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 The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Not wanting to go too far in either direction, we mostly live within the present. We react to what we see and hear and to what others are reacting to. We live for immediate pleasures to distract us from the passage of time and make us feel more alive. But we pay a price for all this. Repressing the thought of death and aging creates a continual underlying anxiety. We are not coming to terms with reality. Continually reacting to events in the present puts us on a roller coaster ride—up and down we go with each change in fortune. This can only add to our anxiety, as life seems to pass so quickly in the immediate rush of events. Your task as a student of human nature, and someone aspiring to reach the greater potential of the human animal, is to widen your relationship to time as much as possible, and slow it down. This means you do not see the passage of time as an enemy but rather as a great ally. Each stage in life has its advantages—those of youth are most obvious, but with age comes greater perspective. Aging does not frighten you. Death is equally your friend (see chapter 18). It motivates you to make the most of each moment; it gives you a sense of urgency. Time is your great teacher and master. This affects you deeply in the present. Awareness that a year from now this current problem you are experiencing will hardly seem so important will help you lower your anxiety and adjust your priorities. Knowing that time will reveal the weaknesses of your plans, you become more careful and deliberative with them. In relation to the future, you think deeply about your long-term goals. They are not vague dreams but concrete objectives, and you have mapped out a path to reach them. In relation to the past, you feel a deep sense of connection to your childhood. Yes, you are constantly changing, but these changes are on the surface and create the illusion of real change. In fact, your character was set in your earliest years (see chapter 4), along with your inclinations toward certain activities, your likes and dislikes. As you get older, this character only becomes more apparent. Feeling organically connected to who you were in the past gives you a strong sense of identity. You know what you like and dislike, you know who you are. This will help you maintain your self-love, which is so critical in resisting the descent into deep narcissism and in helping you to develop empathy (see chapter 2). Also, you will pay greater attention to the mistakes and lessons of the past, which those who are locked in the present tend to repress. Like everyone, you enjoy the present and its passing pleasures. You are not a monk. You connect to the trends of the moment and to the current flow of life. But you derive even greater pleasure from

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Once we got home I ran her a hot bubble bath. I went into the bedroom to tell her it was ready, but she’d already fallen asleep. I wasn’t tired. I woke her up around 6:00 P.M. to eat dinner. I’d made her favorite meal, but she just kind of picked at it with her fork. “You OK?” I asked her. “Yeah, sure,” she answered, just like I would have. “You coming to the bar after work?” She was quiet for a minute. “Can I meet you at home? [’m just so tired.” I instantly grew sullen because I was scared. “What’s wrong with meeting me at the bar?” “Can we talk about this another time?” she asked me. “Yeah, sure,” I said. That night I packed her a lunch with the little red hearts on the bag. She picked it up and smiled—at the bag, not at me. I felt strange the next morning when the other women came to work to meet their butches. As each person asked me where Milli was I grew more defensive and anery. Milli and I fought about it that morning. “Did it ever occur to you that I might be uncomfortable at the bar?” Milli shouted. That had never occurred to me at all. “Why?” I asked, puzzled. “Because there’s attitude toward us.” “What are you talking about? Lots of the women at the bar are pros.” I was aware I was shouting and I wished I would stop. Stone Butch Blues W1 “They're hometown girls who turn tricks to pay the rent. They’re ashamed of what they do. They aren't into the life in the same way as the rest of us. We're different.” I had never thought about it. I was reeling. “Get it, baby? That’s your people, not mine.” Her ice-cold tone chilled me. “My people are the women I dance with. That’s who watches my back.” Milli always was a pro’s pro. I grabbed my leather jacket and took the bike far outside the city limits before I pulled off the road and sat down to think. The rest of the week we were super-polite to each other around the apartment. I couldn’t get Milli to respond to me. She wouldn’t play. “I don’t know,” I told Edwin. “I’m used to being the one who shuts down.” “Give her time,” Ed said. “You both just need time.” Sunday morning I was almost asleep when Milli came in. She was in the bathroom for a long time before I realized something was wrong, She turned her face away when I came to the bathroom door. I sat down on the tile floor. “You OK?” I asked her. “Yeah, baby. Go to sleep.” After a few minutes I got her to look at me. Her 18 = Leslie Feinberg

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I wanted to spend the day there. Each room off the huge center hall was devoted to a different branch of science. One was named the Hall of Man—it turned out to include women, too. There were tooms that revealed the secrets of atoms, of universes. I wished I could stay and devour all that knowledge. I hoped somehow it would make sense of the world to me. But I could feel my bladder begin to ache, and the two bathrooms were in plain sight of the woman behind the souvenir counter. I just couldn’t deal with it. I left the secrets of the universe behind, got back in the car, and drove to Gloria’s house to use the bathroom in privacy. Grant and I sat in the car outside the doctor’s office. “T’m scared,’ she admitted. “Me too. When I was a kid,’ I told her, “I felt like there was no place in the world for me to fit. That’s how I feel now.” Grant nodded and exhaled cigarette smoke through her teeth. “T tell you, kid, I don’t know what’s worse. Never knowing what it’s like to be accepted or having what little bit you had taken away, you know?” I sure did. “C’mon, let’s go,” I urged her. The doctor’s name was stenciled on the translucent glass door. It looked dark inside. “Maybe he’s not here,” Grant said. I grabbed her arm. “I’m not pushing you,” I told her, “but P’ve run out of options.” Grant sucked in her breath. I tried the door—it was open. The doctor was in. Dr. Monroe led us to his inner office and gestured for us to sit down. I declined. I looked around his office walls. “Where are all your diplomas?” Grant glared at me. She addressed Dr. Monroe. “You remember I called you.” He looked me up and down. God, he hates us, I thought to myself. He licked his lips. “I believe it was concerning a hormone imbalance you both share.” What did this guy think, that we had tape recorders wired to out bodies? “Did you bring the money?” he asked. As we pulled out our wallets, Monroe pulled out his prescription pad. “I assume you’ve given this a great deal of thought,” he said, like he was really concerned. We both nodded. He showed us how to draw one cc of male hormones into a syringe and stick it into the thigh muscle. “You give yourself one shot every two weeks. Any questions?” “T’ve got some questions,” I said. Grant and the doctor both looked startled. “Like how long befote it works and are there any side effects?” “Well,” the doctor rolled a pencil between his index finger and his thumb, “that’s hard to say.” “Why is that?” I wanted to know. “Because this is rather,” he hesitated, “experimental. You may experience side effects: hair loss, weight gain, acne.” Great, I thought, just great.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  The corner of Dave’s mouth curled up. His accent again softened. “So, tell me, you think we were wrong to go to Germany and Japan in World War II?” “War is wrong.” “So we should have laid down for Hitler and Tojo? Been peaceful and stay out of war?” “Well—” “How about Korea. Okay to let the South fall?” “You don’t know that it would have.” “No, and you don’t know that it wouldn’t have. Let’s say it did.” “It wasn’t our fight.” “Say your brother gets in a fight. Someone starts a fight with him. You see the person who’s fighting him has a gun in the back of his pants, where your brother can’t see. You can reach it real easy. Do you grab it? Do you warn your brother? Do you just leave it be and hope for the best?” “My brother doesn’t fight.” “He’s got no choice this time.” A deep breath. “It’s—it’s not the same thing.” “You ’spose?” “I thought you didn’t give these things too much thought.” “Just makin’ repartee. Answer the question.” “Repartee.” Sarah snorted and looked away. “Answer the question.” “I’d grab the gun, but that’s different.” She kept her eyes away. “Knew it.” He nudged her elbow gently. “Don’t be so smug. Now you answer me something.” She turned back to him. “Shoot.” Dave pointed one finger out toward the desert and made a realistic gun sound complete with long echo. Sarah grabbed her mouth, then dropped her hand and allowed her smile to echo as well. “Okay. Say your house is on fire. You’re in your room on the first floor, your two kids are asleep in their bedrooms on the third floor, while some adult guests are in the basement.” “I got no wife, no kids, Sarah.” “Play along, Dave, there will be a prize at the end.” He snorted. “I like prizes.” “Do you save the guests, or your kids?” “Maybe I save the adults, and they help me save my kids.” “But what if you head for the basement, and the fire spreads beyond control. You manage to get the adult guests out, but at what cost?” “Well, me and the guests line up by the kids’ windows and have them jump into our arms.” “Your kids are twenty-two and nineteen respectively, and owing to your big-boned wife tip the scales at 270 pounds each.” Dave howled a deep laugh that nearly shook Sarah’s eardrums loose. Amidst laughs he said. “Well, I’m pretty strong.” “Y’all ain’t that strong.” She conjured a convincing drawl. “Of course I’d save my kids.” “I knew it!” “Don’t be so smug.” Dave looked into the side mirror. “Goddamn. I hate that. Pardon my cursing.” “I heard worse. What’s wrong?” “Guy’s drafting.” “Drafting?” “Yeah, they get up real close and the draft from the trailer pulls them along. Makes me nervous as hell.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Forge a battle-tested group. It is essential that you know your group well, its strengths and weaknesses and the maximum you can expect of it. But appearances can be deceiving. In their day-to-day work, people can seem motivated, connected, and productive. But add some stress or pressure or even a crisis, and suddenly you see a whole other side of them. Some begin to think more about themselves and disconnect from the group spirit; others become far too anxious and infect the group with their fears. Part of the reality you need to be on top of is the actual strength of your team. You want to be able to gauge the relative inner toughness of people before you are thrust into a crisis. Give various members some relatively challenging tasks or shorter deadlines than usual, and see how they respond. Some people rise to the occasion and even do better under such stress; consider such people a treasure to hoard. Lead the team itself into an action that is novel and slightly riskier than usual. Observe carefully how individuals react to the slight amount of chaos and uncertainty that unfold from this. Of course, in the aftermath of any crises or failures, use such moments as a way to review people’s inner strength or lack of it. You can tolerate a few fearful types who have other virtues, but not too many. In the end, you want a group that has been through a few wars, dealt with them reasonably well, and now is battle-tested. They do not wilt at the sign of new obstacles and in fact welcome them. With such a group, you can slowly expand the limits of what you can ask of them, and the members feel a powerful upward pull to meet challenges and prove themselves. Such a group can move mountains. — Finally, we like to focus on the psychological health of individuals, and how perhaps a therapist could fix any problems they might have. What we don’t consider, however, is that being in a dysfunctional group can actually make individuals unstable and neurotic. The opposite is true as well: by participating in a high-functioning reality group, we can make ourselves healthy and whole. Such experiences are memorable and life-changing. We learn the value of cooperating on a higher level, of seeing our fate as intertwined with those around us. We develop greater empathy. We gain confidence in our own abilities, which such a group rewards. We feel connected to reality. We are brought into the upward pull of the group, realizing our social nature on the high level it was intended for. It is our duty as enlightened humans to create as many such groups as possible, making society healthier in the process. Madness is something rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule. —Friedrich Nietzsche 15 Make Them Want to Follow You The Law of Fickleness Although styles of leadership change with the times, one constant

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  power in a complex industry. It made him wipe out all rivals and any possible competition, bend laws to his benefit, standardize all practices according to his desires, and in the end, depress innovation in the field. Let us divorce Rockefeller’s story from the usual emotional responses and simply look at him dispassionately, as a kind of specimen to help us understand the nature of highly aggressive individuals and what makes large numbers of people submit to their will. In this way we can also learn some valuable lessons about human nature and how we can begin to counter those who continually work to monopolize power, often to the detriment of the rest of us. Rockefeller grew up in peculiar circumstances. His father, William, was a notorious con artist. And from the very beginning, the father set a rather unpleasant pattern for the family: He would leave his wife, Eliza, and four children (John being the eldest) for months on end in their flimsy cabin in western New York and travel the region plying his various con games. During this time, the family would have barely enough money to survive. Eliza had to find a way to make every penny count. Then the father would reappear with wads of cash and gifts for the family. He was amusing (a great storyteller) but at times rather cruel and even violent. Then he would leave again, and the pattern would reset. It was impossible to predict when he would return, and the members of the family were continually on edge when he was there and when he was not. As a teenager, John had to go to work to help bring some stability to the family’s finances. And as he advanced in his career, he could not escape the anxieties that had plagued him in his childhood. He had a desperate need to make everything orderly and predictable in his environment. He immersed himself deeply in his accounting books—nothing was more predictable than the pluses and minuses on a ledger sheet. At the same time, he had great ambitions for making a fortune; his father had instilled in him an almost visceral love of money. And so, when he first learned of what could be accomplished with an oil refinery, he saw his great opportunity. But his attraction to the oil business may seem at first glance rather strange. It was a Wild West environment, totally anarchic; fortunes could be made or lost in a matter of months. In many ways, the oil business was like his father—exciting, promising sudden riches, but treacherously unpredictable. Unconsciously he was drawn to it for those very reasons—he could relive his worst fears from childhood and surmount them by establishing rigorous control over the oil industry. It would be like conquering the father himself. The chaos would only spur him to greater heights, as he would have to work doubly hard to tame its wildness.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  In any event, you should feel no shame about this need; there is nothing you can do about it anyway, since in the group we unconsciously mold our behavior to fit in. Better to be aware, to retain that inner distance, and to transform yourself into a conscious and superior actor, capable of altering your expression to fit the subgroup and impressing people with your positive qualities. Emotional contagion: When we were babies, we were highly sensitive to the moods and emotions of our mother; her smiles elicited our own, her anxiety made us tense. We evolved this high degree of empathy to the emotions of the mother as a survival mechanism long ago. Like all social animals, we are primed from an early age to sense and pick up the emotions of others, particularly those close to us. This is the third effect of the group on us— the contagiousness of emotions . When we are alone, we are aware of our shifting moods, but the moment we enter the group and feel the eyes of others upon us, we become aware on unconscious levels of their moods and emotions, which, if strong enough, can displace our own. In addition, among those whom we feel comfortable and sense that we belong, we are less defensive and more vulnerable to the contagious effect. Certain emotions are more contagious than others, anxiety and fear being the strongest of all. Among our ancestors, if one person sensed a danger, it was important that others feel this as well. But in our present environment, where the threats are less immediate, it is more like a low-grade anxiety that passes quickly through the group, triggered by possible or imagined dangers. Other highly contagious emotions are joy and excitement, tiredness and apathy, and intense anger and hatred. Desire is also highly contagious. If we see that others want to possess something or follow some new trend, we are easily infected with the same impulse. All of these effects have a self-fulfilling dynamic: If three people are feeling anxious, there must be a good reason for it. Now we become the fourth, and it gains a reality that others find compelling. The more people who feel it, the more others will catch it and the more intense it becomes within us as individuals. You can observe this in yourself by looking at your own emotions in the moment and trying to decipher the effect others might have had on them. Is the fear you are feeling related to something confronting you in an immediate sense, or is it more secondhand, derived from what you have heard or sensed from others? Try to catch this as it occurs. Discern which emotions are the most contagious for you, and how your emotions shift with the various groups and subgroups you pass through. Awareness of this gives you the power to control it. Hypercertainty: When we are on our own and think about our

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  of state, and she began meeting with him several times a day, giving him no spare hour to rest. Unlike her father, who had let his ministers run things so he could devote himself to hunting and pursuing young women, Elizabeth was completely hands-on; Cecil was astounded at how many hours she put into the job, working well past midnight. She was exacting in what she expected from him and the other ministers, and occasionally she could be quite intimidating. If he pleased her with what he said or did, the queen was all smiles and a touch coquettish. But if something turned out wrong or if he disagreed too vociferously, she would shut him out for days, and he would return home to stew in his anxiety. Had he lost her trust? On occasion, she looked at him harshly or even upbraided him in the thunderous style of her father. No, the queen would not be easy to manage, and slowly he found himself working harder than ever to impress her. As part of his plan for the men to slowly take over power, he made sure that all correspondence from foreign governments would be first routed to his desk. He would keep the queen in the dark on several important matters. Then he discovered that the queen had learned of this and behind his back had ordered all diplomatic correspondence to go through her. It was like a chess game, and she was playing several moves ahead. He got angry and accused her of undermining him in his work, but she stood her ground and had a very logical response: unlike Cecil, she spoke and read all of the major European languages and understood their nuances, and it would be better for all if she personally conducted diplomacy and brought the ministers up to date on foreign affairs. It was useless to argue, and he soon realized that when it came to handling such correspondence and meetings with diplomats, Elizabeth was a master negotiator. Slowly his resistance wore down. Elizabeth would remain in charge, at least for the first few years of her reign. But then she would marry and produce the necessary heir for England, and her husband would take over. It was unnatural for her to continue in this role as an unwed ruler. It was rumored that she had confided in several friends that she would never marry, and that she had an overwhelming fear of marriage based on what she had seen with her father. But Cecil could not take this seriously. She kept telling everyone that all that mattered was the greater good of England, but to keep England without an heir apparent was to risk a future civil war. Surely she could see the logic in this. His goal was simple: to get the queen to agree to marry a foreign prince in order to forge an alliance that would benefit England in its

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  since he was a boy, he had dreaded the possibility that he might become king. Compared with his affable grandfather, Louis was quite shy around people; he was an awkward young man, always uncertain and fearful of making mistakes. He felt the august role of French king to be beyond his capacities. Now, having ascended the throne, he could no longer disguise his insecurities from the court and from the French people. But as he prepared for his coronation, to take place in the spring of 1775, Louis began to feel differently. He had decided to study the coronation ritual itself so that he could be prepared and not make mistakes; and what he learned actually filled him with the confidence that he desperately needed. According to legend, a dove sent from the Holy Spirit had deposited some sacred oil that was kept at a church in the town of Reims and was used to anoint all kings of France from the ninth century on. Once anointed with this oil, the king was suddenly elevated above the ranks of mere mortals and imbued with a divine nature, becoming God’s lieutenant on earth. The ritual represented the marriage of the new king with the church and the French people. In his body and spirit, the king would now embody the entire populace, their two fates intertwined. And, sanctified by God, the king could depend on the Lord’s guidance and protection. By the 1770s, many French people and progressive clergymen had come to see this ritual as a relic of a superstitious past. But Louis felt the opposite. To him, the ancientness of the rite was comforting. Believing in its significance would be the means to overcome his fears and doubts. He would be buoyed by a profound sense of mission, his divine nature made real by the anointment. Louis decided to reenact this sacred ritual in its more original form. And he would go even further. At the palace of Versailles he noticed that many of the paintings and statues of Louis XIV associated him with Roman gods, a way to symbolically strengthen the image of the French monarchy as something ancient and unshakable. The new king decided he would surround himself with similar imagery for the public part of the coronation, overwhelming his subjects with the spectacle and the symbols he had chosen. — Louis XVI’s coronation took place on June 11, 1775, and in the crowd outside the cathedral that warm day was a most unlikely tourist—a fifteen-year-old youth named Georges-Jacques Danton. He was a student at a boarding school in the town of Troyes. His family had come from the peasantry, but his father had managed to become a lawyer, raising the family up into the expanding French middle class. His father had died when Danton was three, and his mother had raised him with the hope that Danton would continue in his father’s footsteps, securing a solid career.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I nodded. Ed came up behind me and slid her arm across my shoulder. “Happy birthday, buddy.” I wrapped my atm around her waist and pulled her close. 150 = Leslie Feinberg “Hey,” Grant shouted at us. “You're all standing in front of the refrigerator. What do I have to do to get a beer around here?” “You have to give me a hug,” I demanded. “Oh, c’mere,” she laughed and put her arm around me. “Now gimme a beer.” I could hear the sound of Tammy Wynette’s voice singing “Stand By Your Man.” I found Theresa in the living room and reached out my hand to her. Her body settled against mine. We moved together to the music. She ran her fingers through the back of my hair. I pulled her close, asking her body for comfort. She gave it to me. Her arms felt like the only safe haven on earth. “Baby,” she whispered, “are you OK?” “Yeah,” I answered. “I’m alright.” “Hi, honey,” Theresa stood in the kitchen doot. I crossed my arms. “Dinnet’s ruined.” Theresa came toward me with her arms extended. I ducked them. “Where were your” “Oh, baby,’ Theresa kissed my neck. “You forgot I was going to that meeting tonight after work, didn’t you?” “What meeting?” I pouted. “You still trying to fight your way into feminist meetings?” That hit home, as was intended. “No, it was to raise support for the Indians at Wounded Knee. I would have thought you’d be sympathetic to that.” Theresa scored a direct hit. She softened her tone. “Still no work, baby?” I shook my head. “Nothing. I never thought the jobs would dry up for this long. My unemployment runs out in five more weeks.” Theresa nodded and stroked my hair. “We’ll manage.” “Not if you keep ruining the dinners ’'m cooking you. See if I slave over a hot stove for you anymore.” “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she whispered. “It'll be OK. You'll get a job soon, you'll see.” She was wrong. By 1973 it seemed as though everyone we knew was laid off. Theresa lost her job at the university. That dashed our hopes of taking a vacation together—and we sure needed it. The months of me scouring for work and money getting tighter were taking their toll on us. We had to get away, but all our escape routes seemed blocked. “T don’t even want to go on vacation,” I told Theresa. “Are you crazy” she shouted. “We’re gonna go nuts if we don’t get out of here. We never go out, we never do anything.” I slumped at the kitchen table. “It’s getting too scary out there, Theresa. It feels like it’s getting worse. I hate to even go outside anymore.” Theresa sat down at the kitchen table. “You're depressed, that’s all. That’s just another reason why we need to get away from here.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “I’m telling you, it’s getting worse out there.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  faith was strong but simple. He was a fundamentalist who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible. His sermons were aimed at the emotions of his parishioners, and they responded in kind. Martin Jr., on the other hand, had a cool temperament. He was rational and practical. His father seemed more concerned with helping people in the afterlife, whereas the son was more interested in life on earth and how it could be improved and enjoyed. The thought of becoming a minister intensified these inner conflicts. At times he could imagine himself following his father’s career path. As someone deeply sensitive to any form of suffering or injustice, serving as a minister could be the perfect way to channel his desire to help people. But could he be a minister with such tenuous religious faith? He hated any kind of confrontation with his father, with whom it was impossible to argue. He developed the strategy of always saying yes to whatever his father said. His way of dealing with the tension inside him was to postpone any decision that might cause a rift. And so, when he graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, he decided to attend Morehouse, delighting his father. But in his mind he had a plan—he would study everything that interested him and decide on his own the path he would take. In the first few months he thought of a career in medicine, then sociology, then law. He kept changing his mind about a major, excited by all the subjects now open to him. He took a class in Bible studies, and he was pleasantly surprised at the profound, earthy wisdom in the book. There were professors at Morehouse who approached Christianity from a very intellectual angle, and he found this quite appealing. By his last year at Morehouse he had changed his mind yet again: he would become ordained as a minister, and he would enroll at Crozer Theological Seminary, located in Pennsylvania, for a divinity degree. Now his father was quite ecstatic. He understood it was best to let Martin Jr. explore religion on his own, as long as he ended up at Ebenezer. At Crozer, Martin Jr. discovered a whole other side to Christianity, one that emphasized social commitment and political activism. He read all of the major philosophers, devoured the works of Karl Marx, and became fascinated with the story of Mahatma Gandhi. Finding the life of an academic a pleasant one, he decided to continue his studies at Boston University, where he gained a reputation among his professors as a brilliant scholar in the making. But as he prepared to graduate in 1954 from Boston University with a PhD in systematic theology, he could no longer postpone the inevitable. His father had lined up for him an irresistible offer—a position as copastor at Ebenezer and a part-time teaching position at Morehouse, where he could continue the academic studies he loved.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Priday night I knocked on her door. It took a long time for her to answer. I heard her yelling something, I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Annie only opened the door partway. “Uh ...” she started. I could see a child wrapped around her legs. “It’s OK,” I interrupted. She wanted to cancel. I tried to conceal my disappointment. “Maybe another time.” “Wait,” she opened the door all the way. “I mean if you want to come in I could make you some coffee 202 = Leslie Feinberg ot something.” I did want to come in. The three of us stood awkwardly in her living room. “My babysitter, well it’s my sister’s kid actually, she got sick, so I have Kathy home tonight and she’s running a little fever.” I raised my hand to stop her. “It’s OK. I can see you've got your hands full. Relax!” Annie unwound a notch. “Sit down. Would you like something to eat? I could make us something,” “Aren't you sick of serving food?” She laughed. “It’s OK. I don’t mind.” “Want me to sit in the kitchen so you can function in one room?” She smiled and nodded. I set the small canvas bag I’d brought on the floor near the couch, out of sight. Maybe bringing a dildo had been too optimistic. Then again, being caught without one could present its own crisis. I tried to breathe past my anxiety as I followed Annie and Kathy into the kitchen. “Can I help?” I offered. She looked surprised, “Naw, that’s OK.” Kathy clung to Annie’s leg with one arm and clutched a stuffed rabbit with the other. I smiled at Kathy. “Does your rabbit have a fever, too?” Kathy looked at the rabbit and then at me without answering. “Later,” I told Kathy, “if you think your rabbit has a fever, I’ll take its temperature. Is it a girl rabbit ot a boy?” Kathy held the rabbit up in the air as though I could determine its sex. “Ah, it’s a girl”’ I surmised. Kathy looked up at her mother. “Go show him your rabbit,’ Annie urged. Kathy shook her head violently and clung to her mother for protection. “You like macaroni and cheese?” Annie asked. I hate macaroni and cheese. “That would be great,” I answered. Annie served up three plates of sliced ham, macaroni and cheese, corn and white bread. The first plate had small portions with pictures of the Flintstones still visible underneath. “Is that mine?” I asked Kathy. She shook her head and squeezed her bunny tighter. Annie set my plate in front of me and sat down. Kathy held up an empty glass. Annie jumped up to fill it with milk. “Want a beer?” she asked me while the refrigerator door was open. “Sure,” I said. “Need a glass?” I shook my head. She smiled.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  had become king, various finance ministers had warned him of an impending crisis if France did not reform its tax system. He had understood this and had tried to initiate reforms, but the nobility and clergy, fearing where this might lead, had become so hostile to such ideas that the king had been forced to back down. And now, with the state’s coffers nearly empty, the nobility and the Third Estate were holding him hostage, making him convene the Estates General and putting him in the position of begging for funds from his people. The Estates General was not a traditional part of French government; it was an anomaly, a challenge to the divine right of the king, a recipe for anarchy. Who knew what was best for France—his subjects, with their million different opinions? The nobility, with their own narrow interests and hunger to grab more power? No, only the king could navigate the nation through this crisis. He had to regain the upper hand over these rowdy children. The king decided upon a plan: he would impress upon them all the majesty of the monarchy and its absolute necessity as the supreme power in France. To do so, he would hold the Estates General at Versailles, something his advisers warned him not to do, considering Versailles’s closeness to Paris and all its agitators. Louis reasoned that most of the delegates of the Third Estate came from the middle classes and were relatively moderate. Amid the grandeur and all the symbols of the French monarchy, the members of the Third Estate could not help but think of what Louis XIV, the builder of Versailles, had created and how much they owed the monarchy for transforming France into a great power. He would hold an opening ceremony that would rival his coronation and remind all of the estates of the divine origin of his kingship. Having impressed them with the weight of the past, he would then agree to some reforms of the tax system, which the Third Estate would certainly be grateful for. At the same time, however, he would make it clear that under no circumstances would the monarchy or the first two estates relinquish any of their other powers or privileges. In this way, the government would get its necessary funds through taxes, and the traditions he was meant to uphold would remain unchanged. The opening ceremonies went just as he had planned, but to his dismay the deputies of the Third Estate seemed rather uninterested in the splendors of the palace and all of the pomp. They were barely respectful during the religious ceremonies. They did not applaud very warmly during his opening speech. The tax reforms he proposed were not enough, in their eyes. And as the weeks went by, the members of the Third Estate became increasingly demanding, its members now insisting that the three estates have equal power. When the king refused to accept their demands, they did the

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  351Lecture 36—The Challenge of 21 st-Century Christianity ENCOUNTERS WITH ISLAM õ In 1996, the Harvard political scientist Sam Huntington published a book called The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. This book, probably more than any other, has shaped the way Western Christians think about Islam. õ In the years immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a lot of people in the West were optimistic. They published reams of articles and books that said essentially the Cold War is over and the forces of democracy won. õ Huntington, however, said the Cold War may be over but the clash of civilizations has only just begun. He divided up the world into a few different civilizations: ✳ The United States, Canada, most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand. ✳ Latin America. ✳ The Orthodox world of Russia and Eastern Europe. ✳ The Hindu civilization of India, Nepal, and Bhutan. ✳ The Confucian civilization of China, Korea, and their spheres of influence. ✳ The Muslim world, which included the Middle East, Pakistan, Malaysia, parts of Africa, and other majority-Muslim countries. õ Huntington wrote that these Muslim lands tend to have “bloody borders:” that is, they tend to get into fights with non-Muslim neighbors. Islam, like Christianity, is an exclusive faith that denies any other religion can be true. 352 The History of Christianity II õ But unlike Western Christian communities, Muslims have not had a long history of adjusting their beliefs and practices to the values of pluralism, democracy, and the Enlightenment. It’s true that in centuries past, some Muslim empires extended remarkable toleration to non-Muslims, but these subjects had to acknowledge their inferiority and accept Muslim domination. õ Couple this cultural legacy with the population boom in many Muslim regions, and the fact that globalization has brought us all closer together while also leaving many Muslims feeling like economic have- nots, and you have a recipe for violence, particularly between Muslims and Christians. õ This was Huntington’s basic argument. Three years before his book came out, Islamic terrorists had attacked New York’s World Trade Center for the first time, detonating a truck bomb underneath the North Tower. After the attack, this “clash of civilizations” idea made sense to a growing number of Westerners.

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

  Then, as we were talking, a nurse came outside looking for me. “Are you the family?” she asked. “Yes.” “Sir, there’s a problem. Your mother was speaking a bit at first. She’s stopped now, but from what we’ve gathered she doesn’t have health insurance.” “What? No, no. That can’t be true. I know my mom has health insurance.” She didn’t. As it turned out, a few months prior, she’d decided, “This health insurance is a scam. I never get sick. I’m going to cancel it.” So now she had no health insurance. “We can’t treat your mother here,” the nurse said. “If she doesn’t have insurance we have to send her to a state hospital.” “State hospital?! What—no! You can’t. My mom’s been shot in the head. You’re going to put her back on a gurney? Send her out in an ambulance? She’ll die. You need to treat her right now.” “Sir, we can’t. We need a form of payment.” “I’m your form of payment. I’ll pay.” “Yes, people say that, but without a guarantee—” I pulled out my credit card. “Here,” I said. “Take this. I’ll pay. I’ll pay for everything.” “Sir, hospital can be very expensive.” “I don’t care.” “Sir, I don’t think you understand. Hospital can be really expensive.” “Lady, I have money. I’ll pay anything. Just help us.” “Sir, you don’t understand. We have to do so many tests. One test alone could cost two, three thousand rand.” “Three thousan—what? Lady, this is my mother’s life we’re talking about. I’ll pay.” “Sir, you don’t understand. Your mother has been shot. In her brain. She’ll be in ICU. One night in ICU could cost you fifteen, twenty thousand rand.” “Lady, are you not listening to me? This is my mother’s life. This is her life. Take the money. Take all of it. I don’t care.” “Sir! You don’t understand. I’ve seen this happen. Your mother could be in the ICU for weeks. This could cost you five hundred thousand, six hundred thousand. Maybe even millions. You’ll be in debt for the rest of your life.” I’m not going to lie to you: I paused. I paused hard. In that moment, what I heard the nurse saying was, “All of your money will be gone,” and then I started to think, Well...what is she, fifty? That’s pretty good, right? She’s lived a good life. I genuinely did not know what to do. I stared at the nurse as the shock of what she’d said sunk in. My mind raced through a dozen different scenarios. What if I spend that money and then she dies anyway? Do I get a refund? I actually imagined my mother, as frugal as she was, waking up from a coma and saying, “You spent how much? You idiot.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  control, even at the age of nineteen, over his fate; anything less would stir up the old anxieties from childhood. And with the money he inherited, he had the power to realize his dream of total independence. His love of flying reflected this character trait. Only in the air, alone and at the helm, could he really experience the exhilaration of control and release from his anxieties. He could soar high above the masses, whom he secretly despised. He could brave death, which he did many times, because it would be a death under his own power. His character came out even more clearly in the leadership style that he evolved in Hollywood and his other business ventures. If writers, directors, or executives came forward with their own ideas, he could only see this as a personal challenge to his authority. This would stir up his old anxieties about being helpless and dependent on others. To combat this anxiety he would have to keep control of all aspects of the business, overseeing even the spelling and grammar of the smallest publicity notice. He would have to create a very loose structure within his companies, making all of the executives fight among themselves for his attention. Better to have some internal chaos as long as everything flowed through him. The paradox of this was that by trying to gain such total control he tended to lose it; one man could not possibly keep on top of everything, and so all kinds of unforeseen problems would arise. And when projects fell apart and the heat became intense, he would disappear from the scene or conveniently fall ill. His need to control everything around him even extended to the women he dated—he scrutinized their every action, had them followed by private investigators. The problem that Howard Hughes presented to all those who chose to work with him in some capacity was that he carefully constructed a public image that concealed the glaring weaknesses in his character. Instead of the irrational micromanager, he could present himself as the rugged individualist and the consummate American maverick. Most damaging of all was his ability to portray himself as a successful businessman leading a billion-dollar empire. In truth, he had inherited a highly profitable tool business from his father. Over the years, the only parts of his empire that ran substantial profits were the tool company and an earlier version of Hughes Aircraft that he had spun out of the tool company. For various reasons, both of these businesses were run completely independently of Hughes; he had no input on their operations. The many other businesses he personally ran—his later aircraft division, his film ventures, his hotels and real estate in Las Vegas—all lost substantial amounts that were fortunately covered by the other two. In fact, Hughes was a terrible businessman, and the pattern of failures that revealed this was plain for everyone to see. But this is

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  stress into productive emotions. In trying to reach our goals—a book, a business, winning a political campaign—we have to manage a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty, making daily decisions on what to do. In the process, we learn to control our levels of anxiety—if we think too much about how far we have to go, we might feel overwhelmed. Instead we learn to focus on smaller goals along the way, while also retaining a degree of urgency. We develop the ability to regulate our anxiety—enough to keep us going and keep improving the work, but not so much as to paralyze us. This is an important life skill. We develop a high tolerance for stress as well, and even feed off of it. We humans are actually built to handle stress. Our restless and energetic minds thrive best when we are mentally and physically active, our adrenaline pumping. It is a known phenomenon that people tend to age more quickly and deteriorate more rapidly right after they retire. Their minds have nothing to feed on. Anxious thoughts return. They become less active. Maintaining some stress and tension, and knowing how to handle it, can improve our health. And finally, with a sense of purpose we are less prone to depression . Yes, low moments are inevitable, even welcome. They make us withdraw and reassess ourselves, as they did for King. But more often we feel excited and lifted above the pettiness that so often marks daily life in the modern world. We are on a mission. We are realizing our life’s work. We are contributing to something much larger than ourselves, and this ennobles us. We have moments of great fulfillment that sustain us. Even death can lose its sting. What we have accomplished will outlive us, and we do not have that debilitating feeling of having wasted our potential. Think of it this way: In military history, we can identify two types of armies—those that fight for a cause or an idea, and those that fight largely for money, as part of a job. Those that go to war for a cause, such as the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte fighting to spread the French Revolution, fight with greater intensity. They tie their individual fate to that of the cause and the nation. They are more willing to die in battle for the cause. Those in the army who are less enthusiastic get swept up in the group spirit. The general can ask more of his soldiers. The battalions are more unified, and the various battalion leaders are more creative. Fighting for a cause is known as a force multiplier —the greater the connection to the cause, the higher the morale, which translates into greater force. Such an army can often defeat one that is much larger but less motivated. We can say something similar about your life: operating with a high sense of purpose is a force multiplier. All of your decisions and

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  is strong enough or lasts for too long, it can become unbearable. We are willful creatures who crave power. This desire for power is not evil or antisocial; it is a natural response to the awareness of our essential weakness and vulnerability. In essence, what drives much of our behavior is to have control over circumstances, to feel the connection between what we do and what we get—to feel that we can influence people and events to some extent. This mitigates our sense of helplessness and makes the unpredictability of life tolerable. We satisfy this need by developing solid work skills that help us secure our career status and give us a feeling of control over the future. We also try to develop social skills that allow us to work with other people, earn their affection, and have a degree of influence over them. When it comes to our needs for excitement and stimulation, we generally choose to satisfy them through various activities—sports, entertainment, seduction—that our culture provides or accepts. All of these activities help us to have the control that we crave, but they require that we recognize certain limits. To gain such power in our work and relationships, we must be patient. We cannot force things. It takes time to secure our career position, to develop genuine creative powers, to learn how to influence people and charm them. It also requires abiding by certain social codes and even laws. We cannot do just anything to get ahead in our careers; we cannot force people to do our bidding. We can call these codes and laws guardrails that we carefully stay within in order to gain power while remaining liked and respected. In certain moments, however, we find it hard to accept these limits. We cannot advance in our careers or make a lot of money as quickly as we would like. We cannot get people to work with us to the degree that we want them to, so we feel frustrated. Or perhaps an old wound from childhood is suddenly reopened. If we anticipate that a partner could be ending the relationship, and we have a great fear of being abandoned stemming from parental coldness, we could easily overreact and try to control him or her, using all of our manipulative powers and turning quite aggressive. (Feelings of love often turn to hostility and aggression in people, because it is in love that we feel most dependent, vulnerable, and helpless.) In these cases, our hunger for more money, power, love, or attention overwhelms any patience we might have had. We might then be tempted to go outside the guardrails, to seek power and control in a way that violates tacit codes and even laws. But for most of us, when we cross the line, we feel uncomfortable and perhaps remorseful. We scurry back to within the guardrails, to our normal ways of trying for power and control. Such aggressive acts can occur

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  It is less intense than being in an actual crowd, but we can feel the presence of others in a phantom-like way through the screen (inside us and outside us), and we continually consult our smartphones as a kind of substitute pair of eyes upon us. The social force among humans is merely a more complex version of what all social animals experience. Social animals are continually attuned to the emotions of others within the group, aware of their role in the pack and anxious to fit in. (Among higher primates, this includes imitating those higher up in the rank as a show of inferiority.) They display elaborate physical cues that allow the group to communicate and cooperate. They have grooming rituals to tighten their bonds, and hunting in packs has a similar effect. They experience a shared energy when simply assembled together. We humans may seem much more sophisticated, but the same dynamic occurs in us as well, on a completely subverbal level. We sense and feel what others in the group are feeling. We have an urgent need to fit in and play our role in the group. We are prone to unconsciously imitate gestures and expressions, particularly from leaders. We still like to hunt in packs, through social media or wherever it is acceptable to vent our anger. We have our own rituals to tighten group bonds—religious or political assemblies, spectacles, warfare. And we most definitely experience a collective energy that passes through any group of like-minded people. What is most peculiar about this force as it exists within us is how little we discuss or analyze something that is so obviously common to our experience. Some of this may come from the fact that it is hard to study these sensations in a rigorously scientific manner. But there is also something willful about this ignorance; deep down, this phenomenon troubles us. Our automatic reactions in a group, or our propensity to imitate others, reminds us of the most primitive aspects of our nature, our animal roots. We want to imagine ourselves not only as civilized and sophisticated but also as individuals with conscious control of much of what we do. Our group behavior tends to shatter this myth, and historical examples such as the Cultural Revolution frighten us with our own possibilities. We do not like to see ourselves as social animals operating under particular compulsions. It offends our self-opinion as a species. Understand: The social force is neither positive nor negative. It is simply a physiological part of our nature. Many aspects of this force that evolved so long ago are quite dangerous in the modern world.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  207Lecture 21—The Church’s Encounter with Modern Learning offspring slightly different from another. If a variant promotes the survival of an individual then it’s more likely to be passed on through reproduction. Over time, the favorable variation will be more and more common, until eventually it will mark a brand new species. õ Thinkers had been playing with the broad idea of evolution for centuries, going back all the way to Aristotle. But Darwin’s innovation was twofold. First, he offered a concrete theory of the mechanism by which this competition and species variation happens—that is, natural selection. And second, he showed how this process could occur by chance, no designer required. THE CONTROVERSY õ The role of chance in Darwin’s theory was unnerving to Christians, even if he was ambiguous about whether it was truly random or divinely guided. It ran counter to the very center of the natural theology that pervaded most British universities, the comforting notion of a rational God who has it all planned out. One minister called Darwin “the most dangerous man in England.” õ Darwin shied away from stating explicitly what his theory might mean for Christian belief. His wife Emma was deeply pious. Darwin’s own private writings sometimes refer to a divine creator, while at other times he veered toward agnosticism, so it’s hard to know what he really thought. õ A small number of Darwin’s fans wanted to push the theory of natural selection into a full- frontal collision with organized religion. When some Christian leaders wrote critical reviews of Origin of Species, the English biologist Thomas Huxley went after them. Here is how he summed up the conflict: