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 In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  These sufferers tend to be plagued with dissociative symptoms, including frequent spacyness, unreality, depersonalization, and various somatic and health complaints. Somatic symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, migraines, some forms of asthma, persistent pain, chronic fatigue, and general disengagement from life. Polyvagal Theory: Emergent “Emotion” Subsystems Figure 6.2d This shows the effect the phylogenetic systems have in either increasing (+ sign) or decreasing (- sign) the activity of the various organ systems. In some exciting research, the brain activity of people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was recorded by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they were read a “traumatic script,” which was a graphic and detailed description of someone’s serious trauma (such as an accident or rape). 61 The fMRI, scanning the location and the intensity of brain activity, portrayed them as a rainbow of colors. b So, for example, blue (cold) colors indicated a relative reduction in brain activity, while red (hot) colors might indicate an increase. The distress of the volunteers was intensified by the fact that their heads were immobilized, confined in a noisy clanging metal basket. In these studies, at least 30% of the subjects exhibited a decrease in activity of the insula and the cingulate cortex. The PTSD of these volunteers was characterized by dissociation and (vagal) immobility. On the other hand, about 70% of the subjects studied suffered primarily from the simpler symptoms of sympathetic hyperarousal and showed a dramatic increase in the activity of these same areas. 62 The insula and the cingulate are the parts of the brain that receive sensory information from receptors inside the body (interoception) and form the basis of what we feel and know as our very identity. 63 Underactivity portrays dissociation, while overactivity is associated with sympathetic arousal. In my long clinical experience, I found that many (perhaps even a majority of) persons exhibit some symptoms of both systems. The expression of symptoms appears to depend on a variety of factors, including the type and severity of a person’s trauma, the age at which it occurred, and which traumatic patterns and content were activated during treatment. There are also most likely constitutional and gender factors at play as well. In addition, these symptom constellations tend to change over time and even within a single session. c Most important, treatment must be approached differently according to which of these three systems is activated during sessions and which lie dormant. To effectively guide the processes of healing and transformation in their clients, therapists must be able to perceive and track the physiological footprints and expressions of these organismic systems.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  accepting some of the blame for the problem, if that seems right. Realize that it is very difficult to get such types to reflect on their behavior and change it; they are too hypersensitive for this. What you want is to have the requisite distance to see through them and to disengage. To help in this, you must learn to trust your past feelings. In the moments they are irritating you, write down what they are doing and memorialize their behavior. Perhaps in doing so, you will realize that you are in fact overreacting. But if not, you can return to these notes to convince yourself that you are not crazy and to stop the blame-shifting mechanism in its tracks. If you don’t allow the shifting to occur, they might be discouraged from using this strategy. If not, it is best to lessen your involvement with such a passive aggressor. The Passive-Tyrant Strategy: The person you are working for seems to be bubbling with energy, ideas, and charisma. They are a bit disorganized, but that is normal—they have so much to do, so much responsibility and so many plans, they can’t keep on top of it all. They need your help, and you strain every fiber of your being to provide it. You listen extra hard to their instructions and try to execute them. Occasionally they praise you, and this keeps you going, but sometimes they rail at you for letting them down, and this sticks in your mind more than the praise. You can never feel comfortable or take your position for granted. You have to try harder to avoid these nasty temperamental rants. They’re such perfectionists, with such high standards, and you’re not measuring up. You rack your brain to anticipate their needs and live in terror of displeasing them. If they were actively ordering you around, you would simply do what they asked. But by being somewhat passive and moody, they force you to work doubly hard to please them. This strategy is generally used by those in power on their underlings, but it could be applied by people in relationships, one partner tyrannizing the other by simply being impossible to please. The strategy is based on the following logic: If people know what it is that you want and how to get it for you, they have some power over you. If they follow your instructions and do your bidding, you cannot criticize them. If they are consistent, you can even grow dependent on their work, and they can squeeze concessions out of you by threatening to leave. But if they have no idea what actually works, if they can’t exactly discern what kind of behavior draws praise and what draws punishment, they have no power, no independence, and can be made to do anything. As with a dog, an occasional pat on their shoulder will deepen their submission. This was how Michael Eisner exercised dictatorial control over everyone around him,

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  the blind spot in human nature: we are poorly equipped to gauge the character of the people we deal with. Their public image, the reputation that precedes them, easily mesmerizes us. We are captivated by appearances. If they surround themselves with some alluring myth, as Hughes did, we want to believe in it. Instead of determining people’s character—their ability to work with others, to keep to their promises, to remain strong in adverse circumstances— we choose to work with or hire people based on their glittering résumé, their intelligence, and their charm. But even a positive trait such as intelligence is worthless if the person also happens to be of weak or dubious character. And so, because of our blind spot, we suffer under the irresolute leader, the micromanaging boss, the conniving partner. This is the source of endless tragedies in history, our pattern as a species. At all costs, you must alter your perspective. Train yourself to ignore the front that people display, the myth that surrounds them, and instead plumb their depths for signs of their character. This can be seen in the patterns they reveal from their past, the quality of their decisions, how they have chosen to solve problems, how they delegate authority and work with others, and countless other signs. A person of strong character is like gold—rare but invaluable. They can adapt, learn, and improve themselves. Since your success depends on the people you work with and for, make their character the primary object of your attention. You will spare yourself the misery of discovering their character when it is too late. Character is destiny. —Heraclitus Keys to Human Nature For thousands of years, we humans believed in fate: some kind of force—spirits, gods, or God—compelled us to act in a certain way. At birth our entire lives were laid out in advance; we were fated to succeed or fail. We see the world much differently now. We believe that we are largely in control of what happens to us, that we create our own destiny. Upon occasion, however, we might have a fleeting sensation that approximates what our ancestors must have felt. Perhaps a personal relationship goes bad or our career path hits a snag, and these difficulties are uncannily similar to something that happened to us in the past. Or we realize that our way of working on a project needs some improvement; we could do things better. We try to alter our methods, only to find ourselves doing things in exactly the same way, with nearly the same results. We might feel for a moment that some kind of malignant force in the world, some curse, compels us to relive the same situations. We can often notice this phenomenon more clearly in the actions of others, particularly those closest to us. For instance, we see friends continually fall for exactly the wrong person or unconsciously push away the right person. We cringe at some foolish behavior of

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  theirs, such as an ill-considered investment or career choice, only to see them repeat the foolishness a few years later, once they have forgotten the lesson. Or we know someone who always manages to offend the wrong person at the wrong time, creating hostility wherever he or she goes. Or they crumble under pressure, always in the same way, but blaming others or bad luck for what happens. And of course we know the addicts who get out of their addiction, only to fall back in or find some other form of addiction. We see these patterns and they don’t, because nobody likes to believe that they are operating under some kind of compulsion beyond their control. It is too disturbing a thought. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit there is some truth to the concept of fate. We are prone to repeat the same decisions and methods of dealing with problems. There is a pattern to our life, particularly visible in our mistakes and failures. But there is a different way of looking at this concept: it is not spirits or gods that control us but rather our character . The etymology of the word character , from the ancient Greek, refers to an engraving or stamping instrument. Character, then, is something that is so deeply ingrained or stamped within us that it compels us to act in certain ways, beyond our awareness and control. We can conceive of this character as having three essential components, each layered on top of the other, giving this character depth. The earliest and deepest layer comes from genetics, from the particular way our brains are wired, which predisposes us toward certain moods and preferences. This genetic component can make some people prone to depression, for instance. It makes some people introverts and others extroverts. It might even incline some toward becoming especially greedy—for attention or privilege or possessions. The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, who studied infants, believed that the greedy and grasping type of child came into the world predisposed toward this character trait. There might be other genetic factors as well that predispose us toward hostility or anxiety or openness. The second layer, which forms above this, comes from our earliest years and from the particular type of attachments we formed with our mother and caregivers. In these first three or four years our brains are especially malleable. We experience emotions much more intensely, creating memory traces that are much deeper than anything that will follow. In this period of life we are at our most susceptible to the influence of others, and the stamp from these years is profound. John Bowlby, an anthropologist and psychoanalyst, studied patterns of attachment between mothers and children and came up with four basic schemas: free/autonomous , dismissing , enmeshed-ambivalent , and disorganized . The free/autonomous stamp comes from mothers who give their children freedom to discover themselves and are continually sensitive to their needs but also protect them.

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

  283Lecture 29—Secularism and the Death of God MYTHS õOne myth about secularization is that the past was a golden age of faith, and today we’re seeing the brand-new modern appearance of doubt and religious indifference. But this isn’t new. For example, historians of the Middle Ages have found records of clergy complaining about impiety at all levels of society. õA second myth is the notion that the art of predicting the death of God, or at least the demise of institutionalized religion, is a new pastime. That’s not the case. There is a long tradition of prophets proclaiming doom for traditional Christianity. õAround 1710, the English theologian Thomas Woolston wrote that Christianity would be extinct by the year 1900. In 1822, Thomas Jefferson predicted “there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.” These predictions did not pan out. The lessons are these: Prophecy is risky business, and anxieties about the role of religion in our world are in no way new. SECULARIZATION EXAMINED õThe root word of the term secularization, “secular,” comes from the Latin word saeculum, which for the ancient Romans meant “age” or “generation.” In ecclesiastical Latin, the word saeculum morphed a bit. It was used to denote earthly time and worldly affairs, which are temporal, as opposed to heavenly time, which is eternal. õFrom there, the word came to be applied to anyone living in the world, as in: secular clergy who were not living according to a religious rule. Secularization has something to do with the balance of power between the world and the church, roughly speaking. õThe sociologist José Casanova has suggested three ways of thinking about secularization. The first is a change in individuals’ beliefs: a shift from a supernatural worldview to materialist explanations for everything. Casanova calls this disenchantment.

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

  144 The History of Christianity II õ The poster child for the Great Awakening in Britain and the American colonies was a preacher named George Whitefield. He was born in Gloucester, England to relatively poor parents. When he went to study at Oxford, he began to channel his theatrical talents into religion. He fell in with a group of pious Anglicans who called themselves the Holy Club. They spent a lot of time studying scripture and trying to discern the most pious way to pray and live. õ But living a holy life does not necessarily mean you’ve had a true conversion experience. Whitefield’s own conversion experience, as a university student, was agony. Someone gave him a book by a Scottish theologian that convinced him all his good works could never save him. At one point, he prayed: “Lord, if I am not a Christian, if I am not a real one, God, for Jesus Christ’s sake, show me what Christianity is, that I may not be damned at last.” õ He took comfort in reading more Christian books, including books on Christian discipleship by great Catholic thinkers like Thomas à Kempis. This is interesting: Whitefield’s later preaching was violently anti-Catholic, as you would expect for a Protestant of his time, but he recognized that he had something to learn about how to imitate Christ and fight the devil from Roman Catholics. õ Finally, during the season of Lent in 1735, after fasting so strenuously that he ended up emaciated and sick in bed, Whitefield had the spiritual breakthrough he had been hoping for. God lifted the sense of his own inescapable sin, and, as he put it, enabled him “to lay hold on his dear Son by a living faith.” WHITEFIELD’S INNOVATIONS õ After his conversion, Whitefield felt a stronger and stronger call to become a preacher, and became ordained as a priest in the Church of England. He began his career in England and started traveling to America in the late 1730s. He preached at revivals up and down the eastern seaboard, mainly in New England but also in places like New York and Charleston.

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

  ORIGEN. Let us look well whether this precept extends to all sin; for what if any one sin any of those sins which are unto death, such as unnatural crimes, adultery, homicide, or effeminacy, it cannot be meant that such as these are to be admonished privately, and if he hear you, forthwith to say that you have gained him. And not rather first put him out of the Church, or only when remaining obstinate after monition before witnesses, and by the Church? One man, looking at the infinite mercy of Christ, will say, that since the words of Christ make no distinction of sins, it is to go against Christ’s mercy to limit His words only to little sins. Another, on the other hand, considering the words carefully, will aver, that they are not spoken of every sin; for that he that is guilty of those great sins is not a brother, but is called a brother, with whom, according to the Apostle, we ought not so much as to eat. But as they who expound this as referring to every sin give encouragement to the careless to sin; so, on the other hand, he, who teaches that one having sinned in little sins and such as are not deadly, is, when he has spurned the admonition of the witnesses and the Church, to be held as a heathen and a publican, seems to introduce too great severity. For whether he finally perishes, we are not able to decide. First, because he who has been thrice told of his fault and not hearkened, may hearken the fourth time; secondly, because sometimes a man does not receive according to his deeds, but beyond his trespass, which is good for him in this world; lastly, because He said not alone, Let him be as a heathen, but Let him be to thee. Whosoever then when reproved three times in a light trespass, does not amend, him we ought to hold for a heathen and a publican, avoiding him, that he may be brought to confusion. But whether he is esteemed of God also as a heathen and a publican, is not ours to decide, but is in the judgment of God. 18:18–2018. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

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

  EUSEBIUS. By the ravens also he signifies something else, for the birds which pick up seeds have a ready source of food, but those that feed on flesh as the ravens do have more difficulty in getting it. Yet birds of this kind suffer from no lack of food, because the providence of God extends every where; but he brings to the same purpose also a third argument, saying, And which of you by taking thought can add to his stature? CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. 21. in Matt.) Observe, that when God has once given a soul, it abides the same, but the body is taking growth daily. Passing over then the soul as not receiving increase, he makes mention only of the body, giving us to understand that it is not increased by food alone, but by the Divine Providence, from the fact that no one by receiving nourishment can add any thing to his stature. It is therefore concluded, If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, take no thought for the rest. EUSEBIUS. If no one has by his own skill contrived a bodily stature for himself, but can not add even the shortest delay to the prefixed limit of his time of life, why should we be vainly anxious about the necessaries of life? BEDE. To Him then leave the care of directing the body, by whose aid you see it to come to pass that you have a body of such a stature. AUGUSTINE. (de Qu. Ev. l. ii. qu. 28.) But in speaking concerning increasing the stature of the body, He refers to that which is least, that is, to God, to make bodies. 12:27–3127. Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29. And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. 22. in Matt.) As our Lord had before given instruction about food, so now also about raiment, saying, Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, that is, to make themselves clothing. Now as above when our Lord said, the birds sow not, He did not reprove sowing, but all superfluous trouble; so when He said, They toil not, neither do they spin, He does not put an end to work, but to all anxiety about it.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I exhaled through clenched teeth. “Yeah, Pll take i‘ His spirits seemed brighter. “Good, here’s the directions. Listen kid, nothing in life comes free.” During the week I lived on peanut butter sandwiches. On payday I treated myself to the cafeteria across from the factory. “Brisket,” I pointed to it. The man behind the cafeteria counter nodded and began to carve it. “Lo mismo,’ the older woman on my left told him. My stomach growled. The woman smiled knowingly at me. We both hungrily eyed the meat being carved. The stack of meat on my plate continued to grow, and still the man piled on more. The woman nodded at me. I raised both eyebrows. She sighed. “A man needs mote food,” she said. After work I bought two strong hasps and two locks at the hardware store and went back to the abandoned building on Mott Street. I installed them so I could lock the door from the inside or the outside. Then I bought a piece of plywood to cover a patch of floorboards and a cheap air mattress for a bed. On my first night in New York City ’'d been scared to death in this building at night. Now, a week later, I thought I'd die if I didn’t get a few nights of privacy. There was no running water in the building. But when one of the guys at the movie theater had found me rinsing a T-shirt in the men’s room sink, he told me Grand Central was a much better place to clean up. During the day I worked temp assignments washing dishes and loading trucks. After work I waited till the rush hour thinned, washed out a T-shirt in the men’s room in Grand Central Station, and took it home to dry. At dawn I went back to Grand Central Station to wash up. At that hour the men’s room belonged to homeless men who, like myself, struggled to hang onto the last shred of self-worth. On two occasions I suspected that a homeless man, bundled up in coats, was really a woman. Stone Butch Blues 253 Through a second agency I got a job as a night watchman. At least I could use the bathroom in private. I had to make rounds every sixty minutes. With the help of an alarm clock I could sleep forty- two minutes each hout. Double shifts were killing me, but I was driven to earn enough money to get a real apartment. As the weather got colder, I developed a cough I couldn’t quiet with lozenges and syrups. My throat was taw. I hoped it would go away. “Go home, for Christsakes,” one of the guys on the loading platform said earlier in the week. “Can't afford to,” I told him.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  We feel increasingly insecure . We all have dreams and a sense of our own potential. If we have wandered aimlessly through life or gone astray, we begin to become aware of the discrepancy between our dreams and reality. We have no solid accomplishments. We feel envious of those who do. Our ego becomes brittle, placing us in a trap. We are too fragile to take criticism. Learning requires an admission that we don’t know things and need to improve, but we feel too insecure to admit this, and so our ideas become set and our skills stagnate. We cover this up with an air of certainty and strong opinions, or moral superiority, but the underlying insecurity cannot be shaken. We often feel anxious and stressed but are never quite certain as to why. Life involves inevitable obstacles and difficulties, but we have spent much of our time trying to avoid anything painful. Perhaps we didn’t take on responsibilities that would open us to failure. We steered clear of tough choices and stressful situations. But then they crop up in the present—we are forced to finish something by a deadline, or we suddenly become ambitious and want to realize a dream of ours. We have not learned in the past how to handle such situations, and the anxiety and stress overwhelm us. Our avoidance leads to a low-grade, continual anxiety. And finally, we feel depressed . All of us want to believe that there is some purpose and meaning to our life, that we are connected to something larger than ourselves. We want to feel some weight and significance to what we have done. Without that conviction, we experience an emptiness and depression that we will ascribe to other factors. Understand: This feeling of being lost and confused is not anyone’s fault. It is a natural reaction to having been born into times of great change and chaos. The old support systems of the past— religions, universal causes to believe in, social cohesion—have mostly disappeared, at least in the Western world. Disappearing also are the elaborate conventions, rules, and taboos that once channeled behavior. We are all cast adrift, and it is no wonder that so many people lose themselves in addictions and depression. The problem here is simple: By our nature we humans crave a sense of direction. Other living organisms rely upon elaborate instincts to guide and determine their behavior. We have come to depend upon our consciousness. But the human mind is a bottomless pit—it provides us with endless mental spaces to explore. Our imagination can take us anywhere and conjure up anything. At any moment, we could choose to go in a hundred different directions. Without belief systems or conventions in place, we seem to have no obvious compass points to guide our behavior and decisions, and this can be maddening. Fortunately there is one way out of this predicament, and it is by

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  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. And so, in these first years of business, we can see the motivating factor that would drive all his subsequent actions—the overwhelming need for control. The more complicated and difficult this task, the more relentless the energy he would summon to achieve such a goal. And out of this need came a second one, almost as important—to justify his aggressive actions to the world and to himself. Rockefeller was a deeply religious man. He could not live with the thought that what drove his actions was a desire to control people and acquire the vast sums of money necessary for such a purpose.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  When you start to talk, your voice is scraped out. I catch only parts of it. It’s not Mai’s house, you explain, fumbling with your keys. Or rather, Mai is no longer there. The boyfriend, Carl, who used to slam her head against the wall is no longer there. This is somebody else, white man with a shotgun and a bald head. It was a mistake, you’re saying to Lan. An accident. “But Mai has not lived here for five years,” Lan says with sudden tenderness. “Rose . . .” Although I don’t see it, I can tell she’s brushing your hair behind your ear. “Mai moved to Florida, remember? To open her own salon.” Lan is poised, her shoulders relaxed, someone else has stepped inside her and started moving her limbs, her lips. “We go home. You need sleep, Rose.” The engine starts, the car lurches into a U-turn. As we pull away, from the porch, a boy, no older than I am, points a toy pistol at us. The gun jumps and his mouth makes blasting noises. His father turns to yell at him. He shoots once, two more times. From the window of my helicopter, I look at him. I look him dead in the eyes and do what you do. I refuse to die. II Memory is a choice. You said that once, with your back to me, the way a god would say it. But if you were a god you would see them. You would look down at this grove of pines, the fresh tips flared lucent at each treetop, tender-damp in their late autumn flush. You would look past the branches, past the rusted light splintered through the brambles, the needles falling, one by one, as you lay your god eyes on them. You’d trace the needles as they hurled themselves past the lowest bow, toward the cooling forest floor, to land on the two boys lying side by side, the blood already dry on their cheeks.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Well,” I started slowly, “it sounds like it takes a little practice, but I get the general idea. I mean that noon and midnight stuff sounds, well, like you got to practice it to get it right.” Jacqueline looked confused. Then she laughed till tears streamed down her cheeks. “Honey,” she’d start, but she was laughing too hard to continue. “Honey. You can’t learn to fuck from reading Popular Mechanics. That isn’t what makes a butch a good lover.” This was exactly what I needed to know! “Well, what does make a butch a good lover?” I asked, trying to sound like the answer didn’t mean all that much to me. Her face softened. “That’s kinda hard to explain. I guess being a good lover means respecting a femme. It means listening to her body. And even if the sex gets a little rough, or whatever, that it’s what she wants too, and inside you're still coming from a gentle place. Does that make sense?” It did not. It was less information than I wanted. It turned out, however, to be the information I needed. It just took thinking about it for the rest of my life. Jacqueline took the rubber cock from my hands. Had I been holding it all this time? She placed it carefully on my thigh. My body temperature rose. She began to touch it gently, like it was something really beautiful. “You know, you could make a woman feel real good with this thing. Maybe better than she ever felt in her life.” She stopped stroking the dildo. “Or you could really hurt her, and remind her of all the ways she’s ever been hurt in her life. You got to think about that every time you strap this on. Then you'll be a good lover.” I waited, hoping there was more. There was not. Jackie got up and puttered around the kitchen. I went to bed. I tried to memorize every word that had been said to me before I fell asleep. When Monique began to flirt with me, everyone at the bar was watching. Monique scared me to death. Jacqueline once said that Monique used sex like a weapon. Did Monique really want me? The butches said it was true, so it must be. Somehow everyone knew at once that I would lose my butch virginity with Monique. On Friday night the butches punched my shoulders, clapped me on the back, adjusted my tie, and sent me over to her table. As Monique and I left together I noticed none of the other femmes were encouraging me. Why wouldn’t Jacqueline look at me? She just tapped her long painted nails on that whiskey glass and stared at it like it was the only thing in the room. Did she sense the impending tragedy before I did?

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  A young man with a ponytail shook my hand. “Tm Pat.” Ernie laughed. “You haven’t met Patty yet?” Pat made a face at Ernie. “Shut up. I'll tell you before they do: I was a conscientious objector. If you got a problem with that, keep it to yourself.” Skids thrust his chest out. “I was in "Nam. Hey, Jesse. Did you get drafted or did you join up?” All the blood rushed to my head. I wished I was back in the molding department where the noise level protected me from idle questions. “T didn’t go,” I mumbled. Stone Butch Blues 215 Ernie groaned. “Another one. What'd you do, tell them a fairy taler”’ I thought hard. “I was exempt. Medical.” Walter interrupted. “Leave the kid alone. You got a locker? Here, use this one.” “Hey,” Ernie said. “You need to spice up that locker a little.” I knew what he meant. All the other guys had pin-up posters on their locker doors. “Get yourself a calendar from the restaurant on the corner. We all go there together on payday. Miss August will cook your balls. Hey, Walter, you better get one, too.” Walter shook his head slowly. “Some guys need pictures, some guys got the real thing. Right, Jesse?” I smiled. “I brought my pin-up over from my old locker.” Ernie handed me two bandaids from the first-aid kit on the wall. I used them to tape up a color magazine ad of my old Norton. Pat whistled. “Pd rather ride Jesse’s than yours, Ernie.” The lunch whistle blew. I looked around for Scotty, but he was gone. “Hey, Walter, where’s Scotty?” Walter shrugged and pantomimed lifting a bottle to his lips. “He’s having a rough go of it. His wife’s dying of cancer. He don’t stick around when the guys start talking about pussy.” 216 = Leslie Feinberg By the end of the summer I was considered one of the guys. I actually looked forward to coming to work most mornings because it was my only human contact. Friday at lunchtime we were headed to the Italian restaurant on the corner when Bolt stopped me. “You know somebody named Frankie?” I felt the blood rush up into my face. “What’s he look like?” Bolt shook his head. “It’s not a he. It’s a bulldagger. She used to work with you at a bindery— said you two were on strike together. She told me you did a lot of work with the union.” Frankie told Bolt about me. She must have. I wondered if I should quit now. Just walk out on the dock, hop down onto the driveway, and keep on walking to my bike. “Where did you meet Frankie?” I asked Bolt. “She was on second shift. Starting Monday she’s moving onto day side. She’s an operator. She said you're a good guy.” I blinked in disbelief. “She said that?” Bolt nodded. “She said you’re a good union a3 man.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  victim, it is hard to doubt me. We tend to take extra conviction for truth. In fact, when people try to explain their ideas with so much exaggerated energy, or defend themselves with an intense level of denial, that is precisely when you should raise your antennae. In both cases—the cover-up and the soft sell—the deceiver is striving to distract you from the truth. Although an animated face and gestures might come from sheer exuberance and genuine friendliness, when they come from someone you don’t know well, or from someone who just might have something to hide, you must be on your guard. Now you are looking for nonverbal signs to confirm your suspicions. With such deceivers you will often notice that one part of the face or the body is more expressive to attract your attention. This will often be the area around the mouth, with large smiles and changing expressions. This is the easiest area of the body for people to manipulate and create an animated effect. But it could also be exaggerated gestures with the hands and arms. The key is that you will detect tension and anxiety in other parts of the body, because it is impossible for them to control all of the muscles. When they flash a big smile, the eyes are tense with little movement or the rest of the body is unusually still, or if the eyes are trying to fool you with looks to garner your sympathy, the mouth quivers slightly. These are signs of contrived behavior, of trying too hard to control one part of the body. Sometimes really clever deceivers will attempt to create the opposite impression. If they are covering up a misdeed, they will hide their guilt behind an extremely serious and competent exterior, the face becoming unusually still. Instead of loud denials, they will offer a highly plausible explanation of the chain of events, even going through the “evidence” that confirms this. Their picture of reality is nearly seamless. If they are trying to gain your money or support, they will pose as the highly competent professional, to the point of being somewhat boring, even hitting you with a lot of numbers and statistics. Con artists often employ this front. The great con artist Victor Lustig would lull his victims to sleep with a professional patter, making himself come off as a bureaucrat or the dull expert in bonds and securities. Bernie Madoff seemed so bland nobody could possibly suspect him of such an audacious con game as the one he pulled off. This form of deception is harder to see through because there is less to notice. But once again you are looking for contrived impressions. Reality is never so pat and seamless. Real events involve sudden random intrusions and accidents. Reality is messy and the pieces rarely fit so perfectly. That was what was wrong with the Watergate cover-up and raised suspicions. When the

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  The summer I turned fourteen I got my first job working tobacco on a farm outside Hartford. Most people don’t realize tobacco can grow this far north—but put anything near water and it’ll green itself to the height of a small army. Still, it’s strange how some things come into practice. First cultivated by the Agawam, broadleaf tobacco was soon planted by white settlers as a cash crop after they drove the Natives off the land. And now it’s harvested mostly by undocumented immigrants. I knew you wouldn’t let me ride my bike the eight and a half miles out into the country, so I told you I was doing yard work for a church garden on the city outskirts. According to the flyer outside the local YMCA, the job paid nine dollars an hour, which was almost two dollars above minimum wage at the time. And because I was still too young to be legally employed, I was paid under the table, in cash. It was the summer of 2003, which meant Bush had already declared war on Iraq, citing weapons of mass destruction that never materialized, when the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is the Love?” played on every radio station but especially on PWR 98.6, and you could hear the song from nearly every car on the block if you slept with the windows open, its beats punctuated by the sound of beer bottles bursting on the basketball court across the street, the crackheads lobbing the empties up in the sky, just to see how the streetlights make broken things seem touched by magic, glass sprinkled like glitter on the pavement come morning. It was the summer Tiger Woods would go on to receive the PGA Player of the Year for the fifth time in a row and the Marlins would upset the Yankees (not that I cared or understood), it was two years before Facebook and four before the first iPhone, Steve Jobs was still alive, and your nightmares had just started getting worse, and I’d find you at the kitchen table at some god-awful hour, butt naked, sweating, and counting your tips in order to buy “a secret bunker” just in case, you said, a terrorist attack happened in Hartford. It was the year the Pioneer 10 spacecraft sent its last signal to NASA before losing contact forever 7.6 billion miles from Earth.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Developed over so much time, before the invention of language, that is how the human face became so expressive, and gestures so elaborate. This is bred deep within us. We have a continual desire to communicate our feelings and yet at the same time the need to conceal them for proper social functioning. With these counterforces battling inside us, we cannot completely control what we communicate. Our real feelings continually leak out in the form of gestures, tones of voice, facial expressions, and posture. We are not trained, however, to pay attention to people’s nonverbal cues. By sheer habit, we fixate on the words people say, while also thinking about what we’ll say next. What this means is that we are using only a small percentage of the potential social skills we all possess. Imagine, for instance, conversations with people you’ve recently met. By paying extra-close attention to the nonverbal cues they emit, you can pick up their moods and mirror these moods back to them, getting them to unconsciously relax in your presence. As the conversation progresses, you can pick up signs that they are responding to your gestures and mirroring, which gives you license to go further and deepen the spell. In this way, you can build up rapport and win over a valuable ally. Conversely, imagine people who almost immediately reveal signs of hostility toward you. You are able to see through their fake, tight smiles, to pick up the flashes of irritation that cross their face and the signs of subtle discomfort in your presence. Registering all this as it happens, you can then politely disengage from the interaction and remain wary of them, looking for further signs of hostile intentions. You have probably saved yourself from an unnecessary battle or an ugly act of sabotage. Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you must understand and accept the theatrical quality of life. You do not moralize and rail against the role-playing and the wearing of masks so essential to smooth social functioning. In fact, your goal is to play your part on the stage of life with consummate skill, attracting attention, dominating the limelight, and making yourself into a sympathetic hero or heroine. Second, you must not be naive and mistake people’s appearances for reality. You are not blinded by people’s acting skills. You transform yourself into a master decoder of their true feelings, working on your observation skills and practicing them as much as you can in daily life. And so, for these purposes, there are three aspects to this particular law: understanding how to observe people; learning some basic keys for decoding nonverbal communication; and mastering the art of what is known as impression management , playing your role to maximum effect. Observational Skills When we were children, we were almost all great observers of people.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  ideas that you never attempt to execute, because that would cause you to confront the reality of your actual skill level. Without being aware of it, you might become ever so slightly passive—you expect other people to understand you, give you what you want, treat you well. Instead of earning their praise, you feel entitled to it. In all of these cases, your low-grade grandiosity will prevent you from learning from your mistakes and developing yourself, because you begin with the assumption that you are already large and great, and it is too difficult to admit otherwise. Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First, you must understand the phenomenon of grandiosity itself, why it is so embedded in human nature, and why you will find many more grandiose people in the world today than ever before. Second, you need to recognize the signs of grandiosity and know how to manage the people who display them. And third and most important, you must see the signs of the disease in yourself and learn not only how to control your grandiose tendencies but also how to channel this energy into something productive (see “Practical Grandiosity,” on this page , for more on this). According to the renowned psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut (1913– 1981), grandiosity has its roots in the earliest years of our life. In our first months, most of us bonded completely with our mother. We had no sense of a separate identity. She met our every need. We came to believe that the breast that gave us food was actually a part of ourselves. We were omnipotent—all we had to do was feel hungry or feel any need, and the mother was there to meet it, as if we had magical powers to control her. But then, slowly, we had to go through a second phase of life in which we were forced to confront the reality —our mother was a separate being who had other people to attend to. We were not omnipotent but rather weak, quite small, and dependent. This realization was painful and the source of much of our acting out—we had a deep need to assert ourselves, to show we were not so helpless, and to fantasize about powers we did not possess. (Children will often imagine the ability to see through walls, to fly, or to read people’s minds, and that is why they are drawn to stories of superheroes.) As we get older, we may not be physically small anymore, but our sense of insignificance only gets worse. We come to realize we are one person not just in a larger family, school, or city but in an entire globe filled with billions of people. Our lives are relatively short. We have limited skills and brainpower. There is so much we cannot control, particularly with our careers and global trends. The idea that we will die and be quickly forgotten, swallowed up in eternity, is quite

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  accepting some of the blame for the problem, if that seems right. Realize that it is very difficult to get such types to reflect on their behavior and change it; they are too hypersensitive for this. What you want is to have the requisite distance to see through them and to disengage. To help in this, you must learn to trust your past feelings. In the moments they are irritating you, write down what they are doing and memorialize their behavior. Perhaps in doing so, you will realize that you are in fact overreacting. But if not, you can return to these notes to convince yourself that you are not crazy and to stop the blame-shifting mechanism in its tracks. If you don’t allow the shifting to occur, they might be discouraged from using this strategy. If not, it is best to lessen your involvement with such a passive aggressor. The Passive-Tyrant Strategy: The person you are working for seems to be bubbling with energy, ideas, and charisma. They are a bit disorganized, but that is normal—they have so much to do, so much responsibility and so many plans, they can’t keep on top of it all. They need your help, and you strain every fiber of your being to provide it. You listen extra hard to their instructions and try to execute them. Occasionally they praise you, and this keeps you going, but sometimes they rail at you for letting them down, and this sticks in your mind more than the praise. You can never feel comfortable or take your position for granted. You have to try harder to avoid these nasty temperamental rants. They’re such perfectionists, with such high standards, and you’re not measuring up. You rack your brain to anticipate their needs and live in terror of displeasing them. If they were actively ordering you around, you would simply do what they asked. But by being somewhat passive and moody, they force you to work doubly hard to please them. This strategy is generally used by those in power on their underlings, but it could be applied by people in relationships, one partner tyrannizing the other by simply being impossible to please. The strategy is based on the following logic: If people know what it is that you want and how to get it for you, they have some power over you. If they follow your instructions and do your bidding, you cannot criticize them. If they are consistent, you can even grow dependent on their work, and they can squeeze concessions out of you by threatening to leave. But if they have no idea what actually works, if they can’t exactly discern what kind of behavior draws praise and what draws punishment, they have no power, no independence, and can be made to do anything. As with a dog, an occasional pat on their shoulder will deepen their submission. This was how Michael Eisner exercised dictatorial control over everyone around him,