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 My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

  “Well, that’s no good. Excuse me while I put the phone down for a moment.” I heard the whoosh of a toilet, some gutteral grunting that I assumed was the sound Dr. Tuttle made when she hoisted up her pantyhose, then a tinkle of water in the sink. She got back on the phone and coughed. “I don’t care what the FDA has to say: a nightmare is just an invitation to rewire your neurocircuits. It’s really a matter of listening to your instincts. People would be so much more at ease if they acted on impulse rather than reason. That’s why drugs are so effective in curing mental illness—because they impair our judgment. Don’t try to think too much. I hear myself saying that a lot these days. Have you been taking your Seroquel?” “Every day,” I lied. Seroquel did nothing for me. “Ambien withdrawal can be dangerous. As a professional, I must discourage you from operating any heavy machinery—tractors or school buses, whatnot. Did you try the Infermiterol?” “Not yet,” I lied again. Telling Dr. Tuttle the truth—that the Infermiterol had made me do things out of my nature for days at a time without my knowledge, that the stuff had ruined me for all other medication—would raise too many red flags, I thought. “Blacking out can be a symptom of shame-based disease,” I imagined she would say. “Maybe you’ve been infected by regret. Or Lyme? Syphilis? Diabetes? I’ll need you to see a quote-unquote medical doctor for thorough testing.” That would ruin everything. I needed Dr. Tuttle’s unwavering trust. There was no shortage of psychiatrists in New York City, but finding one as irresponsible and weird as Dr. Tuttle would be a challenge I didn’t think I could handle. “Nothing seems to be working,” I told her on the phone. “I’m even losing faith in the Solfoton.” “Don’t say that,” Dr. Tuttle muttered, gasping casually. I hoped she’d prescribe something stronger for me, stronger than even Infermiterol. Phenobarbital. DMT. Anything. But in order to procure such a prescription, I had to make it seem like it was Dr. Tuttle’s idea. “What do you suggest?” “I’ve heard from several esteemed colleagues in Brazil that regular Infermiterol use can activate a profound tectonic displacement. Followed up with some filigree work using low doses of aspirin and astral projecting, it’s proven to be quite effective in curing solipsistic terror. If that doesn’t work, we will reevaluate. We may need to rethink our approach to your treatment in general,” she said. “There are alternatives to medication, though they tend to have more disruptive side effects.” “Like what?” “Have you ever been in love?” “In what sense?” “We’ll cross that road when we come to it. As far as drugs go, the next level up in home-use heavy-sedating anesthetic is a drug called Prognosticrone. I’ve seen it do wonders, but one of its known side effects is foaming at the mouth. Still, we can’t discount the possibility that maybe—

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  He finally arrived much later, in a mood she had never seen before—preoccupied and quiet. Now it was her turn to make him open up. Finally he talked: he felt she was getting too close to him. What about her future? Whom would she marry? Cer- tainly not him, he said, for they were just friends. But it was unfair of him to keep her from seeing others. They should of course remain friends and have their talks, but maybe less often. When he finished and left, she felt a strange emptiness. She had yet to think much about love or marriage. Sud- denly she had doubts. What would her future be? Why wasn't she thinking about it? She felt anxious and upset, without understanding why. Lawrence continued to visit, but everything had changed. He criticized her for this and that. She wasn't very physical. What kind of wife would she make anyway? A man needed more from a woman than just talk. He likened her to a nun. They began to see each other less often. When, some time later, Lawrence accepted a teaching position at a school outside Lon- don, she felt part relieved to be rid of him for a while. But when he said goodbye to her, and intimated that it might be for the last time, she broke down and cried. Then he started sending her weekly letters. He would write about girls he was seeing; maybe one of them would be his wife. Fi- nally, at his behest, she visited him in London. They got along well, as in the old times, but he continued to badger her about her future, picking at that old wound. At Christmas he was back in Eastwood, and when he vis- ited her he seemed exultant. He had decided that it was Jessie he should marry, that he had in fact been attracted to her all along. They should keep it quiet for a while; although his writing career was taking off (his first No one can fall in love if he is even partially satisfied with what he has or who he is. The experience of falling in love originates in an extreme depression, an inability to find something that has value in everyday life. The "symptom" of the predisposition to fall in love is not the conscious desire to do so, the intense desire to enrich our lives; it is the profound sense of being worthless and of having nothing that is valuable and the shame of not having it. . . .

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  She did not say she was interested in another man, but his mere presence at her house, a look here and there, subtle gestures, made it seem that way. There is no more powerful way to hint that you are losing your desire. Make your interest in another too obvious, though, and it could backfire. This is not the situation in which you want to seem cruel; doubt and anxiety are the effects you are after. Make your possible interest in another barely perceptible to the naked eye. Once someone has fallen for you, any physical absence will create unease. You are literally creating space. The Russian seductress Lou Andreas-Salomé had an intense presence; when a man was with her, he felt her eyes boring into him, and often became entranced with her coquettish ways and spirit. But then, almost invariably, something would come up—she would have to leave town for a while, or would be too busy to see him. It was during her absences that men fell hopelessly in love with her, and vowed to be more aggressive next time they were with her. Your absences at this latter point of the seduction should seem at least somewhat justified. You are insinuating not a blatant brush-off but a slight doubt: perhaps you could have found some reason to stay, perhaps you are losing interest, perhaps there is someone else. In your absence, their appreciation of you will grow. They will forget your faults, forgive your sins. The moment you return, they will chase after you as you desire. It will be as if you had come back from the dead. According to the psychologist Theodor Reik, we learn to love only through rejection. As infants, we are showered with love by our mother— we know nothing else. But when we get a little older, we begin to sense that her love is not unconditional. If we do not behave, if we do not please her, she can withdraw it. The idea that she will withdraw her affection fills us with anxiety, and, at first, with anger—we will show her, we will throw Give Them Space to Fall— The Pursuer Is Pursued • 391 a tantrum. But that never works, and we slowly realize that the only way to keep her from rejecting us again is to imitate her—to be as loving, kind, and affectionate as she is. This will bond her to us in the deepest way. The pattern is ingrained in us for the rest of our lives: by experiencing a rejection or a coldness, we learn to court and pursue, to love.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  27Still in Parkington. Finally, I did achieve an hour’s slumber—from which I was aroused by gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress with a small hairy hermaphrodite, a total stranger. By then it was six in the morning, and it suddenly occurred to me it might be a good thing to arrive at the camp earlier than I had said. From Parkington I had still a hundred miles to go, and there would be more than that to the Hazy Hills and Brice-land. If I had said I would come for Dolly in the afternoon, it was only because my fancy insisted on merciful night falling as soon as possible upon my impatience. But now I foresaw all kinds of misunderstandings and was all a-jitter lest delay might give her the opportunity of some idle telephone call to Ramsdale. However, when at 9.30 A.M. I attempted to start, I was confronted by a dead battery, and noon was nigh when at last I left Parkington. I reached my destination around half past two; parked my car in a pine grove where a green-shirted, redheaded impish lad stood throwing horseshoes in sullen solitude; was laconically directed by him to an office in a stucco cottage; in a dying state, had to endure for several minutes the inquisitive commiseration of the camp mistress, a sluttish worn out female with rusty hair. Dolly she said was all packed and ready to go. She knew her mother was sick but not critically. Would Mr. Haze, I mean, Mr. Humbert, care to meet the camp counsellors? Or look at the cabins where the girls live? Each dedicated to a Disney creature? Or visit the Lodge? Or should Charlie be sent over to fetch her? The girls were just finishing fixing the Dining Room for a dance. (And perhaps afterwards she would say to somebody or other: “The poor guy looked like his own ghost.”) Let me retain for a moment that scene in all its trivial and fateful detail: hag Holmes writing out a receipt, scratching her head, pulling a drawer out of her desk, pouring change into my impatient palm, then neatly spreading a banknote over it with a bright “… and five!”; photographs of girl-children; some gaudy moth or butterfly, still alive, safely pinned to the wall (“nature study”); the framed diploma of the camp’s dietitian; my trembling hands; a card produced by efficient Holmes with a report of Dolly Haze’s behavior for July (“fair to good; keen on swimming and boating”); a sound of trees and birds, and my pounding heart … I was standing with my back to the open door, and then I felt the blood rush to my head as I heard her respiration and voice behind me. She arrived dragging and bumping her heavy suitcase. “Hi!” she said, and stood still, looking at me with sly, glad eyes, her soft lips parted in a slightly foolish but wonderfully endearing smile.

• From My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

  She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t heard before. She tapped the paper packages with her long fingernails. “My advice, don’t drink a lot of water before bed. If you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, you could hurt yourself.” “I’m not going to hurt myself,” I said. “I’m just saying, be careful.” I thanked her, complimented her on her gold nail polish, pressed the buttons on the payment pad, and left. There was a reason I preferred the pharmacy at Rite Aid over CVS and Duane Reade. The people who worked at Rite Aid didn’t take my moodiness to heart. I’d sometimes heard them cracking up behind the high shelves of pills, talking about their weekends, gossiping about their friends and coworkers, somebody’s bad breath, somebody’s stupid voice on the phone. I’d come in and bitch at them on a regular basis. I blamed them if a prescription was out of stock, cursed them when the line at the pickup window was more than two customers deep, complained that they hadn’t called my insurance company soon enough, were all morons, all uneducated, cruel, unfeeling thugs. Nothing seemed to provoke them to come back at me with anything more than a grin and an eye roll. They never confronted me about my attitude. “Don’t call me ma’am. It’s condescending,” I’d once said. Clearly the woman with the golden fingernails hadn’t gotten that memo. They were all so jovial and relaxed with one another, fraternal even. Maybe I was envious of that. They had lives—that was evident. I ripped into the paper bags on the walk home, threw away all the printed materials, and sunk the medicine bottles deep into the pockets of my coat. The pills rattled like maracas as I dragged myself back through the snow. I shivered violently in my ski jacket. My face, hit by the wind, felt like it was being slapped. My eyes watered. My hands burned from the cold. From outside the bodega, I saw the Egyptians putting up the Christmas decorations in the window. I went in, ducked under the fluttering red tinsel, got my two coffees, went home and swallowed a few Ambien and went to sleep on the sofa watching Primal Fear. • • • FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, thoughts of Trevor called me out of sleep like rats scrabbling inside the walls. It took all the self-control I had not to call him. It took Solfoton and a bottle of Robitussin one day, Nembutal and Zyprexa the next. Reva came and went, blathering about her latest dates and heartaches over her mother. I watched a lot of Indiana Jones. But I was still anxious. Trevor Trevor Trevor. I might have felt better if he were dead, I thought, since behind every memory of him was the possibility of reconciling, and thus more heartbreak and indignity. I felt weak.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  253-54, 255, 279-80, 323, 331, sensual appeal of, 402 dangers to, 66 352, 371-72, 397, 408-9, shared physical activity in, 398, disarming weakness of, 53, 56, 59 418-19, 423-24 400, 403 examples of, 58-65 slight physical contacts in, 395, fantasy world created by, 63 Pahlavi, Mohammed Riza, Shah of 396, 397, 400, 403 imps, 56-57, 59-61, 66 Iran, 313, 375 Picasso, Pablo, 25, 26, 45, 100, 379 independence in, 61 pain, mixing pleasure with, 155, 159, art as lure of, 366 innocents, 54, 58-59, 66 237, 369-79, 389, 391, 410, poeticizing of, 283 lamb as symbol of, 65 415, 418, 424-25 Picón, Jacinto Octavio, 231-34 naivete of, 58-59 anxiety induced by, 376-77, 378 Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, The, as potentially irritating, 66 bracing effect of, 377 31-32,50,65,263 psychological traits of, 55-57 breakups in, 369, 378 Plato, 74-76, 191, 206-7, 208 receptiveness of, 57 calculated absences in, 372, Plutarch, 8, 46-47, 261 spoiled children as, 61 373-74 poeticizing oneself, 277-84 sympathy elicited by, 53, 56, 59, 66 emotional highs and lows in, bit of doubt in, 282-83 undefensive lovers, 57, 63-65 371-74 calculated absences in, 277, wonder children, 57, 61-63 fear in, 369, 377-78, 379 283-84 youth and, 66 guilt in, 369 familiarity vs., 277, 281, 282, 284 neediness, 59, 74, 75, 87, 134, 293 harshness and kindness in, 374-76 halo as symbol of, 284 Nelson, Viscount Horatio, 304 jealousy in, 372, 373, 374, 377 idealizing one's targets in, 284 Nero, Emperor of Rome, 50 masochistic yearnings for, 47, 71, objects in, 283 New Prudes, 151-52 155, 237, 332, 357, 378 reversal of, 284 New York Times, 189, 396 precipice as symbol of, 379 self-image and, 281-82 Nicholas, Grand Duke, 396 reversal of, 379 shared experiences in, 283 464 • Index politicians, xx-xxi, 101, 183, 366, Aesthetic, 423 of Rakes, 20-21, 26-27, 28, 374-76 Ardent, 19-21 200-201 anxiety and discontent induced by, convention defied by, 26, 27 Rescuers, 157 209-10 cruelty of, 26 re-seduction, 415-29, 435 as Charmers, 81, 82, 83-85, 87, dangerousness of, 17, 24, 25, 26, calculated surprises in, 420-21 88-92, 93 27 embers as symbol of, 428 as Coquettes, 77 dangers to, 28 fight against inertia in, 417-18 as Dandies, 51 Demonic, 21-24 intermittent drama in, 423-25 disarming weaknesses of, 292 derivation of term, 25 maintaining lightness in, 418, 421, as Ideal Lovers, 38-39, 40 erotic vs. political, 24 423 insinuation used by, 216-17 extremism of, 26 maintaining mystery in, 418 isolation created by, 317 as female fantasy figure, 17, 20-21, political, 426-28 mixed signals sent by, 193 23, 24-25, 26 reversal of, 429 re-seduction by, 426-28 fire as symbol of, 27 timing of, 428 soft sell by, 446-48, 450-52 keys to, 24-27 resistance, xxiii, xxiv, 25, 154, 164, triangles created by, 201-2 masculine envy engendered by, 28 172, 177, 181, 183, 188, 215, victims chosen by, 174 mirroring by, 225-26 216, 236, 289, 376, 400, 412, war heroes as, 329, 446-48 obstacles overcome by, 21, 25, 449 see also Charismatics; oratory, se- 225-26

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Finally, unable to take it any longer, he one day took her hand and confessed his love. Horrified, the countess told him to leave and never come back. Stendhal flooded Viscontini with letters, begging her to forgive him. At last, she relented: she would see him again, but under one condition—he could visit only once every two weeks, for no more than an hour, and only in the presence of company. Stendhal agreed; he had no choice. He now lived for those short fortnightly visits, which became occasions of intense anxiety and fear, since he was never quite sure whether she would change her mind and banish him forever. This went on for over two years, during which the countess never showed him the slightest sign of favor. Stendhal never found out why she had insisted on this arrangement—perhaps she wanted to toy with him or keep him at a distance. All he knew was that his love for her only grew stronger, became unbearably intense, until finally he had to leave Milan. To get over this sad affair, Stendhal wrote his famous book On Love, in which he described the effect of fear on desire. First, if you fear the loved one, you can never get too close or familiar with him or her. The beloved then retains an element of mystery, which only intensifies your love. Second, there is something bracing about fear. It makes you vibrate with sensation, heightens your awareness, is intensely erotic. According to Stendhal, the closer the loved one brings you to the edge of the precipice, to the feeling that they could abandon you, the dizzier and more lost you will become. Falling in love means literally falling—losing control, a mix of fear and excitement. Apply this wisdom in reverse: never let your targets get too comfortable 378 • The Art of Seduction with you. They need to feel fear and anxiety. Show them some coldness, a flash of anger they did not expect. Be irrational if necessary. There is always the trump card: a breakup. Let them feel they have lost you forever, make them fear that they have lost the power to charm you. Let these feelings sit with them for a while, then pull them back from the precipice. The reconciliation will be intense.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  before him. At times I was intrusive. If you are always in their face, always the aggressor, they will be-like a stranger to him; at come used to being passive, and the tension in your seduction will flag. Use times he surrendered letters to make them think about you all the time, to feed their imagina-completely. Then when I threw my arms around tion. Cultivate mystery—stop them from figuring you out. Baudelaire's let-him, everything changed, ters were delightfully ambiguous, mixing the physical and the spiritual, and I embraced a cloud. teasing Sabatier with their multiplicity of possible interpretations. — C O R D E L I A DESCRIBING Then, at the point when they are ripe with desire and interest, when JOHANNES, IN SØREN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S perhaps they are expecting you to make a move—as Madame Sabatier ex-DIARY, TRANSLATED BY H O W A R D pected that day in her apartment—take a step back. You are unexpectedly V. H O N G AND EDNA V. H O N G distant, friendly but no more than that—certainly not sexual. Let this sink in for a day or two. Your withdrawal will trigger anxiety; the only way to relieve this anxiety is to pursue and possess you. Step back now and you It is true that we could not make your targets fall into your arms like ripe fruit, blind to the force of love if there were not some gravity that is drawing them to you. The more they participate, the more memory in us— to the their willpower is engaged, the deeper the erotic effect. You have chal-greatest extent an unconscious memory— that lenged them to use their own seductive powers on you, and when they re-we were once loved. But spond, the tables will turn and they will pursue you with desperate energy. neither could we love if this feeling of being loved had / retreat and thereby teach her to be victorious as she pur-not at some time suffered doubt; if we had always sues me. I continually fall back, and in this backward been sure of it. In other movement I teach her to know through me all the powers of words, love would not be erotic love, its turbulent thoughts, its passion, what longing possible without having is, and hope, and impatient expectancy. been loved and then having missed the certainty of —SØREN KIERKEGAARD being loved. . . . • The need to be loved is not elementary. This need is certainly acquired by Keys to Seduction experience in later childhood. It would be better to say: by many experiences or by a Since humans are naturally obstinate and willful creatures, and prone to suspicions of people's motives, it is only natural, in the course of any se-repetition of similar ones. I duction, that in some ways your target will resist you. Seductions, then, are believe that these

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  A month later Elvis gave his first public performance, outdoors in a Memphis park. He was as nervous as he had been at the recording session, and could only stutter when he had to speak; but once he broke into song, the words came out. The crowd responded excitedly, rising to peaks at certain moments. Elvis couldn't figure out why. "I went over to the manager after the song," he later said, "and I asked him what was making the crowd go nuts. He told me, 'I'm not really sure, but I think that every time you wiggle your left leg, they start to scream. Whatever it is, just don't stop.' A single Elvis recorded in 1954 became a hit. Soon he was in demand. Going onstage filled him with anxiety and emotion, so much so that he became a different person, as if possessed. "I've talked to some singers and they get a little nervous, but they say their nerves kind of settle down after they get into it. Mine never do. It's sort of this energy . . . something maybe like sex." Over the next few months he discovered more gestures and sounds—twitching dance movements, a more tremulous voice—that made the crowds go crazy, particularly teenage girls. Within a year he had become the hottest musician in America. His concerts were exercises in mass hysteria. Elvis Presley had a dark side, a secret life. (Some have attributed it to the death, at birth, of his twin brother.) This dark side he deeply repressed as a young man; it included all kinds of fantasies which he could only give in to when he was alone, although his unconventional clothing may also have been a symptom of it. When he performed, though, he was able to let these demons loose. They came out as a dangerous sexual power. Twitch- The Charismatic • 107 ing, androgynous, uninhibited, he was a man enacting strange fantasies be- He is their god. He leads fore the public. The audience sensed this and was excited by it. It wasn't a them like a thing \ Made by some other deity than flamboyant style and appearance that gave Elvis charisma, but rather the nature, \ That shapes man electrifying expression of his inner turmoil. better; and they follow him A crowd or group of any sort has a unique energy. Just below the sur- \ Against us brats with no less confidence \ Than boys face is desire, a constant sexual excitement that has to be repressed because pursuing summer butterflies it is socially unacceptable. If you have the ability to rouse those desires, the \ Or butchers killing crowd will see you as having charisma. The key is learning to access your flies. . . . own unconscious, as Elvis did when he let go. You are full of an excite- —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ment that seems to come from some mysterious inner source. Your unin-CORIOLANUS

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  create a wound in your victim, aiming at their soft spot, the chink in their THE LIBERTINE, TRANSLATED BY self-esteem. If they are stuck in a rut, make them feel it more deeply, "in-J O H N O Z E L L , IN OSCAR nocently" bringing it up and talking about it. What you want is a wound, M A N D E L , ED., THE THEATRE OF DON JUAN an insecurity you can expand a little, an anxiety that can best be relieved by involvement with another person, namely you. They must feel the wound before they fall in love. Notice how Lawrence stirred anxiety, always hitting For I stand tonight facing at his victims' weak spot: for Jessie Chambers, her physical coldness; for Ivy west on what was once the last frontier. From the Low, her lack of spontaneity; for Middleton-Murry, his lack of gallantry. lands that stretch three Cleopatra got Julius Caesar to sleep with her the first night he met her, thousand miles behind me, but the real seduction, the one that made him her slave, began later. In their the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort, ensuing conversations she talked repeatedly of Alexander the Great, the and sometimes their lives to hero from whom she was supposedly descended. No one could compare to build a new world here in him. By implication, Caesar was made to feel inferior. Understanding that the West. They were not beneath his bravado Caesar was insecure, Cleopatra awakened in him an the captives of their own doubts, the prisoners of anxiety, a hunger to prove his greatness. Once he felt this way he was easily their own price tags. Their further seduced. Doubts about his masculinity was his tender spot. motto was not "every man When Caesar was assassinated, Cleopatra turned her sights on Mark for himself— but "all for the common cause." They Antony, one of Caesar's successors in the leadership of Rome. Antony were determined to make loved pleasure and spectacle, and his tastes were crude. She appeared to him that new world strong and first on her royal barge, then wined and dined and banqueted him. Every-free, to overcome its hazards and its hardships, thing was geared to suggest to him the superiority of the Egyptian way of to conquer the enemies that life over the Roman, at least when it came to pleasure. The Romans were threatened from without boring and unsophisticated by comparison. And once Antony was made to and within. . . . • Today feel how much he was missing in spending his time with his dull soldiers some would say that those struggles are all over— that and his matronly Roman wife, he could be made to see Cleopatra as the inall the horizons have been carnation of all that was exciting. He became her slave. explored, that all the

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl had been covering the campaign, and as Election Day neared, she had an uneasy feeling. It wasn't so much that Reagan had focused on emotions and moods rather than hard issues. It was more that the media was giving him a free ride; he and his election team, she felt, were playing the press like a fiddle. They always managed to get him photographed in the perfect setting, looking strong and presidential. They fed the press snappy headlines along with dramatic footage of Reagan in action. They were putting on a great show. Stahl decided to assemble a news piece that would show the public how Reagan used television to cover up the negative effects of his policies. The piece began with a montage of images that his team had orchestrated over the years: Reagan relaxing on his ranch in jeans; standing tall at the Nor-mandy invasion tribute in France; throwing a football with his Secret Service bodyguards; sitting in an inner-city classroom. . . . Over these images Stahl asked, "How does Ronald Reagan use television? Brilliantly. He's Appendix B: Soft Seduction: How to Sell Anything to the Masses • 451 been criticized as the rich man's president, but the TV pictures say it isn't so. At seventy-three, Mr. Reagan could have an age problem. But the TV pictures say it isn't so. Americans want to feel proud of their country again, and of their president. And the TV pictures say you can. The orchestration of television coverage absorbs the White House. Their goal? To emphasize the president's greatest asset, which, his aides say, is his personality. They provide pictures of him looking like a leader. Confident, with his Marlboro man walk." Over images of Reagan shaking hands with handicapped athletes in wheelchairs and cutting the ribbon at a new facility for seniors, Stahl continued, "They also aim to erase the negatives. Mr. Reagan tried to counter the memory of an unpopular issue with a carefully chosen backdrop that actually contradicts the president's policy. Look at the handicapped Olympics, or the opening ceremony of an old-age home. No hint that he tried to cut the budgets for the disabled and for federally subsidized housing for the elderly." On and on went the piece, showing the gap between the feel-good images that played on the screen and the reality of Reagan's actions. "President Reagan," Stahl concluded, "is accused of running a campaign in which he highlights the images and hides from the issues. But there's no evidence that the charges will hurt him because when people see the president on television, he makes them feel good, about America, about themselves, and about him." Stahl depended on the good will of the Reagan people in covering the White House, but her piece was strongly negative, so she braced herself for trouble. Yet a senior White House official telephoned her that evening:

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

  Irritated that you spend money on clothing he never wears? Or perhaps you’re sad that your little boy has grown up and you miss the exuberance of his childhood. If all this introspection sounds implausible, realize that people pay good money to therapists and life coaches for exactly this purpose: to help them reframe situations, that is, find the most useful categorization in the service of action. You can do it yourself and become an expert categorizer of emotion with enough practice, and it gets easier with repetition. Fine-grained categorizations have been shown to beat two other popular approaches for “regulating” emotions, in a study about fear of spiders. The first approach, called cognitive reappraisal, taught subjects to describe the spider in a nonthreatening way: “Sitting in front of me is a little spider, and it’s safe.” The second approach was distraction, having the subjects pay attention to something unrelated instead of the spider. The third was to categorize sensations with greater granularity, such as: “In front of me is an ugly spider and it is disgusting, nerve-wracking, and yet, intriguing.” The third approach was the most effective in helping people with arachnophobia to be less anxious when observing a spider and to actually approach spiders. The effects lasted a week beyond the experiment, too. 1 5 Higher emotional granularity has other benefits for a satisfying life. In a collection of scientific studies, people who could distinguish finely among their unpleasant feelings—those “fifty shades of feeling crappy”—were 30 percent more flexible when regulating their emotions, less likely to drink excessively when stressed, and less likely to retaliate aggressively against someone who has hurt them. For people who suffer from schizophrenia, those who exhibit higher emotional granularity report better relationships with family and friends, compared to those who exhibit lower granularity, and are better able to choose the correct action in social situations. 1 6 In contrast, lower emotional granularity is associated with all sorts of afflictions. People who have major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders, borderline personality disorder, or who just experience more anxiety and depressed feelings all tend to exhibit lower granularity for negative emotion. People who are diagnosed with schizophrenia exhibit low granularity for distinguishing positive from negative emotions. To be clear, nobody is claiming that low granularity causes these disorders, but it conceivably plays some role. 1 7 After improving your emotional granularity, another way to hone your concepts, which is popular with therapists and self-help books, is to keep track of your positive experiences each day. Can you find anything that can make you smile, even briefly? Each time you attend to positive things, you tweak your conceptual system, reinforcing concepts about those positive events and making them salient in your mental model of the world.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  directly linked to their libido, their erotic desire. When your victims are failure; when the child passively waiting for you, their erotic level is low. When they turn pursuer, realizes that the effort is a getting involved in the process, brimming with tension and anxiety, the failure. And now something very strange temperature is raised. So raise it as high as you can. takes place, something When you withdraw, make it subtle; you are instilling unease. Your which is foreign to our coldness or distance should dawn on your targets when they are alone, in conscious thinking but the form of a poisonous doubt creeping into their mind. Their paranoia which is very near to the infantile way. Instead of will become self-generating. Your subtle step back will make them want to grasping the object directly possess you, so they will willingly advance into your arms without being and taking possession of it pushed. This is different from the strategy in chapter 20, in which you are in an aggressive way, the child identifies with the inflicting deep wounds, creating a pattern of pain and pleasure. There the object as it was before. The goal is to make your victims weak and dependent, here it is to make them child does the same that active and aggressive. Which strategy you prefer to use (the two cannot be the mother did to him in that happy time which has combined) depends on what you want and the proclivities of your victim. passed. The process is very In Søren Kierkegaard's The Seducer's Diary, Johannes aims to seduce the illuminating because it young and beautiful Cordelia. He begins by being rather intellectual with shapes the pattern of love in general. The little boy her, and slowly intriguing her. Then he sends her letters that are romantic thus demonstrates in his and seductive. Now her fascination blossoms into love. Although in person own behavior what he he remains a little distant, she senses in him great depths and is certain that wants his mother to do to he loves her. Then one day, while they're talking, Cordelia has a strange him, how she should behave to him. He sensation: something about him is different. He seems more interested in announces this wish by ideas than in her. Over the next few days, this doubt gets stronger—the let- displaying his tenderness ters are a little less romantic, something is missing. Feeling anxious, she and affection toward his mother who gave these slowly turns aggressive, becomes the pursuer instead of the pursued. The before to him. It is an seduction is now much more exciting, at least for Johannes. attempt to overcome the Johannes's step back is subtle; he merely gives Cordelia the impression despair and sense of loss in taking over the role of the

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  We came to know the more posh sort of campsite with indoor toilets and a bar with a jukebox blaring the Beatles. But most of the time (this being August and every burgher in Europe being on a camping vacation with his 2.5 children), we found the better campsites filled and had to pitch our tent by the side of the road (and crap squatting with the weeds tickling our asses and the horseflies zooming hideously close to our assholes to alight upon the fresh turds). We came to know the Autostrada del Sole with its phantasmagoric Pavese auto-grills—Fellini visions of cellophane-wrapped candy, mountains of toys, barrels of silver-foil-wrapped panetone, gift- ribboned jam pots, and tricycles trailing streamers of lollipops. We came to know the Italian madmen who race their Fiat Cinquecenti ninety miles an hour, but always stop to cross themselves and drop a few lire in the collection box at a roadside Jesus. We came to know dozens of major and minor airports in Germany and France and Italy, because at that point in the day when the second round of beers wore off and my massive depression reared its ugly head once more (along with secondary symptoms of headache and hangover), I would panic and command Adrian to drive me to the nearest airport. He never said no. Oh he would become silent and act disappointed with me, but he never directly opposed any clearly stated wish of mine. To the nearest Flughafen or aeroporto we went, getting lost and asking directions a dozen times along the way. When we got there we inevitably found out that the next plane was not for two days, or that it was booked solid (Europa in August: tout le monde en vacances), or that it had left two minutes ago. And then there would be a bar at the airport and we would drink more beer and Adrian would kiss me and joke with me and grab my ass affectionately and talk about our shared adventure. So off we’d go again in good spirits for the time being. After all, I wasn’t entirely sure I had any other place to go. Our tour was hardly a leisurely pleasure jaunt. If we looped and zigzagged and went round in circles, it was because our itinerary took its shape not from landmarks or Michelin three-star attractions, but from my own vertiginous moods—and, to a lesser extent, Adrian’s. We zigzagged from depression to depression, looped around drunken sprees, circled good moments. Our itinerary had no geographical rhyme or reason, but of course, I can only see that in retrospect when I list the sites we visited.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  The necessity of being constantly on the lookout for his little moustache and open shirt—or for his baldish pate and broad shoulders—led me to a profound study of all cars on the road—behind, before, alongside, coming, going, every vehicle under the dancing sun: the quiet vacationist’s automobile with the box of Tender-Touch tissues in the back window; the recklessly speeding jalopy full of pale children with a shaggy dog’s head protruding, and a crumpled mudguard; the bachelor’s tudor sedan crowded with suits on hangers; the huge fat house trailer weaving in front, immune to the Indian file of fury boiling behind it; the car with the young female passenger politely perched in the middle of the front seat to be closer to the young male driver; the car carrying on its roof a red boat bottom up … The gray car slowing up before us, the gray car catching up with us. We were in mountain country, somewhere between Snow and Champion, and rolling down an almost imperceptible grade, when I had my next distinct view of Detective Paramour Trapp. The gray mist behind us had deepened and concentrated into the compactness of a Dominion Blue sedan. All of a sudden, as if the car I drove responded to my poor heart’s pangs, we were slithering from side to side, with something making a helpless plap-plap-plap under us. “You got a flat, mister,” said cheerful Lo.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  meaning. Make everything suggestive. Insinuating Desire One evening in the 1770s, a young man went to the Paris Opera to meet his lover, the Countess de . The couple had been fighting, and he was anxious to see her again. The countess had not arrived yet at her box, but from an adjacent one a friend of hers, Madame de T , called out to the young man to join her, remarking that it was an excellent stroke of luck that they had met that evening—he must keep her company As we were about to enter on a trip she had to take. The young man wanted urgently to see the the chamber, she stopped me. "Remember," she said countess, but Madame was charming and insistent and he agreed to go with gravely, "you are supposed her. Before he could ask why or where, she quickly escorted him to her never to have seen, never carriage outside, which then sped off. even suspected, the Now the young man enjoined his hostess to tell him where she was sanctuary you're about to enter. . . ." • . . . All this taking him. At first she just laughed, but finally she told him: to her hus- was like an initiation rite. band's château. The couple had been estranged, but had decided to recon- She led me by the hand cile; her husband was a bore, however, and she felt a charming young man across a small, dark corridor. My heart was like himself would liven things up. The young man was intrigued: Madame pounding as though I were was an older woman, with a reputation for being rather formal, though he a young proselyte being put also knew she had a lover, a marquis. Why had she chosen him for this ex- to the test before the celebration oj the great cursion? Her story was not quite credible. Then, as they traveled, she sug- mysteries. . . . • "But gested he look out the window at the passing landscape, as she was doing. your Countess . . . " she He had to lean over toward her to do so, and just as he did, the carriage said, stopping. I was about jolted. She grabbed his hand and fell into his arms. She stayed there for a to reply when the doors opened; my answer was moment, then pulled away from him rather abruptly. After an awkward si- interrupted by admiration. lence, she said, "Do you intend to convince me of my imprudence in your I was astonished, regard?" He protested that the incident had been an accident and reassured delighted, I no longer know what became of me, her he would behave himself. In truth, however, having her in his arms had and I began in good faith made him think otherwise. to believe in magic. . . . In

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Anti-Seducers come in many shapes and kinds, but almost all of them share a single attribute, the source of their repellence: insecurity. We are all insecure, and we suffer for it. Yet we are able to surmount these feelings at times; a seductive engagement can bring us out of our usual self-absorption, and to the degree that we seduce or are seduced, we feel charged and confident. Anti-Seducers, however, are insecure to such a de- Count Lodovico then gree that they cannot be drawn into the seductive process. Their needs, remarked with a smile: "I promise you that our their anxieties, their self-consciousness close them off. They interpret the sensible courtier will never slightest ambiguity on your part as a slight to their ego; they see the merest act so stupidly to gain a hint of withdrawal as a betrayal, and are likely to complain bitterly about it. woman's favor." • Cesare It seems easy: Anti-Seducers repel, so be repelled—avoid them. Unfor- Gonzaga replied: "Nor so stupidly as a gentleman I tunately, however, many Anti-Seducers cannot be detected as such at first remember, of some repute, glance. They are more subtle, and unless you are careful they will ensnare whom to spare men's you in a most unsatisfying relationship. You must look for clues to their blushes I don't wish to mention by name. " • self-involvement and insecurity: perhaps they are ungenerous, or they argue "Well, at least tell us what with unusual tenacity, or are excessively judgmental. Perhaps they lavish he did," said the Duchess. you with undeserved praise, declaring their love before knowing anything • Then Cesare continued: "He was loved by a very about you. Or, most important, they pay no attention to details. Since they great lady, and at her cannot see what makes you different, they cannot surprise you with nu- request he came secretly to anced attention. the town where she was. After he had seen her and It is critical to recognize anti-seductive qualities not only in others but enjoyed her company for as also in ourselves. Almost all of us have one or two of the Anti-Seducer's long as she would let him qualities latent in our character, and to the extent that we can consciously in the time, he sighed and root them out, we become more seductive. A lack of generosity, for in- wept bitterly, to show the anguish he was suffering at stance, need not signal an Anti-Seducer if it is a person's only fault, but an having to leave her, and he ungenerous person is seldom truly attractive. Seduction implies opening begged her never to forget yourself up, even if only for the purposes of deception; being unable to him; and then he added that she should pay for his

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The best way to avoid entanglements with Anti-Seducers is to recognize them right away and give them a wide berth, but they often deceive us. Involvements with these types are painful, and are hard to disengage from, because the more emotional response you show, the more engaged you seem to be. Do not get angry—that may only encourage them or exacerbate their anti-seductive tendencies. Instead, act distant and indifferent, pay no attention to them, make them feel how little they matter to you. The best antidote to an Anti-Seducer is often to be anti-seductive yourself. Cleopatra had a devastating effect on every man who crossed her path. Octavius—the future Emperor Augustus, and the man who would defeat and destroy Cleopatra's lover Mark Antony—was well aware of her power, and defended himself against it by being always extremely amiable with her, courteous to the extreme, but never showing the slightest emotion, whether of interest or dislike. In other words, he treated her as if she were any other woman. Facing this front, she could not sink her hooks into him. Octavius made anti-seduction his defense against the most irresistible woman in history. Remember: seduction is a game of attention, of slowly filling the other person's mind with your presence. Distance and inattention will create the opposite effect, and can be used as a tactic when the need arises. Finally, if you really want to "anti-seduce," simply feign the qualities listed at the beginning of the chapter. Nag; talk a lot, particularly about yourself; dress against the other person's tastes; pay no attention to detail; suffocate, and so on. A word of warning: with the arguing type, the Windbag, never talk back too much. Words will only fan the flames. Adopt the Queen Victoria strategy: nod, seem to agree, then find an excuse to cut the conversation short. This is the only defense. The Eighteen Types The people around you are all potential victims of a seduction, but first you must know what type of vic- tim you are dealing with. Victims are categorized by what they feel they are missing in life—ad- venture, attention, romance, a naughty expe- rience, mental or physical stimulation, etc. Once you identify their type, you have the necessary ingredients for a seduc- tion: you will be the one to give them what they lack and cannot get on their own. In studying potential victims, learn to see the reality behind the ap- pearance. A timid person may yearn to play the star; a prude may long for a trans- gressive thrill. Never try to seduce your own type. o o o o o o Victim Theory

• 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)

  Letting your targets feel that your affection is neither temporary nor superficial will often make them fall deeper under your spell. In some, though, it can arouse an anxiety: the fear of commitment, of a claustrophobic relationship with no exits. Never let your spiritual lures seem to be leading in that direction, then. To focus attention on the distant future may implicitly constrict their freedom; you should be seducing them, not offering to marry them. What you want is to make them lose themselves in the moment, experiencing the timeless depth of your feelings in the present tense. Religious ecstasy is about intensity, not temporal extensity. Giovanni Casanova used many spiritual lures in his seductions—the occult, anything that would inspire lofty sentiments. For the time that he was involved with a woman, she would feel that he would do anything for her, that he was not just using her only to abandon her. But she also knew that when it became convenient to end the affair, he would cry, give her a magnificent gift, then quietly leave. This was just what many young women wanted—a temporary diversion from marriage or an oppressive family. Sometimes pleasure is best when we know it is fleeting. Mix Pleasure with Pain The greatest mistake in seduction is being too nice. At first, perhaps, your kindness is charming, but it soon grows monotonous; you are trying too hard to please, and seem insecure. Instead of overwhelming your targets with niceness, try inflicting some pain. Lure them in with focused attention, then change direction, appearing suddenly uninterested. Make them feel guilty and insecure. Even instigate a breakup, subjecting them to an emptiness and pain that will give you room to maneuver— now a rapprochement, an apology, a return to your earlier kindness, will turn them weak at the knees. The lower the lows you create, the greater the highs. To heighten the erotic charge, create the excitement of fear. The Emotional Roller Coaster One hot summer afternoon in 1894, Don Mateo Díaz, a thirty-eight-year-old resident of Seville, decided to visit a local tobacco factory Because of his connections Don Mateo was allowed to tour the place, but his interest was not in the business side. Don Mateo liked young girls, and hundreds of them worked in the factory. Just as he had expected, that day many of them were in a state of near undress because of the heat—it was quite a spectacle. He enjoyed the sights for a while, but the noise and the The more one pleases generally, the less one temperature soon got to him. As he was heading for the door, though, a pleases profoundly. worker of no more than sixteen called out to him: "Caballero, if you will —STENDHAL, LOVE, give me a penny I will sing you a little song." TRANSLATED BY GILBERT AND The girl's name was Conchita Pérez, and she looked young and inno- SUZANNE SALE