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.

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• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Friend with benefits, my subconscious scowls. I know, I know. I shake the unpleasant thought away. How will I introduce him to Ray? The hall is still at least half full, and Ray has not moved from his spot. He sees me, waves, and makes his way down. “Hey, Annie. Congratulations.” He puts his arm around me. “Would you like to come have a drink in the pavilion?” “Sure. It’s your day. Lead the way.” “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Please say no… “Annie, I’ve just sat for two and half hours listening to all kinds of jabbering. I need a drink.” I put my arm through his, and we stroll out with the throng into the warmth of the early afternoon. We pass the line for the official photographer. “Oh, that reminds me.” Ray drags a digital camera out of his pocket. “One for the album, Annie.” I roll my eyes at him as he snaps a picture of me. “Can I take the cap and gown off now? I feel kind of dorky.” You look kinda dorky… My subconscious is at her snarky best. So are you going to introduce Ray to the man you’re fucking? She is glaring at me over her wing-shaped spectacles. He’d be so proud. God, I hate her sometimes. The pavilion is immense and crowded—students, parents, teachers, and friends, all chattering happily. Ray hands me a glass of champagne, or cheap fizzy wine, I suspect. It’s not chilled, and it tastes sweet. My thoughts turn to Christian… He won’t like this. “Ana!” I turn, and Ethan Kavanagh scoops me into his arms. He twirls me around, without spilling my wine—some feat. “Congratulations!” He beams down at me, green eyes twinkling. What a surprise. His dirty-blond hair is tousled and sexy. He’s as beautiful as Kate. The family resemblance is striking. “Wow—Ethan! How lovely to see you. Dad, this is Ethan, Kate’s brother. Ethan, this is my dad, Ray Steele.” They shake hands, my dad coolly assessing Mr. Kavanagh. “When did you get back from Europe?” I ask. “I’ve been back for a week, but I wanted to surprise my little sister,” he says conspiratorially. “That’s so sweet.” I grin. “She is valedictorian, couldn’t miss that.” He looks immensely proud of her. “She gave a great speech.” “That she did,” Ray agrees. Ethan has his arm around my waist when I look up into the frosty gray eyes of Christian Grey. Kate is beside him. “Hello, Ray.” Kate kisses Ray on both cheeks, making him blush. “Have you met Ana’s boyfriend? Christian Grey.” Holy shit…Kate! Fuck! All the blood drains from my face. “Mr. Steele, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Christian says smoothly, warmly, completely unflustered by Kate’s introduction. He holds out his hand, which Ray, all credit to him, takes, not showing a hint of the drop-dead surprise he’s just had thrust upon him. Thank you very much, Katherine Kavanagh, I fume. I think my subconscious has fainted.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  but he didn’t get far. His foot slipped in one of the dark pools, and down he went. He listed there on his side, a pale little ship in a sea that darkened and widened around him, fed by the stream that burbled from his lips. Outside, a cloud the size of a man’s hand drifted past the window. We were in a revival in West Virginia when the news came. Brother Terrell said he knew something was wrong when he opened his eyes that morning, that he felt a weight pressing against him. He ended the morning service early and shook the hands of all the preachers as fast as he could. He asked Brother Cotton to preach the afternoon service, and turned to make his way through the next line of people as he moved toward the camper trailer he kept parked behind the tent. “Good to see you. Thank y’all for coming. Later, we’ll talk later.” Once the door of the trailer clicked shut behind him, he began to move up and down the tiny corridor. He felt as though something inside him had slipped out of place. There was nothing to do but pray, and as he prayed, his son’s face came before him. Randall was giving Raymond and Marie fits. Several times a week Brother Terrell fed a bag of change into a pay phone and called the neighbor who lived nearest to his sister and brother-in-law. She ran across the pasture to get Randall and Marie or Raymond, and he called back fifteen or twenty minutes later. His sister and brother-in-law kept him up-to-date on all Randall’s shenanigans. He skipped school and picked fights and no one could do anything with him. He had called that morning to check on Randall, but the neighbor had not answered her phone. He prayed all afternoon. Usually after a day of prayer, he felt relieved, purged, but not this time. He tried to read scripture to prepare for the evening service. It was of no use. Reading was hard for him. In fact, the only thing he could read was the Bible, but on this day the letters on the page seemed particularly stubborn and refused to arrange themselves into words. He didn’t know what to do about Randall. He opened the door, stepped out of the trailer, and headed into the tent to preach. He had taken the first step up the ladder to the platform when he felt the hand on his arm. He turned and looked into a face filled with concern. “Brother Terrell? It’s Randall. He’s real sick. He’s in the hospital in Atlanta.” At the edge of the tent, Betty Ann clutched the baby and leaned against one of the poles. Her face crumpled with pain. “Oh, my boy, my boy, my boy.” Brother Terrell took her arm. “Let’s get in the car. We got to go to Atlanta.” For the first time in a long time they were in agreement. It seems logical that my mother would have stayed in West Virginia to

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  me elementary that if you’ve got the story that’s going to dominate history you might as well go right to the president.” But on July 10, no one knew—or could have known—that this tidbit of intelligence would turn out to dominate history. Because adherence to standard operating procedures is difficult to second- guess, decision makers who expect to have their decisions scrutinized with hindsight are driven to bureaucratic solutions—and to an extreme reluctance to take risks. As malpractice litigation became more common, physicians changed their procedures in multiple ways: ordered more tests, referred more cases to specialists, applied conventional treatments even when they were unlikely to help. These actions protected the physicians more than they benefited the patients, creating the potential for conflicts of interest. Increased accountability is a mixed blessing. Although hindsight and the outcome bias generally foster risk aversion, they also bring undeserved rewards to irresponsible risk seekers, such as a general or an entrepreneur who took a crazy gamble and won. Leaders who have been lucky are never punished for having taken too much risk. Instead, they are believed to have had the flair and foresight to anticipate success, and the sensible people who doubted them are seen in hindsight as mediocre, timid, and weak. A few lucky gambles can crown a reckless leader with a halo of prescience and boldness. Recipes for Success The sense-making machinery of System 1 makes us see the world as more tidy, simple, predictable, and coherent than it really is. The illusion that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future. These illusions are comforting. They reduce the anxiety that we would experience if we allowed ourselves to fully acknowledge the uncertainties of existence. We all have a need for the reassuring message that actions have appropriate consequences, and that success will reward wisdom and courage. Many business books are tailor-made to satisfy this need. Do leaders and management practices influence the outcomes of firms in the market? Of course they do, and the effects have been confirmed by systematic research that objectively assessed the characteristics of CEOs and their decisions, and related them to subsequent outcomes of the firm. In one study, the CEOs were characterized by the strategy of the companies they had led before their current appointment, as well as by management rules and procedures adopted after their appointment. CEOs do influence performance, but the effects are much smaller than a reading of the business press suggests.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  experiences are of a rarely easy or without setbacks. But once your victims overcome some of negative kind. The child their doubts, and begin to fall under your spell, they will reach a point becomes aware that he is where they start to let go. They may sense that you are leading them along, not loved or that his but they are enjoying it. No one likes things to be complicated and diffi-mother's love is not unconditional. The baby cult, and your target will expect the conclusion to come quickly. That is learns that his mother can the point, however, where you must train yourself to hold back. Deliver be dissatisfied with him, the pleasurable climax they are so greedily awaiting, succumb to the natural that she can withdraw her affection if he does not tendency to bring the seduction to a rapid end, and you will have missed an behave as she wishes, that opportunity to ratchet up the tension, to make the affair more heated. After she can be angry or cross. I all, you don't want a passive little victim to toy with; you want the seduced believe that this experience arouses feelings of anxiety to engage their will in all its force, to become active participants in the se-in the infant. The duction. You want them to pursue you, hopelessly ensnaring themselves in possibility of losing his your web in the process. The only way to accomplish this is to take a step mother's love certainly back and make them anxious. strikes the child with a force which can no more be You have strategically retreated before (see chapter 12), but this is dif- Give Them Space to Fall— The Pursuer Is Pursued • 389 ferent. The target is falling for you now, and your retreat will lead to pan- coped with than an icky thoughts: you are losing interest, it is somehow my fault, perhaps it is earthquake. . . . • The something I have done. Rather than think you are rejecting them on your child who experiences his mother's dissatisfaction and own, your targets will want to make this interpretation, since if the cause of apparent withdrawal of the problem is something they have done, they have the power to win you affection reacts to this back by changing their behavior. If you are simply rejecting them, on the menace at first with fear. He tries to regain what seems other hand, they have no control. People always want to preserve hope. lost by expressing hostility Now they will come to you, turn aggressive, thinking that will do the trick. and aggressiveness. . . . They will raise the erotic temperature. Understand: a person's willpower is The change of its character comes about only after

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  I heard Alaska sigh. “The Colonel’s doing his Napoleon walk.” “It’s all good,” the Colonel told me. “Just don’t say anything.” We walked in—two of us wearing ties, and two of us wearing ratty T-shirts —and the Eagle banged an honest-to-God gavel against the podium in front of him. The Jury sat in a line behind a rectangular table. At the front of the room, by the blackboard, were four chairs. We sat down, and the Colonel explained exactly what happened. “Alaska and I were smoking down by the lake. We usually go off campus, but we forgot. We’re sorry. It won’t happen again.” I didn’t know what was going on. But I knew my job: sit tight and shut up. One of the kids looked at Takumi and asked, “What about you and Halter?” “We were keeping them company,” Takumi said calmly. The kid turned to the Eagle then and asked, “Did you see anyone smoking?” “I only saw Alaska, but Chip ran away, which struck me as cowardly, as does Miles and Takumi’s aw-shucks routine,” the Eagle said, giving me the Look of Doom. I didn’t want to look guilty, but I couldn’t hold his stare, so I just looked down at my hands. The Colonel gritted his teeth, like it pained him to lie. “It is the truth, sir.” The Eagle asked if any of us wanted to say anything, and then asked if there were any more questions, and then sent us outside. “What the hell was that?” I asked Takumi when we got outside. “Just sit tight, Pudge.” Why have Alaska confess when she’d already been in trouble so many times? Why the Colonel, who literally couldn’t afford to get in serious trouble? Why not me? I’d never been busted for anything. I had the least to lose. After a couple minutes, the Eagle came out and motioned for us to come back inside. “Alaska and Chip,” a member of the Jury said, “you get ten work hours— doing dishes in the cafeteria—and you’re both officially one problem away from a phone call home. Takumi and Miles, there’s nothing in the rules about watching someone smoke, but the Jury will remember your story if you break the rules again. Fair?” “Fair,” Alaska said quickly, obviously relieved. On my way out, the Eagle spun me around. “Don’t abuse your privileges at this school, young man, or you will regret it.” I nodded. eighty-nine days before “WE FOUND YOU A GIRLFRIEND,” Alaska said to me. Still, no one had explained to me what happened the week before with the Jury. It didn’t seem to have affected Alaska, though, who was 1. in our room after dark with the door closed, and 2. smoking a cigarette as she sat on the mostly foam couch.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  of fascination about the stayed in the palace. He missed councils, ignored his family and friends, ne-heart of the susceptible glected his public functions. He lost track of time. When a delegation came monarch. . . . "Inflamed to talk to him of urgent matters, he was too distracted to listen. If anything by wine, she now begins to sing / The songs of Wu to but Hsi Shih took up his time, he worried unbearably that she would be please the fatuous king; / angry. And in the dance of Tsu Finally word reached him of a growing crisis: the fortune he had spent she subtly blends /All rhythmic movements to her on the palace had bankrupted the treasury, and the people were discon-sensuous ends." . . . But tented. He returned to the capital, but it was too late: an army from the she could do more than kingdom of Yueh had invaded Wu, and had reached the capital. All was sing and dance to amuse lost. Fu Chai had no time to rejoin his beloved Hsi Shih. Instead of letting the king. She had wit, and her grasp of politics himself be captured by the king of Yueh, the man who had once served in astonished him. When his stables, he committed suicide. there was anything she Little did he know that Kou Chien had plotted this invasion for years, wanted she could shed tears which so moved her lover's and that Hsi Shih's elaborate seduction was the main part of his plan. heart that he could refuse her nothing. For she was, as Fan Li had said, the one and only, the Interpretation. Kou Chien wanted to make sure that his invasion of Wu incomparable Hsi Shih, would not fail. His enemy was not Fu Chai's armies, or his wealth and his whose magnetic personality resources, but his mind. If he could be deeply distracted, his mind filled attracted everyone, many with something other than affairs of state, he would fall like ripe fruit. even against their own will. . . . • Embroidered Kou Chien found the most beautiful maiden in his realm. For three silk curtains encrusted with years he had her trained in all of the arts—not just singing, dancing, and coral and gems, scented calligraphy, but how to dress, how to talk, how to play the coquette. And it furniture and screens inlaid with jade and mother-of- worked: Hsi Shih did not allow Fu Chai a moment's rest. Everything about pearl were among the her was exotic and unfamiliar. The more attention he paid to her hair, her luxuries which surrounded moods, her glances, the way she moved, the less he thought about diplo-the favorite. . . . On one of the hills near the palace macy and war. He was driven to distraction. there was a celebrated pool

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “I want to get something straight,” I whisper as my pulse starts to accelerate, and my inner goddess closes her eyes, reveling in the feel of his lips on me. He pauses momentarily before continuing his sensual assault. “Always so eager for information, Miss Steele. What needs straightening out?” he breathes against my skin at the base of my neck, continuing his soft gentle kisses. “Us,” I whisper as I close my eyes. “Hmm. What about us?” He pauses his trail of kisses along my shoulder. “The contract.” He lifts his head to gaze down at me, a hint of amusement in his eyes, and sighs. He strokes his fingertips down my cheek. “Well, I think the contract is moot, don’t you?” His voice is low and husky, his eyes soft. “Moot?” “Moot.” He smiles. “But you were so keen.” “Well, that was before. Anyway, the rules aren’t moot; they still stand.” His expression hardens slightly. “Before? Before what?” “Before…” He pauses, and the wary expression is back. “More.” He shrugs. “Oh.” “Besides, we’ve been in the playroom twice now, and you haven’t run screaming for the hills.” “Do you expect me to?” “Nothing you do is expected, Anastasia.” “So, let me be clear. You just want me to follow the rules element of the contract all the time but not the rest of the contract?” “Except in the playroom. I want you to follow the spirit of the contract in the playroom, and yes, I want you to follow the rules—all the time. Then I know you’ll be safe. And I’ll be able to have you anytime I wish.” “And if I break one of the rules?” “Then I’ll punish you.” “But won’t you need my permission?” “Yes, I will.” “And if I say no?” He gazes at me for a moment, with a confused expression. “If you say no, you’ll say no. I’ll have to find a way to persuade you.” I pull away from him and stand. I need some distance. He frowns as I stare down at him. He looks puzzled and wary again. “So the punishment aspect remains.” “Yes, but only if you break the rules.” “I’ll need to reread them,” I say, trying to recall the detail. “I’ll fetch them for you.” His tone is suddenly businesslike. Whoa. This has gotten serious so quickly. He rises from the piano and walks lithely to his study. My scalp prickles. I need some tea. The future of our so-called relationship is being discussed at 5:45 in the morning when he’s preoccupied with something else. Is this wise? I head into the kitchen, which is still shrouded in darkness. Where are the light switches? I find them, flick them on, and pour water into the kettle. My pill! I rummage in my purse, which I left on the breakfast bar, and find them quickly. One swallow and I’m done. By the time I finish, Christian is back, sitting on one of the barstools, watching me intently.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  comparison of these tendencies is needed to determine the door on which you will knock. Unless the rare event comes to your mind explicitly, it will not be overweighted. Applying the same idea to the experiments on choice from experience is straightforward. As they are observed generating outcomes over time, the two buttons develop integrated “personalities” to which emotional responses are attached. The conditions under which rare events are ignored or overweighted are better understood now than they were when prospect theory was formulated. The probability of a rare event will (often, not always) be overestimated, because of the confirmatory bias of memory. Thinking about that event, you try to make it true in your mind. A rare event will be overweighted if it specifically attracts attention. Separate attention is effectively guaranteed when prospects are described explicitly (“99% chance to win $1,000, and 1% chance to win nothing”). Obsessive concerns (the bus in Jerusalem), vivid images (the roses), concrete representations (1 of 1,000), and explicit reminders (as in choice from description) all contribute to overweighting. And when there is no overweighting, there will be neglect. When it comes to rare probabilities, our mind is not designed to get things quite right. For the residents of a planet that may be exposed to events no one has yet experienced, this is not good news. Speaking of Rare Events “Tsunamis are very rare even in Japan, but the image is so vivid and compelling that tourists are bound to overestimate their probability.” “It’s the familiar disaster cycle. Begin by exaggeration and overweighting, then neglect sets in.” “We shouldn’t focus on a single scenario, or we will overestimate its probability. Let’s set up specific alternatives and make the probabilities add up to 100%.” “They want people to be worried by the risk. That’s why they describe it as 1 death per 1,000. They’re counting on denominator neglect.”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  such a cool and who could best supply it. She set her sights on Napoleon early on. He was condescending manner that young, and had a brilliant future. Beneath his calm exterior, Josephine they are bound to notice sensed, he was highly emotional and aggressive, but this did not intimidate one is not doing it to please her—it only revealed his insecurity and weakness. He would be easy to en-them. The principle should always be not to make slave. First, Josephine adapted to his moods, charmed him with her femi-concessions to those who nine grace, warmed him with her looks and manner. He wanted to possess don't have anything to give her. And once she had aroused this desire, her power lay in postponing its but who have everything to gain from us. We can wait satisfaction, withdrawing from him, frustrating him. In fact the torture of The Coquette • 71 the chase gave Napoleon a masochistic pleasure. He yearned to subdue her until they are begging on independent spirit, as if she were an enemy in battle. their knees even if it takes a very long time. People are inherently perverse. An easy conquest has a lower value than a difficult one; we are only really excited by what is denied us, by what we —SIGMUND FREUD, IN A LETTER TO A PUPIL, QUOTED IN PAUL cannot possess in full. Your greatest power in seduction is your ability to ROAZEN, FREUD AND HIS turn away, to make others come after you, delaying their satisfaction. Most FOLLOWERS people miscalculate and surrender too soon, worried that the other person will lose interest, or that giving the other what he or she wants will grant the giver a kind of power. The truth is the opposite: once you satisfy some-When her time was come, one, you no longer have the initiative, and you open yourself to the possi- that nymph most fair bility that he or she will lose interest at the slightest whim. Remember: brought forth a child with whom one could have vanity is critical in love. Make your targets afraid that you may be with- fallen in love even in his drawing, that you may not really be interested, and you arouse their innate cradle, and she called him insecurity, their fear that as you have gotten to know them they have be- Narcissus. . . . Cephisus's come less exciting to you. These insecurities are devastating. Then, once child had reached his sixteenth year, and could you have made them uncertain of you and of themselves, reignite their be counted as at once boy hope, making them feel desired again. Hot and cold, hot and cold—such and man. Many lads and coquetry is perversely pleasurable, heightening interest and keeping the ini- many girls fell in love with him, but his soft young tiative on your side. Never be put off by your target's anger; it is a sure sign body housed a pride so of enslavement.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  With what kind of love do we embrace nature? Is there not a secretive anxiety and horror in it, because its beautiful harmony works its way out of lawlessness and wild confusion, its security out of perfidy? But precisely this anxiety captivates the most. So also with love, if it is to he interesting. Behind it ought to brood the deep, anxious night from which springs the flower of love. —SØREN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY, TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG AND EDNA H. HONG The lovely marble creature coughed and rearranged the sable around her shoulders. • "Thank you for the lesson in classics," I replied, "but I cannot deny that in your peaceful and sunny world just as in our misty climate man and woman are natural enemies. Love may unite them briefly to form one mind, one heart, one will, but all too soon they are torn asunder. And this you know better than I: either one of them must bend the other to his will, or else he must let himself be trampled underfoot. " • "Under the woman's foot, of course," said Lady Venus impertinently. "And that you know better than I." • "Of course, that is why I have no illusions." • "In other words you are now my slave without illusions, and I shall 374 • The Art of Seduction quickly turns back into tears. Jealousy and humiliation then precede the fi- nal moment when she gives him her virginity. (Even after this, according to the story, she finds ways to continue to torment him.) Each low she inspires—guilt, despair, jealousy, emptiness—creates the space for a more intense high. He becomes an addict, hooked on the alternation of charge and withdrawal. Your seduction should never follow a simple course upward toward pleasure and harmony. The climax will come too soon, and the pleasure will be weak. What makes us intensely appreciate something is previous suffering. A brush with death makes us fall in love with life; a long journey makes a return home that much more pleasurable. Your task is to create moments of sadness, despair, and anguish, to create the tension that allows for a great release. Do not worry about making people angry; anger is a sure sign that you have your hooks in them. Nor should you be afraid that if you make yourself difficult people will flee—we only abandon those who bore us. The ride on which you take your victims can be tortuous but never dull. At all costs, keep your targets emotional and on edge. Create enough highs and lows and you will wear away the last vestiges of their willpower.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  job and he wandered off, leaving us with just enough food in our bellies and just enough hope in our souls. When a windstorm damaged the tent, or one of the trucks that hauled the equipment had engine trouble, or a speaker blew, or a creditor demanded immediate payment, the financial strain increased. The men and women who traveled with Brother Terrell were in their early to midtwenties and completely dedicated to helping him spread the gospel. Mama and the others often signed their paychecks and put them back in the offering, trusting God to meet their needs. Betty Ann found it more difficult. In the eight years she had been married to Brother Terrell, she had watched his reputation grow and his ministry expand, but they still lived like poor people. All of the money that came in went to the ministry. There was no home, no stability, no reliable income. Loud and angry voices sometimes filtered through the walls of the Terrells’ bedroom all night long. Brother Terrell emerged the next morning looking beaten. My mother would sit and drink coffee with him and “try to encourage him.” Afterward, she counseled Betty Ann on how a minister’s wife had to support him, especially in hard times. One night in Huntsville, Alabama, as Brother Terrell stood in front of the prayer ramp, offering buckets in hand, the Woman Who Used To Be Big walked up and snatched the microphone from him. She had joined the tribes that followed us as we moved in the vicinity of their hometowns. Dockery, the toughest of the tent men, started toward the front to lead her back to her seat, but Brother Terrell waved him off. The woman held a ten-dollar bill by a corner and waved it over her head. “I’m giving my last ten dollars to Brother Terrell. God healed me of a tumor a few months back. Oh hondalie condalie.” Sufis twirl, Hindus chant, Buddhists sit in silence. Holy Rollers and charismatic Christians babble like fools or speak the language of the angels, depending on who describes the experience. Believers lapsed into speaking in “tongues” or glossolalia when their euphoria stretched beyond the bounds of ordinary language. The Woman Who Used To Be Big closed her eyes and began to jerk. Brother Terrell ducked a thrown elbow. When the jerking slowed, he thanked her and reached for the microphone. She backed him off with one hand. “When the doctor checked me out, he said what did the preacher do with the tumor? I said I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just know I was sick and now I’m well. Hondalie condalie. A mighty wind swept down from the top of the tent,

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Re-create this primal pattern in your seduction. First, shower your targets with affection. They will not be sure where this is coming from, but it is a delightful feeling, and they will never want to lose it. When it does go away, in your strategic step back, they will have moments of anxiety and anger, perhaps throwing a tantrum, and then the same childlike reaction: the only way to win you back, to have you for sure, will be to reverse the pattern, to imitate you, to be the affectionate, giving one. It is the terror of rejection that turns the tables. This pattern will often repeat itself naturally in an affair or relationship. One person goes cold, the other pursues, then goes cold in turn, making the first person the pursuer, and on and on. As a seducer, do not leave this to chance. Make it happen. You are teaching the other person to become a seducer, just as the mother in her own way taught the child to return her love by turning her back. For your own sake learn to relish this reversal of roles. Do not merely play at being the pursued, but enjoy it, give in to it. The pleasure of being pursued by your victim can often surpass the thrill of the hunt. Symbol: The Pomegranate. Carefully cultivated and tended, the pomegranate begins to ripen. Do not gather it too early or force it off the stem— it will be hard and bitter. Let the fruit grow heavy and full of juice, then stand back— it will fall on its own. That is when its pulp is most delicious. 392 • The Art of Seduction Reversal There are moments when creating space and absence will blow up in your face. An absence at a critical moment in the seduction can make the target lose interest in you. It also leaves too much to chance—while you are away, they could find another person, who will distract their thoughts from you. Cleopatra easily seduced Mark Antony, but after their first encounters, he returned to Rome. Cleopatra was mysterious and alluring, but if she let too much time pass, he would forget her charms. So she let go of her usual coquetry and came after him when he was on one of his military campaigns. She knew that once he saw her, he would fall under her spell again and pursue her.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The pattern repeated: the mo- ment he relaxed, she blindsided him with a sharp question; when he grew bitter, she lightened the mood. Like Kissinger, he found himself opening up despite himself and mentioning things he would later regret, such as his intention to raise the price of oil. Slowly he fell under her spell, even began to flirt with her. "Even if you're on the blacklist of my authorities," he said at the end of the interview, "I'll put you on the white list of my heart." Interpretation. Most of Fallaci's interviews were with powerful leaders, men and women with an overwhelming need to control the situation, to avoid revealing anything embarrassing. This put her and her subjects in con- flict, since getting them to open up—grow emotional, give up control— was exactly what she wanted. The classic seductive approach of charm and flattery would get her nowhere with these people; they would see right through it. Instead, Fallaci preyed on their emotions, alternating harshness and kindness. She would ask a cruel question that touched on the deepest whole business of eroticism is to destroy the self-contained character of the participators as they are in their normal lives. . . . We ought never to forget that in spite of the bliss love promises its first effect is one of turmoil and distress. Passion fulfilled itself provokes such violent agitation that the happiness involved, before being a happiness to be enjoyed, is so great as to be more like its opposite, suffering. . . . The likelihood of suffering is all the greater since suffering alone reveals the total significance of the beloved object. —GEORGES BATAILLE, EROTISM: DEATH AND SENSUALITY, TRANSLATED BY MARY DALWOOD Always a little doubt to set at rest—that's what keeps one craving in passionate love. Because the keenest misgivings are always there, its pleasures never become tedious. • Saint- Simon, the only historian France has ever possessed, says: "After many passing fancies the Duchesse de Berry had fallen deeply in love with Riom, a junior member of the d'Aydie family, the son of one of Madame de Biron's sisters. He had neither looks nor brains; he was fat, short, chubby-cheeked, pale, and had such a crop of pimples that he seemed one large abscess; he had beautiful teeth, but not the least idea that he was going to inspire a passion which quickly got out of control, a passion which lasted a lifetime, notwithstanding a number of subsidiary flirtations and affairs. . . . • He would 376 • The Art of Seduction insecurities of the subject, who would get emotional and defensive; deep down, though, something else would stir inside them—the desire to prove to Fallaci that they did not deserve her implicit criticisms. Unconsciously they wanted to please her, to make her like them.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  cover stories have been used with the same result: judgments are no longer influenced by ease of retrieval when the experience of fluency is given a spurious explanation by the presence of curved or straight text boxes, by the background color of the screen, or by other irrelevant factors that the experimenters dreamed up. As I have described it, the process that leads to judgment by availability appears to involve a complex chain of reasoning. The subjects have an experience of diminishing fluency as they produce instances. They evidently have expectations about the rate at which fluency decreases, and those expectations are wrong: the difficulty of coming up with new instances increases more rapidly than they expect. It is the unexpectedly low fluency that causes people who were asked for twelve instances to describe themselves as unassertive. When the surprise is eliminated, low fluency no longer influences the judgment. The process appears to consist of a sophisticated set of inferences. Is the automatic System 1 capable of it? The answer is that in fact no complex reasoning is needed. Among the basic features of System 1 is its ability to set expectations and to be surprised when these expectations are violated. The system also retrieves possible causes of a surprise, usually by finding a possible cause among recent surprises. Furthermore, System 2 can reset the expectations of System 1 on the fly, so that an event that would normally be surprising is now almost normal. Suppose you are told that the three-year-old boy who lives next door frequently wears a top hat in his stroller. You will be far less surprised when you actually see him with his top hat than you would have been without the warning. In Schwarz’s experiment, the background music has been mentioned as a possible cause of retrieval problems. The difficulty of retrieving twelve instances is no longer a surprise and therefore is less likely to be evoked by the task of judging assertiveness. Schwarz and his colleagues discovered that people who are personally involved in the judgment are more likely to consider the number of instances they retrieve from memory and less likely to go by fluency. They recruited two groups of students for a study of risks to cardiac health. Half the students had a family history of cardiac disease and were expected to take the task more seriously than the others, who had no such history. All were asked to recall either three or eight behaviors in their routine that could affect their cardiac health (some were asked for risky behaviors, others for protective behaviors). Students with no family history of heart disease were casual about the task and followed the availability heuristic. Students who found it difficult to find eight instances of risky behavior felt themselves relatively safe, and those who

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Stir within them feelings of discontent, an unhappiness with their circum- stances and with themselves. The feelings of inadequacy that you create will give you space to insinuate yourself, to make them see you as the answer to their problems. Pain and anxiety are the proper precursors to pleasure. Learn to manufacture the need that you can fill. 6 Master the Art of Insinuation page 211 Making your targets feel dissatisfied and in need of your attention is essential, but if you are too obvious, they will see through you and grow defensive. There is no known defense, how- ever, against insinuation—the art of planting ideas in people's minds by dropping elusive hints that take root days later, even appearing to them as their own idea. Create a sublanguage— bold statements followed by retraction and apology, ambiguous comments, banal talk combined with alluring glances—that enters the target's unconscious to convey your real meaning. Make everything suggestive. 7 Enter Their Spirit page 219 Most people are locked in their own worlds, making them stubborn and hard to persuade. The way to lure them out of their shell and set up your seduction is to enter their spirit. Play by their rules, enjoy what they enjoy, adapt yourself to their moods. In doing so you will stroke their deep-rooted narcissism and lower their defenses. Indulge your targets' every mood and whim, giving them nothing to react against or resist. 8 Create Temptation page 229 Lure the target deep into your seduction by creating the proper temptation: a glimpse of the pleasures to come. As the serpent tempted Eve with the promise of forbidden knowledge, you must awaken a desire in your targets that they cannot control. Find that weakness of theirs, that fantasy that has yet to be realized, and hint that you can lead them toward it. The key is to keep it vague. Stimulate a curiosity stronger than the doubts and anxieties that go with it, and they will follow you. Phase Two: Lead Astray—Creating Pleasure and Confusion 9 Keep Them in Suspense—What Comes Next? page 241 The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power. The only way to lead the seduced along and keep the up- per hand is to create suspense, a calculated surprise. Doing something they do not expect from you will give them a delightful sense of spontaneity—they will not be able to foresee what comes next. You are always one step ahead and in control. Give the victim a thrill with a sud- den change of direction.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  few brief encounters at the court, letting her catch glimpses of his wit, his audacity, his cool manner. She would begin to think of him when she was alone. Next she started to bump into him more often at court, and they would have little conversations or walks. When these meetings were over, Falling in love she would be left with a doubt: is he or is he not interested in me? This automatically tends toward madness. Left to itself, it made her want to see him more, in order to allay her doubts. She began to goes to utter extremes. This idealize him all out of proportion to the reality, for the duke was an incoris well known by the rigible scoundrel. "conquistadors" of both sexes. Once a woman's Remember: if you are easily had, you cannot be worth that much. It is Poeticize Your Presence • 283 hard to wax poetic about a person who comes so cheaply. If, after the initial attention is fixed upon a interest, you make it clear that you cannot be taken for granted, if you stir a man, it is very easy for him to dominate her bit of doubt, the target will imagine there is something special, lofty, and thoughts completely. A unattainable about you. Your image will crystallize in the other person's simple game of blowing mind. hot and cold, of Cleopatra knew that she was really no different from any other woman, solicitousness and disdain, of presence and absence is and in fact her face was not particularly beautiful. But she knew that men all that is required. The have a tendency to overvalue a woman. All that is required is to hint that rhythm of that technique there is something different about you, to make them associate you with acts upon a woman's attention like a pneumatic something grand or poetic. She made Caesar aware of her connection to machine and ends by the great kings and queens of Egypt's past; with Antony, she created the emptying her of all the rest fantasy that she was descended from Aphrodite herself. These men were ca- of the world. How well our people put it: "to suck vorting not just with a strong-willed woman but a kind of goddess. Such one's senses"! In fact: one associations might be difficult to pull off today, but people still get deep is absorbed— absorbed by pleasure from associating others with some kind of childhood fantasy fig- an object! Most "love afairs" are reduced to this ure. John F. Kennedy presented himself as a figure of chivalry—noble, mechanical play of the brave, charming. Pablo Picasso was not just a great painter with a thirst for beloved upon the lover's young girls, he was the Minotaur of Greek legend, or the devilish trickster attention. • The only thing figure that is so seductive to women. These associations should not be made that can save a lover is a violent shock from the

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  experiences are of a rarely easy or without setbacks. But once your victims overcome some of negative kind. The child their doubts, and begin to fall under your spell, they will reach a point becomes aware that he is where they start to let go. They may sense that you are leading them along, not loved or that his but they are enjoying it. No one likes things to be complicated and diffi-mother's love is not unconditional. The baby cult, and your target will expect the conclusion to come quickly. That is learns that his mother can the point, however, where you must train yourself to hold back. Deliver be dissatisfied with him, the pleasurable climax they are so greedily awaiting, succumb to the natural that she can withdraw her affection if he does not tendency to bring the seduction to a rapid end, and you will have missed an behave as she wishes, that opportunity to ratchet up the tension, to make the affair more heated. After she can be angry or cross. I all, you don't want a passive little victim to toy with; you want the seduced believe that this experience arouses feelings of anxiety to engage their will in all its force, to become active participants in the se-in the infant. The duction. You want them to pursue you, hopelessly ensnaring themselves in possibility of losing his your web in the process. The only way to accomplish this is to take a step mother's love certainly back and make them anxious. strikes the child with a force which can no more be You have strategically retreated before (see chapter 12), but this is dif- Give Them Space to Fall— The Pursuer Is Pursued • 389 ferent. The target is falling for you now, and your retreat will lead to pan- coped with than an icky thoughts: you are losing interest, it is somehow my fault, perhaps it is earthquake. . . . • The something I have done. Rather than think you are rejecting them on your child who experiences his mother's dissatisfaction and own, your targets will want to make this interpretation, since if the cause of apparent withdrawal of the problem is something they have done, they have the power to win you affection reacts to this back by changing their behavior. If you are simply rejecting them, on the menace at first with fear. He tries to regain what seems other hand, they have no control. People always want to preserve hope. lost by expressing hostility Now they will come to you, turn aggressive, thinking that will do the trick. and aggressiveness. . . . They will raise the erotic temperature. Understand: a person's willpower is The change of its character comes about only after

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Sometimes you can read bits of Corriere della Sera before you wipe your ass on the news. But in general the toilets run swift here and the shit disappears long before you can leap up and turn around to admire it. Hence Italian art. Germans have their own shit to admire. Lacking this, Italians make sculptures and paintings. French: The old hotels in Paris with two Brobdingnagian iron footprints straddling a stinking hole. Orange trees planted in Versailles to cover cesspool smell. Il est defendu de faire pipi dans la chambre du Roi. Lights in Paris toilets which only go on when you turn the lock. I somehow cannot make sense of French philosophy & literature vis à vis the French approach to merde. The French are very abstract thinkers—but they could also produce a poet of particularity like Ponge, who writes an epic poem on soap. How does this connect with French toilets? Japanese: Squatting as a basic fact of life in the Orient. Toilet basin recessed in the floor. Flower arrangement behind. This has something to do with Zen. (Cf. Suzuki.) — It was after twelve when we finally got to our hotel and we found we had been assigned a tiny room on the top floor. I wanted to object, but Bennett was more interested in getting some rest. So we pulled down the shades against the noonday sun, undressed, and collapsed on the beds without even unpacking. Despite the strangeness of the place, Bennett went right to sleep. I tossed and fought with the feather comforter until I dozed fitfully amid dreams of Nazis and plane crashes. I kept waking up with my heart pounding and my teeth chattering. It was the usual panic I always have the first day away from home, but it was worse because of our being back in Germany. I was already wishing we hadn’t returned. At about three-thirty we got up and rather languidly made love in one of the single beds. I still felt that I was dreaming and kept pretending Bennett was somebody else. But who? I couldn’t get a clear picture of him. I never could. Who was this phantom man who haunted my life? My father? My German analyst? The zipless fuck? Why did his face always refuse to come into focus?

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  Essentialism lays out not just a view of human nature but a worldview. It implies that your place in society is shaped by your genes. Therefore, if you are smarter, faster, or more powerful than others, you can justifiably succeed where others cannot. People get what they deserve and they deserve what they get. This view is a belief in a genetically just world, backed by a scientific-sounding ideology. What we experience as “certainty”—the feeling of knowing what is true about ourselves, each other, and the world around us—is an illusion that the brain manufactures to help us make it through each day. Giving up a bit of that certainty now and then is a good idea. For instance, we all think about ourselves and other people in terms of characteristics. He is “generous.” She is “loyal.” Your boss is “an asshole.” Our own sense of certainty tempts us to treat generosity, loyalty, and asshole-ness as if their essences actually live in those people, and as if they are detectable and measurable in objective terms. This not only determines our behavior toward them; we also feel justified in that behavior, even if the “generous” guy is just trying to suck up to you, the “loyal” woman is secretly self-serving, and your “asshole” boss has his mind on his sick kid at home. Certainty leads us to miss other explanations. I’m not saying that we are dumb or ill-equipped to grasp reality. I’m saying there is no single reality to grasp. Your brain can create more than one explanation for the sensory input around you—not an infinite number of realities, but definitely more than one. A healthy dose of skepticism yields a worldview that is different from the genetically just world of the classical view. Your place in society is not random but neither is it inevitable. Consider an African American child born into poverty. She is less likely to receive proper nutrition during her early years of brain development—circumstances that will, in particular, negatively impact the development of her prefrontal cortex (PFC). These neu rons are particularly important for learning (i.e., processing prediction error) and control; not surprisingly, the size and performance of PFC regions is linked to many skills that are required for doing well in school. Poorer nutrition equals a thinner PFC, which is linked to poorer performance in school, and less education, like not completing high school, leads back to poverty. In this cyclic manner, society’s stereotypes about race, which are social reality, can become the physical reality of brain wiring, thereby making it seem as if the cause of poverty were simply genes all along.

• From My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

  “I don’t want to kill it while it’s still inside of me,” she said. I rolled my eyes, took the bottle from where she’d left it on the coffee table, shook one out. “I’ll take one, too.” I opened my mouth, threw the pill back. I swallowed. “Fine,” Reva said, and pulled a Diet 7UP from her purse. She placed the Infermiterol onto her tongue like Holy Communion and sucked down half the can. “What do we do now?” I didn’t answer. I just sat down on the sofa and flipped through the channels until I found one that wasn’t covering the inauguration. Reva moved from the armchair to sit next to me to watch TV. “Saved by the Bell! ” Reva said. We sat and watched together, Reva chatting every now and then. “I don’t feel anything, do you?” and then, “Why bother having a kid when the world’s just going to hell anyway?” and then, “I hate Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. She’s so trailer park. You know she’s only five foot five? I knew a girl who looked like her in middle school. Jocelyn. She wore dangly earrings before anyone else.” And then, “Can I ask you something? I’ve been sitting on it for a while. Just don’t get angry. But I need to ask you. I wouldn’t be a good friend otherwise.” “Go ahead, Reva. Ask me anything.” • • • WHEN I WOKE UP three days later, I was still at home, on the sofa, in my fur coat. The TV was off and Reva was gone. I got up and drank water from the kitchen sink. Either Reva or I had taken out the trash. It was strangely quiet and clean in the apartment. And there was a yellow Post-it note left for me on the refrigerator. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life! xoxo” I had no idea what I’d said to inspire Reva to leave me such a patronizing note of encouragement. Maybe I’d made a pact with her in my blackout: “Let’s be happy! Let’s live every day like it’s our last!” Barf. I got up and snatched the note off the fridge and crumpled it in my fist. That made me feel a little better. I ate a cup of vanilla Stonyfield yogurt that I hadn’t remembered buying. I decided to take a few Xanax, just to calm myself down. But when I opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, my pills were gone. Each and every bottle had disappeared. My stomach dropped. I went slightly deaf. “Hello?”