melodramatic, but that’s how deep religious talk runs in American culture: There are sinners and saints, and the latter choose 2 percent dairy. The permeable membrane between religion and culture is also what allows so many corners of the capitalist marketplace to call upon God to promote their products . . . including and especially the multilevel marketing industry (a cult category we’ll discuss in depth in part 4 ). Christian-affiliated direct sale s companies like Mary Kay Cosmetics and Thirty-One Gifts encourage recruits by saying that God is actively “providing” them with the “opportunity” to sell makeup and tchotchkes . . . and to convert others to do so, as well. Billion-dollar businesswoman Mary Kay Ash was once confronted in an interview about her famous tagline: “God first, family second, Mary Kay third.” When asked if she thought she was using Jesus as a marketing plo y, she responded, “No, he’s using me instead.” iv.You could fill a book longer than this one with a list of all the thought-terminating clichés, loaded language, and us-versus-them labels cultish religions around the world use to convert, condition, and coerce their followers. To start, take a look at Shambhala, where thought-terminating clichés were disguised as wise Buddhist truisms. In 2016, ex-Shambhalan Abbie Shaw moved to the group’s idyllic Vermont commune to work the front desk and study meditation for what was only supposed to be a casual summer.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  A WORD ABOUT AIDS AND SAFE SEXIt’s difficult to imagine anyone who’s unaware of the international scourge of AIDS. All of us, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, must evaluate our sexual behavior to minimize the risk of exposure to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. There’s disagreement about the odds (seemingly quite low) of contracting HIV through activities such as tongue kissing or oral sex without ejaculation. But the centerpiece of any safe sex policy is the decision never to engage in vaginal or anal intercourse without using a latex condom—or to abstain altogether. The only sexually active people who needn’t be concerned are couples who have been monogamous for at least six months and have both recently tested negative for the antibodies to HIV, indicating that they’ve never been exposed. As long as these couples can trust each other to avoid unsafe sex outside the relationship, HIV isn’t an issue. Keep in mind that AIDS prevention is not covered in this book. You’ll notice stories of peak sex involving intercourse in nonmonogamous situations that don’t mention condoms. Of course, some of these encounters occurred before the AIDS epidemic. Other people may have used condoms but didn’t say so because it was merely a practical consideration (like birth control) that, although important, didn’t play a role in making their encounters memorable. Some people undoubtedly took unwise risks. Fantasies, of course, are totally exempt from all practical considerations. If you have questions about AIDS and how to prevent it, ask your local health department, an organization concerned with AIDS, or your physician. ATTITUDES FOR SELF-DISCOVERYHaving had the privilege of guiding hundreds of men and women on voyages of erotic self-discovery, I’ve consistently observed that venturing into the erotic realm is dramatically more rewarding for those who, right from the start, make a point of learning how to (1) suspend judgments, (2) trust themselves, and (3) use a gentle approach. SUSPENDING JUDGMENTSMy most fervent belief about erotic self-discovery is that deep erotic truths do not reveal themselves to judgmental eyes and nonaccepting hearts. The secrets of the erotic mind become visible only to those who consciously cultivate the ability to set aside critical evaluations long enough to perceive what’s actually there. Until you learn this all-important skill, your perceptions will be skewed and their usefulness dramatically reduced. The most emotionally charged judgments arise from moral convictions. Not surprisingly, those who believe in immutable moral doctrines usually have the most difficulty setting aside their automatic inclinations to reject or criticize actions and thoughts that violate their concepts of right and wrong. But not all judgments are rooted in morality. Many people experience a similar visceral discomfort when their erotic experiences don’t match their expectations, or when they realize that what truly excites them conflicts with their ideals.

• From Cultish (2021)

  It’s both a nonsense thought-terminating cliché and a flashing neon sign of us- versus-them conditioning. But while MLMs talk a lot of smack about corporate America and corporate America thinks of MLMs as a scammy joke, they are ultimately both derived from the same Protestant capitalist history. And the toxically positive fable that our society is a true meritocracy—that you can climb the ladder from the bottom to the top if you just work hard and have faith— imbues the rhetoric of our “normal” workforce, too. Many modern companies actively aim to gain a cult following in the image of companies like Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, and Ikea—brands that succeeded in cultivating extreme solidarity and loyalty among both employees and patrons. To learn more about the language of cultlike corporations, I hit up a Dutch business scholar and management consultant named Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries. Having studied workplace leadership styles since the 1970s, Kets de Vries confirmed that language is a critical clue when determining if a company has become too cultish for comfort. Red flags should rise when there are too many pep talks, slogans, singsongs, code words, and too much meaningless corporate jargon, he said. Most of us have encountered some dialect of hollow workplace gibberish. Corporate BS generators are easy to find on the web (and fun to play with), churning out phrases like “rapidiously orchestrating market-driven deliverables” and “progressively cloudifying world-class human capital.” At my old fashion magazine job, employees were always throwing around woo-woo metaphors like “synergy” (the state of being on the same page), “move the needle” (make noticeable progress), and “mindshare” (something having to do with a brand’s popularity? I’m still not sure). My old boss especially loved when everyone needlessly transformed nouns into transitive verbs and vice versa—“whiteboard” to “whiteboarding,” “sunset” to “sunsetting,” the verb “ask” to the noun “ask.” People did it even when it was obvious they didn’t know quite what they were saying or why. Naturally, I was always creeped out by this conformism and enjoyed parodying it in my free time. In her memoir Uncanny Valley, tech reporter Anna Wiener christened all forms of corporate vernacular “garbage language.” Garbage language has been around since long before Silicon Valley, though its themes have changed with the times. In the 1980s, it reeked of the stock exchange: “buy-in,” “leverage,” “volatility.” The ’90s brought computer imagery: “bandwidth,” “ping me,” “let’s take this offline.” In the twenty-first century, with start-up culture and the dissolution of work-life separation (the Google ball pits and in-office massage therapists) in combination with movements toward “transparency” and “inclusion,” we got mystical, politically correct, self-empowerment language: “holistic,” “actualize,” “alignment.” This jargon isn’t damaging in and of itself. As always, words need context. And when used in competitive start-up environments, those in power can easily take advantage of staffers’ eagerness to achieve (and basic need for employment).

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  At night I lie awake in bed, unable to sleep, secretly afraid that I might never get hired again. That Newsweek story about “beached white males” wasn’t a work of fiction. I know guys my age whose careers are over. They’re in their early fifties and once held senior-level positions, and then got downsized only to discover that no one wants them. Those guys have all been where I am now—freshly out of work, still hopeful, going on interviews. But six months goes by, and then a year, and at some point people stop taking your calls. I’m not there yet. I’ve landed some freelance work, I’m still making money doing speaking gigs, and my lecture agent has promised that he will try to keep me working, but he also has warned me that without the word Newsweek in front of my name those speaking gigs are probably going to dry up. What happens then? Sure, we have savings. But those won’t last forever. For now we’re doing our best to economize. The kids know what’s going on. We don’t talk about it a lot around them, but I have to say something. I don’t know if talking makes things better or worse. I get the sense that they are a bit freaked out, especially my son. He’s a sensitive kid. One night when I’m putting him to bed I recognize something in his eyes that I’ve never seen before—it’s not that he’s scared, it’s that he knows what I’m going through and he feels sorry for me. It’s almost too much to take. “Come here, dude,” I say, and I give him a hug and try to make him laugh, and he does laugh, and I laugh, too, but I’m also trying not to cry. I realize that the way he sees me now is different from the way he saw me before. For the rest of my life I’m going to remember that flash of pity in his eyes. That look is going to haunt me. I need a job. Any job. Soon enough, I get one. This happens in September 2012. It’s not a great job. It’s not even a good one. There are a lot of drawbacks, chief among them that the job will take me away from home, but I don’t hesitate. I jump on it. Suddenly I am the editor-in-chief of a struggling technology news website called ReadWrite, a tiny blog with three full-time employees and a half-dozen woefully underpaid freelancers. ReadWrite is based in San Francisco, which means I fly out on Monday and take a redeye back to Boston on Thursday or Friday. On weeks when I’m not in San Francisco I’m either in New York, where ReadWrite’s parent company is based, or in some other city, making sales calls, trying to get tech companies to buy ads from us. It’s not a lot of fun, but I’m making a paycheck and keeping my eyes open for something better.

• From The Historical Jesus (Great Courses) (2000)

  4 . Y et the high priest accused Jesus of blasphemy. Because no blasphemy was committed, it seems unlikely that the trial proceeded the way that it’s described in Mark, our earliest source. (One could conceive of his statement as blasphemous only by assuming, with Mark, that Jesus was the Son of Man, because then Jesus would be saying that he had a standing equal with God. The high priest would have had no reasons to think that Jesus was referring to himself when he mentioned the Son of Man.) V. We can say a good deal about Jesus’ final hours before his appearance before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. A. He was almost certainly betrayed by one of his followers, Judas Iscariot, who may have divulged to the authorities some of Jesus’ secret teachings that he had given to the inner circle of twelve. B. These teachings concerned his own identity — something he was loathe to discuss publicly. Jesus seems to have thought that he himself would be appointed the ruler of the coming kingdom by God. C. Once the local Jewish authorities learned this, they had all the grounds they needed to make a quick arrest to get Jesus out of the public eye. ©2000 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 45 D. Working stealthily, the authorities had Jesus arrested at night and brought him into an informal interrogation. We don’t know exactly what happened there, but it clearly was enough to make the authorities to hand him over to the Roman governor for trial. Essential Reading: Mark 14-16; Matthew 26-27; Luke 22-23; John 18-19. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet, chap. 12. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, chap. 16. Suggested Reading: Brown, Death of the Messiah. Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Questions to Consider: 1 . Consider the various options for why Judas decided to betray Jesus. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each option? 2. Why might some scholars doubt the historicity of the following stories found in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ last hours? What historical arguments can be mounted in their favor? Where do you stand on the issue? (a) The institution of the Last Supper (Mark 14:22-25; Matt 26:26-29; Luke 22:15-20; 1 Cor. 11:23-26), (b) Jesus’ washing of the disciples feet (John 13:1-20), and (c) Jesus’ prayer in the Garden before his arrest (Mark 14:32^12; Matt 26:36^16; Luke 22:39^16). 46 ©2000 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Twenty-Two The Death and Resurrection of Jesus

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  I considered quitting, then recalled those tongues of molten ice trailing across my skin. Taking a deep breath, I entered. Cigarette smoke hung in the yellowing light and a ceiling fan turned sluggishly as if enervated by the heat. Half a dozen men sat alone at separate tables, smoking, reading or staring into space. No one paid me any notice and I was grateful. I took it to be one of those places where everyone is a stranger, even people who’ve been drinking side by side for years. When I approached the counter with my empty jug, a customer seated there cast me a look of lazy appraisal. He wore a white T-shirt and I took him to be the guy I’d seen from my balcony. Big nosed with dark hair feathering across his forehead, his wrinkles added interest to a strong, angular face. But irrespective of rugged charm, middle-aged men who believe they’re entitled to leer unsettle my 110 Kristina Lloyd confidence. I was self-conscious in asking for ice and when my request was met with a frown, I stumbled in repeating myself. ‘The bartender wiped the counter with a cloth, apparently loath to serve me. Behind him, among shelves gleaming with bottles and glasses, a mirrored Coca-Cola clock said quarter past two. The clock’s red logo gave me that old jolt of jarring familiarity, making me feel I was on territory at once homely and strange. “T have money,” I said. With that, the bartender disappeared into an adjoining room, a curtain of plastic strips clattering lightly as he passed. I waited, wondering if the drinkers could see the ice tonguing my skin; if they could see me at night, water coursing over my flesh; if they could see how I tried to kill the heat of my longing, failing as the ice melted away and I climaxed once again. I felt they could and it troubled me. On the counter, a wedge of tortilla sat forlornly under a plastic dome. I could hear the bartender on the phone in the adjoining room. All this for some ice? When he returned with my jug blissfully full, I asked how much I owed him. Before he could reply, Big Nose interrupted, addressing the bartender in Catalan, a language I wasn’t yet familiar with. The bartender poured a large brandy, then set it in front of me. “Gratis,” he said. Unwilling to risk offence, | accepted the drink while trying to convince myself it left me under no obligation. So bloody English of me. Why couldn’t I decline the brandy, pay for the ice conventionally and leave?

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  Hap, famous for running his dance revue like a well-oiled military machine of unhappy hoofers, had already warned Lacy multiple times about the humping, the nipple-pinching, the thigh- stroking, and that dirty little thing she was always doing with her tongue, not to mention when that one time she spanked herself. Then, of course, there was the popping out of her top — could she be blamed if her nipples didn’t like spirit gum? Time was, girls with D-cups got cut a little friggin’ slack. But Hap was not an understanding guy when it came to Lacy’s problems with her renegade sisters, or anything else. She was one wardrobe malfunction away from being cut loose. Happy Henderson had told Lacy in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t lose the stripper moves and keep her nipples to herself, he was going to bounce her from Friday’s lineup, and “you and your tassels can look for another revue, Miss Le fucking Tush!” In a college town like San Esteban, finding another place to perform would be no small order. The coastal enclave of culture held one historic theater (the Chimera) and one skanky little gay bar (the Pumping Station). San E. could only support about one and a half burlesque troupes. Happy’s was the one, and the Courtney Capricious Burlesque Ordeal on Tuesday nights over at the Station was the half, being entirely too well named for its own good. Their shows usually descended into amyl-huffing karaoke orgies and When Lacy LeTush Went Blue, Blue, Blue! 127 loogie-catching contests between female stiltwalkers wearing nothing but Nine Inch Nails tattoos, frightwigs and Groucho noses. The girls of the Ordeal seemed to have more fun than those of the tightly scripted Bazoomba Revue, but God damn it, fun wasn’t what burlesque was about! Lacy wanted a paying gig in the thriving San Francisco burlesque revival scene, and trolling around with dildo- juggling punk girls wouldn’t fast-track her any more than humping the brass pole at the Stang. If she couldn’t land a performance job down in San Francisco, after finals she’d be stuck moving back to her parents’ place in Concord and then on to grad school in friggin’ Palo Alto — and, Lord have mercy, nobody sane wanted that.

• From Cultish (2021)

  It’s as if someone is standing behind them as they type, cracking a symbolic whip to make sure they’re always selling and recruiting, even if they’re just posting about their dog. Like followers of an oppressive religion, MLM recruits wind up trapped in ritual time. Whenever I hear this too-good-to-be-true-type rhetoric, my gut tells me to run like hell. And yet as good as it might feel to write off anyone who buys the grandiloquent poppycock of direct sales as a hopeless dunce, the truth is that this toxically positive rhetoric is fundamentally baked into American society. The cult of multilevel marketing is a direct product of the “cult” that is Western capitalism itself. In the United States, networking marketing as we know it got its start in the 1930s, post–Great Depression, as a reaction to employment regulations introduced by the New Deal. Although it wasn’t until a few years later, after World War II, that the direct sales industry really exploded. That’s when it became a women’s game. During WWII, women entered the workforce in unprecedented droves while men fought abroad. But after the fighting ended, those women were sent back into the home to care for their children and veteran husbands. In the 1950s, twenty million Americans migrated to suburbia, where there were few job opportunities for women, many of whom missed the excitement, independence, fulfillment, and cash that came with professional life. It was around this time when a businessman named Earl Tupper invented a type of sturdy polyethylene food storage container. He named it Tupperware. The product hadn’t exactly been flying off shelves until a single mother from Detroit with a knack for direct sales named Brownie Wise (real name) got ahold of Tupper’s wares and decided not only would suburban moms make the perfect consumers for this stuff, they could make a powerful sales force, too. Wise and Tupper joined forces, and the at-home “Tupperware party” was born. Long before the invention of the hashtag, Wise used pseudo-female-empowerment verbiage to recruit women into her network of dealers, managers, and distributors. This set the stage for a long future of faux-feminist MLM claptrap. “A Tupperware career is so rewarding!” reads one vintage ad in cherry-red cursive. The illustrated poster depicts a high-society woman with corn-colored hair, pearl earrings, and a cashmere sweater. Holding a book (though not reading it), she smiles deliriously while gazing up out of frame at what I can only assume are her dreams. “Earnings begin immediately when you become a Tupperware dealer!” cheeps another ’40s-era sketch of a different jolly white lady. “You can earn as much as you want. You earn while you learn. You are an independent business owner. Your own boss. . . . There is nothing quite like the opportunity you have for earnings as a Tupperware dealer—NOW!” Over the following decades, direct sales kingpins followed in Wise’s footsteps, angling their products and language toward white stay-at-home moms.

• From Cultish (2021)

  It’s exactly this paranoiac rejection of “mainstream” healthcare and leadership that gave such momentum to QAnon, whose rhetoric overlaps considerably with that of the “alternative wellness” sphere: “great awakening,” “ascension,” “5G.” The diagram of QAnon and New Agers looks more circular every day. It appeared an unlikely crossover, at first: that of violent right-wing conspiracy theorists and seemingly progressive hippie types. But America’s ever-escalating unrest has led a disarming number of citizens (mostly white, middle class ex-Christians—similar to the folks who joined Heaven’s Gate back in the day) to a similarly anti-government, anti-media, anti-doctor place. In the early 2010s, well before QAnon, the term “conspirituality” (a portmanteau of “conspiracy” and “spirituality”) was introduced to describe this rapidly growing politico-spiritual movement defined by two core principles: “the first traditional to conspiracy theory, the second rooted in the New Age: 1) a secret group covertly controls, or is trying to control, the political and social order, and 2) humanity is undergoing a ‘paradigm shift’ in consciousness” (this definition comes from a 2011 paper from the Journal of Contemporary Religion ). When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US in 2020, it was like rocket fuel feeding conspirituality’s flame. Antivaxxers and Plandemic truthers would fall squarely into the category of conspirituality, but so would plenty of less conspicuously QAnon-related wellness aficionados: the sorts who might sign up for an essential oils MLM, for example, or wear “Namaslay” T-shirts to their whitewashed yoga classes , or run a “holistic self-care” Instagram account. The sorts who maybe searched for “all-natural health remedies” on YouTube one night and ended up in “all doctors are brainwashed” conspirituality territory, unable to navigate their way out. Trickily, not every conspiritualist even knows or is willing to admit that their beliefs have anything to do with QAnon. In fact, some of these believers regard the terms “QAnon,” “conspiracy theorist,” and “antivaxxer” as offensive “slurs.” And the more outsiders invoke these labels, the more firmly insiders dig in their heels. After all, both camps think the other is “brainwashed.” In broad strokes, QAnon started in 2017 as a fringe-y online conspiracy theory surrounding an alleged intelligence insider called Q. The ideology began as something like this: Q, a faceless figure, swore to have “proof” of corrupt left-wing leaders—“the deep state,” or “global elite”—sexually abusing little kids around the world. (According to Q, Donald Trump was working tirelessly to thwart them before being “fraudulently” dethroned.) The only way to undo this evil cabal of high-powered liberal predators was with the support of Q’s loyalists, known as “Q Patriots” or “bakers,” who’d hunt for meaning in their anonymous leader’s secret clues—“Q drops” or “crumbs”—which were sprinkled throughout the web. To trust in Q meant to reject mainstream government, vehemently scorn the press, and contest doubters at every turn. It’s all a necessary part of the ongoing “paradigm shift.” QAnon developed rallying cries, including “You are the news now” and “Enjoy the show,” referencing the impending “awakening,” or apocalypse.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  You get the idea. Here at HubSpot there is none of that. Dharmesh is our Dear Leader. A HubSpotter mocking his teddy bear would be akin to a Scientologist making fun of L. Ron Hubbard’s cravat, or his kooky captain’s hat. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe after spending all those years in the news business I have become overly cynical. Maybe bringing a teddy bear to meetings is the big new thing and everybody is going to do it. Maybe the world has changed, and I’ve been left behind, back in that outdated, old-fashioned era where people don’t bring stuffed animals to meetings. I check with my friend Chuck, a guy who once worked in marketing at a really big tech company. I send him a link to the teddy bear article, asking him if this is really what life is like in the corporate world. “Are all companies like this?” I ask. Chuck assures me they are not. “Any place with a founder who brings a teddy bear to meetings,” he writes, “is a step away from Jonestown.” He tells me to run out of this place as fast as I can. Another friend, Mike, is a former Microsoft executive who now does some angel investing and works with start-ups. He agrees that the teddy bear is nuts, but he says that quitting would be a huge mistake. “You’ve only been there for three months. If you leave now, it’ll look like you got fired,” he says. “And they’ll do nothing to dispel that impression. In fact, they’ll probably tell people they fired you. They’ll do everything they can to make you look bad.” If I quit now, all the reporters and bloggers who wrote stories about me going to HubSpot are going to start asking questions. No way will HubSpot let the stink land on them when they’re getting ready to do a billion-dollar stock offering. “Stick around through the IPO,” Mike says. “Even if you have nothing to do with the IPO, if you’re working there when they go public, it will look good for you. Then once the offering is over you can get another job.” In fact, Mike says, once the IPO takes place I may have no choice but to find a new job—because I’ll probably get fired. Mike’s theory is that HubSpot hired me as a kind of publicity stunt. All they wanted was to get a little bit of good PR by bringing me on board. The downside of that is that once the IPO takes place they won’t need me. “Don’t take it personally,” he says. “This happens all the time. The company goes public and then they clean house. As soon as they register for an IPO, start looking for a new job.” Mike is a smart guy, and he spent years in the corporate world.