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 Post Office (1971)

  8 I had Fridays and Saturdays off, which made Sunday the roughest day. Plus the fact that on Sunday they made me report at 3:30 p.m. instead of my usual 6:18 p.m. This Sunday I went in and they put me in the station papers section, as usual per Sundays, and this meant at least eight hours on my feet. Besides the pains, I was beginning to suffer from dizzy spells. Everything would whirl, I would come very close to blacking out, then I would grab myself. It had been a brutal Sunday. Some friends of Fay’s had come over and sat on the couch and chirped, how they were really great writers, really the best in the nation. The only reason they didn’t get published was that they didn’t—they said —send their stuff out. I had looked at them. If they wrote the way they looked, drinking their coffee and giggling and dipping their doughnuts, it didn’t matter if they sent it out or jammed it. I was sticking in the magazines this Sunday. I needed coffee, two coffees, a bite to eat. But all the soups were standing out front. I hit out the back way. I had to get straight. The cafeteria was on the second floor. I was on the fourth. There was a doorway down by the men’s crapper. I looked at the sign. WARNING! DO NOT USE THIS STAIRWAY! It was a con. I was wiser than those mothers. They just put the sign up to keep clever guys like Chinaski from going down to the cafeteria. I opened the door and went on down. The door closed behind me. I walked down to the second

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Taylor prophesied that “in the time of the seventh president of this Church, the Church would go into bondage both temporally and spiritually, and in that day the One Mighty and Strong spoken of in the 85th Section of The Doctrine and Covenants would come.” And thus were the seeds of Mormon Fundamentalism sown. Four years later, when the LDS Church voted to sustain the Manifesto and end polygamy, Mormon society began to take its first tentative steps toward joining the American mainstream—slowly and ambivalently at first, and then with stunning determination. But the fundamentalists refused to have any part of it. They remained dedicated to the doctrines of Joseph Smith—to his doctrine of plural marriage, in particular. They vowed to uphold John Taylor’s covenant with ferocious resolve, regardless of the course taken by the rest of Mormondom or the rest of the world. Today, that same vow has been taken up by the fundamentalists’ twenty-first-century brethren, and their fervor is no less resolute. To Mormon Fundamentalists—to the likes of Dan Lafferty, and the inhabitants of Colorado City, and Brian David Mitchell (the abductor of Elizabeth Smart)—September 27, 1886, is a sacred date. From that moment forward, faithful polygamists have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the “one mighty and strong,” who will, as Joseph prophesied, “set in order the house of God.” PART IV Both revelation and delusion are attempts at the solution of problems. Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent. . . . Religious faith is an answer to the problem of life. . . . The majority of mankind want or need some all-embracing belief system which purports to provide an answer to life’s mysteries, and are not necessarily dismayed by the discovery that their belief system, which they proclaim as “the truth,” is incompatible with the beliefs of other people. One man’s faith is another man’s delusion. . . . Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it. * ANTHONY STORR, FEET OF CLAY

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  The house was frigid, wet, and dark. In his perturbation, Hood recalled a lecture he had received from his own father about burst pipes. Like any paternal lecture this one was probably full of half-truths, digressions, polemics, and nostalgic anecdotes from the past. Still, one point stood out. Sometimes a leak skips a whole floor. Sometimes the leak is on the whole other side of the house from where the problem originates. And pipes, he remembered, usually split lengthways. He didn’t know what to do next, whether to try to find his children, whether to presume they had been spirited away by his wife, who had reached the end of her tolerance, whether to try to shut off the water somehow, whether to further inspect the damage, or whether to do something about Mike, the son of his former mistress. Each time he passed through the front hall, Mike seemed to have moved. A strangulated yelp punctuated the silence at the front hall. The dog was back. Scratching at the door. —Jesus, Hood said to Daisy Chain, letting him in. I have a lot on my plate here. Could you look after yourself for a little while? Hood fished out a pair of galoshes from the hall closet. He descended into the basement, where the washer and dryer were located. The water in the basement grazed his kneecaps. It seemed to flow out one end of the basement into the Silvermine River, as if Hood’s house had now become a part of the river itself, part of that topographical movement from the Appalachian foothills to the Long Island Sound. The river had reached out to incorporate the Hoods and their residence into itself. A sort of gushing also issued forth—there in the basement—from a particularly damaged line against one wall. Hood stepped down into that river just the same. It was only because of its motion, Hood thought, that the water wasn’t yet frozen. He shuddered as he waded across to where the washer and dryer protruded—craggy water hazards in that dank loch. He stepped on a pair of roller skates and fell, yelping, against the banister. Drenched to the waist. No theory of the flood, of its origin, would satisfy him now. He wasn’t going to think reasonably any longer. He would abandon all thinking about causes. He decided instead just to take the sheet he saw on top of the dryer up to cover Mikey. The sheet—a blue, floral print that usually covered Wendy’s bed—was drenched. But what were his options? Hood waded through the oily water and up into the front hall again. It was the least he could do. When he reached the top of the stairs he found that the dog was now preoccupied with Mike. Vigorously, Daisy Chain circulated around the body, sniffing and licking, tail oscillating. The dog seized Mike’s sleeve in its mouth and began to wrestle with it.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Although outwardly scornful of such childish playground equipment as the swinging-log, the second-year students still had a lingering affection for it in their hearts, and by forcibly driving the freshmen away, they were able to adopt the face-saving pretense of indulging in the amusement half-derisively, without any seriousness. The freshmen had formed a circle at a distance around the log and were watching the rough play of the upperclassmen, who, in turn, were quite conscious of having an audience. The log, suspended on chains, swung back and forth rhythmically, with a battering-ram motion, and the contest was to make each other fall off the log. Omi was standing with both feet planted firmly at the mid-point of the log, eagerly looking around for opponents ; it was a posture that made him look exactly like a murderer brought to bay. No one in our class was a match for him. Already several boys had jumped up onto the log, one after another, only to be cut down by Omi's quick hands; their feet had trampled away the frost on the earth around the log, which had been glittering in the early morning sunlight.After each victory Omi would clasp his hands together over his head like a triumphant boxer, smiling profusely. And the first-year students would cheer, already forgetting he had been a ringleader in driving them away from the log. My eyes followed his white-gloved hands. They were moving fiercely, but with marvelous precision, like the paws of some young beast, a wolf perhaps. From time to time they would cut through the winter-morning's air, like the feathers of an arrow, straight to the chest of an opponent. And always the opponent would fall to the frosty ground, landing now on his feet, now on his buttocks. On rare occasions, at the moment of knocking an opponent off the log, Omi himself would be on the verge of falling; as he fought to regain the equilibrium of his careening body, he would appear to be writhing in agony there atop the log, made slippery by the faintly gleaming frost. But always the strength in his supple hips would restore him once again to that assassin-like posture. The log was moving left and right impersonally, swinging in unperturbed arcs. . . . As I watched, I was suddenly overcome with uneasiness, with a racking, inexplicable uneasiness. It resembled a dizziness such as might have come from watching the swaying of the log, but it was not that.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Water was trickling down the walls in the living room. The house had turned into some Revolutionary War fountain, the Reverend Mark Staples’s fountain. Water was trickling, no, streaming down the walls in Hood’s house. The enormity of it took a moment to sink in—as the water itself was sinking into the antique planks and walls of his home. From the ceiling the water came in sheets, and beneath it a large, brownish stain, more than eighteen inches wide, with the curvilinear shape, say, of a Smiley Face, perhaps, or the flame of some Yuletide candle. Rorschach stain. For a second Hood was reminded, in the midst of the crises around him, of the burning of the Yule log, that video loop that played on WPIX for five or six hours on Christmas Day. The water stain was inching outward along the linen-colored paint job. And on the floor of the living room, there was a large puddle of standing water. While the cascades from the ceiling ran down, the puddle trickled through the floorboards into the basement. Maybe Hood was not thinking clearly, but he followed the water where it led. He left Mike to look after the flood. On the other side of this wall, too, in the front hall closet, more falls fell. The stream ran down onto the floor and in a winding, indirect creek down toward the kitchen. Away from Mike. In the closet, Elena’s furs, some leather items, and a bunch of tennis and paddle-tennis rackets —everything had been touched by the curse of this flood. Hood ran past Mike and up the front stairs to the second floor. He was guessing that the leak originated in the master bathroom, and, although the wall there had indeed partly caved in, although this water closet was directly above the worst manifestations of the flood, he could find no direct evidence of a burst pipe. He could see in past the Sheetrock, though, into that strange netherworld of wiring and struts and joists that resembled nothing so much as the inside of a human body. He felt he could reach into the thundering heart of his home, and thus into the heart of his family. He felt almost certain that the heart he would find there would be stilled. The frozen part of the plumbing must have emanated from that point. The water flowed out into the hall, down toward Wendy’s bedroom and then disappeared, miraculously. It meant to travel, this water. It was flow. Its motion was no respecter of dignity. It simply moved. And there wasn’t much Hood could do about it. He tried to call the plumber, got right on the phone in his blue-gray bedroom, a deep red rotary phone with a pleasant shape and heft. Then he remembered that the line was dead. He tried the tap and the shower. A sigh, like a last breath, issued forth from each of them.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Who could have explained for me why I was so delighted with fancies in which those body-revealing tights worn by the princes were associated with their cruel deaths? There is a Hungarian fairy tale that I particularly remember in this connection. For a long time my heart was captivated by an extremely realistic illustration to this story. Printed in primary colors, the illustration showed the prince dressed in black tights and a rose-colored tunic with spun-gold embroidery on the breast. A dark-blue cape that flashed a scarlet lining was flung about his shoulders, and around his waist there was a green and clear-cut agony, not fuzzy remorse; it was like being forced to look down from a window at a reflection of fierce summer sunlight that is dividing the street into a glaring contrast of sun and shadow. One cloudy afternoon during the rainy season I happened to be walking through Azabu on an errand. This was a section of the city I had seldom been in. Suddenly, from behind me, someone called my name. It was Sonoko. Upon looking around and catching sight of her I was not as surprised as I had been that time on the streetcar when I had mistaken another girl for her. To me this chance encounter seemed perfectly natural, as though I had foreseen it all along. I felt as though I had known everything about this instant since long before. She was wearing a simple dress, with a flower pattern like that of chic wallpaper, and no ornament other than some lace at the V of the neck; there was nothing about her to proclaim that she was now a married woman. She was probably returning from drawing rations as she was carrying a bucket and was also followed by an old servant woman carrying another bucket. She sent the woman on home and walked along talking with me. "You've become a little thin, haven't you?" "Ah, thanks to studying for the exams." "So? Please take care of your health." Then we fell silent for a time. Soft sunlight began gold belt. He was equipped with a helmet of green gold, a bright-red sword, and a quiver of green leather. His left hand, gloved in white leather, grasped a bow; his right hand rested upon the branch of one of the ancient trees of the forest; and with a grave, commanding countenance he was looking down the terrifying throat of the raging dragon that was about to set upon him. On his face was the resolve of death.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Accordingly, she went spying about the walls of the house, now in one part and now in another, whenas her husband was abroad, and happened at last upon a very privy place where the wall was somewhat opened by a fissure and looking therethrough, albeit she could ill discover what was on the other side, algates she perceived that the opening gave upon a bedchamber there and said in herself, 'Should this be the chamber of Filippo,' to wit, the youth her neighbour, 'I were half sped.' Then, causing secretly enquire of this by a maid of hers, who had pity upon her, she found that the young man did indeed sleep in that chamber all alone; wherefore, by dint of often visiting the crevice and dropping pebbles and such small matters, whenas she perceived him to be there, she wrought on such wise that he came to the opening, to see what was to do; whereupon she called to him softly. He, knowing her voice, answered her, and she, profiting by the occasion, discovered to him in brief all her mind; whereat the youth was mightily content and made shift to enlarge the hole from his side on such wise that none could perceive it; and therethrough they many a time bespoke one another and touched hands, but could go no farther, for the jealous vigilance of the husband. After awhile, the Feast of the Nativity drawing near, the lady told her husband that, an it pleased him, she would fain go to church on Christmas morning and confess and take the sacrament, as other Christians did. Quoth he, 'And what sin hast thou committed that thou wouldst confess?' 'How?' answered the lady. 'Thinkest thou that I am a saint, because thou keepest me mewed up? Thou must know well enough that I commit sins like all others that live in this world; but I will not tell them to thee, for that thou art not a priest.' The jealous wretch took suspicion at these words and determined to seek to know what sins she had committed; wherefore, having bethought himself of a means whereby he might gain his end, he answered that he was content, but that he would have her go to no other church than their parish chapel and that thither she must go betimes in the morning and confess herself either to their chaplain or to such priest as the latter should appoint her and to none other and presently return home. Herseemed she half apprehended his meaning; but without saying otherwhat, she answered that she would do as he said.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  The acquainted my co-workers with all this, and told them that there was a likelihood of Government stopping me from proceeding further, and that I might have to go to jail earlier than I had expected, and that, if I was to be arrested, it would be best that the arrest should take place in Motihari or if possible in Bettiah. It was advisable, therefore, that I should go to those place as early as possible. Champaran is a district of the Tirhut division and Motihari is its headquarters. Rajkumar Shukla’s place was in the vicinity of Bettiah, and the tenants belonging to the #kothis# in its neighbourhood were the poorest in the district. Rajkumar Shukla wanted me to see them and I was equally anxious to do so. So I started with my co-workers for Motihari the same day. Babu Gorakh Prasad harboured us in his home, which became a caravanserai. It could hardly contain us all. The very same day we heard that about five miles from Motihari a tenant had been ill-treated. It was decided that, in company with Babu Dharanidhar Prasad, I should go and see him the next morning, and we accordingly set off for the place on elephant’s back. An elephant, by the way, is about as common in Champaran as a bullock-cart in Gujarat. We had scarcely gone half when a messenger from the Police Superintendent overtook us and said that the latter had sent his compliments. I saw what he meant. Having left Dharanidharbabu to proceed to the original destination, I got into the hired carriage which the messenger had brought. He then served on me a notice to leave Champaran, and drove me to my place. On his asking me to acknowledge the service of the notice, I wrote to the effect that I did not propose to comply with it and leave Champaran till my inquiry was finished. Thereupon I received a summons to take my trial the next day for disobeying the order to leave Champaran. I kept awake that whole night writing letters and giving necessary instructions to Babu Brajkishore Prasad. The news of the notice and the summons spread like wildfire, and I was told that Motihari that day witnessed unprecedented scenes. Gorakhbabu’s house and the court house overflowed with men. Fortunately I had finished all my work during the night and so was able to cope with the crows. My companions proved the greatest help. They occupied themselves with regulating the crowds, for the latter followed me wherever I went. A sort of friendliness sprang up between the officials Collector, Magistrate, Police Superintendent and myself. I might have legally resisted the notices served on me. Instead I accepted them all, and my conduct towards the officials was correct. They thus saw that I did not want to offend them personally, but that I wanted to offer civil resistance to their orders.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Both for my sake and because of her bad leg, my grandmother had persuaded the neighborhood firemen to arrange for the festival processions of the district to pass along the street before our gate. Originally there had been another prescribed route for the festivals, but the chief fireman took it upon himself to arrange some slight detour each year, and it had become a custom to pass our house. On this particular day I was standing in front of the gate with other members of the household. Both leaves of the vine-patterned iron gate had been thrown open, and water had been sprinkled neatly on the paving stones outside the gate. The hesitant sound of drums was drawing near.The plaintive melody of a chant, in which individual words only gradually became distinguishable, pierced through the confused tumult of the festival, proclaiming what might be called the true theme of this outwardly purposeless uproar—a seeming lamentation for the extremely vulgar mating of humanity and eternity, which could be consummated only through some such pious immorality as this. In the tangled mass of sound I could gradually distinguish the metallic jingle of the rings on the staff carried by the priest at the head of the procession, the stuttering roar of the drums, and the medley of rhythmic shouts from the youths shouldering the sacred shrine. My heart was beating so suffocatingly that I could scarcely stand. (Ever since then violent anticipation has always been anguish rather than joy for me.) The priest carrying the staff was wearing a fox mask. The golden eyes of this occult beast fastened themselves too intently upon me, as though to bewitch me, and the procession passing before my eyes aroused in me a joy akin to terror. Before I knew it, I felt myself grab hold of the skirt of whoever it was from our house that was standing beside me: I was ready to run away at the first excuse. (Ever since those days this has been the attitude with which I have always confronted life: from things too much waited for, too much embellished with anticipatory daydreams, there is in the end nothing I can do but run away.) Behind the priest came a group of firemen, carrying on their shoulders the offertory chest, festooned with sacred garlands of twisted straw, and then a crowd of children carrying a tiny, frivolously bouncing shrine. Finally the principal shrine of the procession drew near, the majestic black and gold omikoshi.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  And before that I’d snapped and taken over an hour to go for a walk. I went down to the Gap and browsed a little. So it’s really around ten o’clock at night for me.” “You must be starving,” said Joyce. “I know I am. Some bread?” “Thanks.” Chewing, she regarded me. “Do you have more to say?” “Yes.” I had felt confident, even cocky, moments before, but I now noticed that my hands were unsteady as I stuffed a piece of bread in my mouth. “I’ve never told anyone what I’m telling you,” I said. “I tried to tell someone obliquely, but it wasn’t a success.” Joyce said, “Why are you telling me, then? I mean, I’m delighted that you are—I think. But don’t you want to continue to keep all this to yourself if you’ve kept it to yourself for this long?” I said, “I’m tired of having this big secret life and not being able to tell anyone.” And suddenly I did feel enormously tired of it. I felt as if I was going to get slightly weepy, but fortunately I didn’t. “I like you and I just want to tell you. I’ve written about it in the memoiry thing that I’ve been working on, and though I haven’t shown that to anyone, having done that, gone public on the page, I seem able to accept more easily the fact that people will know. It feels inevitable now, though of course it isn’t. It’s the next step. Also, I’ve used the Fold to do things that might make you uncomfortable, if you knew about them, and if they are going to make you uncomfortable, I’d rather that happened now and not later.” “The Told’?” I went into the terminology in some detail. We ordered. I told her about the equation with the garment-care symbols, and about colliding with the parking meter and stealing two shrimp. I gave her a bowdlerized account of my experience in the electromagnet. Finally I worked up the nerve to mention that at selected times in the past I had used the Fold to take off women’s clothes without their knowledge. “Ah— now I see where we’re going,” Joyce said. “That’s not so good. That is not so hot.” “I know, I know, I know, I know,” I said, shaking my head. “But when I’m doing it it doesn’t seem bad. It seems wonderful, good, positive—it seems like the most constructive thing I could possibly be doing. I just don’t understand why it should be so bad and wrong for me to take a woman’s clothes off, as long as she doesn’t know about it.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  You know how it works. Social anxiety can jump out in an instant, like a bogeyman in a Halloween haunted house. In just a few seconds, it’s all systems go. You’re hit with the urge to leave, to dart the long way around to avoid being spotted, or to pull out your phone so you don’t have to make eye contact. And avoidance works—sort of. When we avoid, the anxiety magically dissipates, leaving us with not only a sense of relief but also the unfortunate confirmation that whatever we just avoided—small talk with your kid’s classmate’s mom, a break room discussion of last night’s game with your co-workers, or a conversation on a park bench with a 1940s cutie—was really and truly a danger. What’s more, avoidance leaves us with the nagging feeling that we couldn’t have handled it anyway. [image file=image_rsrc2GD.jpg] By contrast, take a look at what happens in the second graph. This is what happens when we hang in there—when we’re brave for the few seconds it takes to join the group at the party, raise our hand in class, or for young Albert to sit down on the bench. The anxiety shoots up, but then, when we stick with it, after we reach the summit of the mountain it’s all downhill from there. What goes up must come down. When we go over the summit instead of avoiding, we learn a very different lesson. Rather than reinforcing the idea that the girl on the bench is a threat to be avoided, we learn she’s polite, even if she already has a boyfriend. We learn that while we’re uncomfortable, sitting there doesn’t kill us—we can handle this, even if what we blurt out isn’t exactly smooth and witty. Of course, the anxiety goes down more slowly than if we ducked out, but the trip down that long, slow slide teaches us exactly what Brandon Stanton and Albert Ellis figured out: one, we are much safer than our imaginations would have us believe, and two, we can handle it. [image file=image_rsrc2GE.jpg] [image file=image_rsrc2GF.jpg] Now let’s zero in on the hardest part—the tippy-top of that peak. This is where Jim hid behind a bush. This is when Aisha faked her phone call. This is where I may or may not have crossed the street to avoid well-meaning but aggressive nonprofit sidewalk fundraisers with their clipboards and smiles, even if it meant forgoing the taco salad I’d been craving. I’ll never tell. That peak might be high, but it’s actually a skinny little thing. To climb the peak and go over the top doesn’t actually take that long—maybe ten seconds to a minute. So commit to being brave for one minute. Once you do that, it’s all downhill from there. As we stay with it, it gets easier. Plus we get a taco salad.

• From Bold Move

  Suddenly, before we even know what we’re doing, we’re in fight mode, firing from the hip, typing fast, and sending that post out into the world as fast as humanly possible! It’s a perfect encapsulation of what it means to react . Doesn’t that feel better? Of course it does! At least . . . at first. Passively scrolling on social media inevitably leads to social comparisons. Social comparison, somewhat obviously, is the process of “comparing oneself with others to evaluate or enhance some aspects of the self.”2 We compare how we look, what we’ve achieved, or how skilled we are at something. We all make social comparisons as a matter of our evolutionary biology, but social media has drastically expedited and magnified our ability to do so. In particular, making comparisons to others who are “better off” (whether this is actually true or not is irrelevant—what matters is that we perceive them as better off) has been shown to be related to increased depressive symptoms3 and increased feelings of sadness.4 Social media use has also been connected to negative body image and unhealthy eating behaviors.5 These negative effects are particularly pronounced in young girls. A study conducted in the United Kingdom found that girls ten to fifteen years old are more likely than boys to have lower well-being as a direct result of their social media usage.6 When we couple these findings with social media’s distorted reality and the complex algorithms designed to deliver content to us, we end up with a potentially toxic relationship to our beloved apps. While most research on social media comparisons has largely focused on its direct negative emotional impact, such as anxiety and depression, I have seen social media comparison trigger reactive avoidance for some of my clients. That may not seem like too much of a problem initially, but eventually it leads to negative outcomes. It’s just a longer and messier route to the same problem. This is where Angad’s story comes in. When I first met Angad, he gave every appearance of having a happy, well-adjusted life. He had just turned twenty, was loving college, had a good group of friends, and was close to his family. Yet Angad shared with me that internally, things were not quite so placid. He had recently created an Instagram account, and complained that he found himself constantly comparing his life to those encountered within his broader social media network: “who looks better,” “who travels more,” “whose girlfriend is hottest” . . . the list went on and on for young Angad. Angad’s description was no different from that of many young college students I have worked with, for whom social media led to comparison. Yet, I was not sure how this was a problem for Angad.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Having adopted their defiant worldview, Ron became a regular attendee at his brothers’ meetings. He threw away his driver’s license and removed the license plates from his vehicle. And then he quit his job—which greatly heightened Dianna’s concern, because the family was already balanced tenuously on the edge of financial ruin. Ron was in the latter stages of what was, for him, a large construction project: a four-unit apartment complex he had financed with a bank loan and was building himself, after hours, as a business investment. Up until this time, after working all day at his “real” job, he’d been devoting most evenings to building the fourplex and spending the remainder of his nights constructing a “dream house” in Highland for his own family. His two after- hours construction projects were straining their cash flow to the limit and beyond. Compounding their woes, the economy throughout the Rocky Mountain region had just plunged into an abysmal recession. Ron and Dianna failed to make their loan payments. There wasn’t enough money for groceries or clothes for the kids. Ron began to succumb to the stress. “It was a really bad recession,” Weiss remembers. “Ron was going to lose everything. In fact, the papers were already made up for the bank to take away their home, which he had worked so hard on for so many years.” It was during this crisis that Dianna, on behalf of her sisters-in-law, asked Ron to visit with his brothers and straighten them out. “Ron was really vulnerable right then,” Weiss explains. “Dianna told me at the time that Ron was so upset he would regularly just break down and cry. She’d tell him, ‘Ron, don’t worry about it; we can start over. We did it once, we’ll do it again.’ But he’d just look at her and say, ‘We’ve sacrificed too much. I can’t bear losing it all.’ “And just then Dan came along,” Weiss declares with anguish in her voice. Dan’s religious ideas included a message that Ron found particularly comforting during that difficult period. “Dan convinced Ron that God didn’t want us to have material things, that it was good to lose everything. Dan told him that he had a higher calling. That God intended for Ron to be a missionary for the things Dan was teaching. And Ron really believed it—all of it. In fact, he even quit his job. Dan said it was all going to be okay, because he—Ron—was going to be called as the next president and prophet of the LDS Church, that Dan would be made his first counselor, and that the four other Lafferty boys would be made second counselors.”

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Not so with the Kheda campaign, of which the happenings were reported in the press from day to day. The Gujaratis were deeply interested in the fight, which was to them a novel experiment. They were ready to pour forth their riches for the success of the cause. It was not easy for them to see that Satyagraha could not be conducted simply by means of money. Money is the thing that it least needs. In spite of my remonstrance, the Bombay merchants sent us more money than necessary, so that we had some balance left at the end of the campaign. At the same time the Satyagrahi volunteers had to learn the new lesson of simplicity. I cannot say that they imbibed it fully, but they considerably changed their ways of life. For the Patidar farmers, too, the fight was quite a new thing. We had, therefore, to go about from village to village explaining the principles of the Satyagraha. The main thing was to rid the agriculturists of their fear by making them realize that the officials were not the masters but the servants of the people, inasmuch as they received their salaries from the taxpayer. And then it seemed well nigh impossible to make them realize the duty of combining civility with fearlessness. Once they had shed the fear of the officials, how could they be stopped from returning their insults? And yet if they resorted to incivility it would spoil their Satyagraha, like a drop of arsenic in milk. I realized later that they had less fully learnt the lesson of civility than I had expected. Experience has taught me that civility is the most difficult part of Satyagraha. Civility does not here mean the mere outward gentleness and desire to do the opponent good. These should show themselves in every act of a Satyagrahi. In the initial stages, though the people exhibited much courage, the Government did not seem inclined to take strong action. But as the people’s firmness showed no signs of wavering, the Government began coercion. The attachment officers sold people’s cattle and seized whatever movables they could lay hands on. Penalty notices were served, and in some cases standing crops were attached. This unnerved the peasants, some of whom paid up their dues, while others desired to place safe movables in the way of the officials so that they might attach them to realize the dues. On the other hand some were prepared to fight to the bitter end. While these things were going on, one of Sjt. Shankarlal Parikh’s tenants paid up the assessment in respect of his land. This created a sensation. Sjt. Shankarlal Parikh immediately made amends for his tenant’s mistake by giving away for charitable purposes the land for which the assessment had been paid. He thus saved his honour and set a good example to others. With a view to steeling the hearts of those who were frightened, I advised the people, under the leadership of Sjt.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  It was out of the question for me ever to acquire his legal acumen, but I had serious misgivings as to whether I should be able even to earn a living by he profession. I was torn with these doubts and anxieties to some of my friends. One of them suggested that I should seek Dadabhai Naoroji’s advice. I have already said that, when I went to England, I possessed a note of introduction to Dadabhai. I availed myself of it very late. I thought I had no right to trouble such a great man for an interview. Whenever an address by him was announced, I would attend it, listen to him from a corner of the hall, and go away after having feasting my eyes and ears. In order to come in close touch with the students he had founded an association, I used to attend its meeting, and rejoiced at Dadabhai’s solicitude for the students, and the latter’s respect for him in course of time I mustered up courage to present to him the note of introduction. He said: ‘You can come and have my advice whenever you like.’ But I never availed myself of his offer. I thought it wrong to trouble him without the most pressing necessity. Therefore I dared not venture to accept my friend’s advice to submit my difficulties to Dadabhai at that time. I forget now whether it was the same friend or someone else who recommended me to meet Mr. Frederick Pincutt. He was a Conservative, but his affection for Indian students was pure and unselfish. Many students sought his advice and I also applied to him for an appointment, which he granted. I can never forget that interview. He greeted me as a friend. He laughed away my pessimism. ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that everyone must be a Pherozeshah Mehta? Pherozeshahs skill to be an ordinary lawyer. Common honesty and industry are enough to enable him to make a living. All cases are not complicated. Well, let me know the extent of your general reading.’ When I acquainted him with my little stock of reading, he was, as I could see, rather disappointed. But it was only for a moment. Soon his face beamed with a pleasing smile and he said, ‘I understand your trouble. Your general reading is meagre. You have no knowledge of the world, a sine qua non for a vakil. You have not even read the history of India. A vakil should know human nature. He should be able to read a man’s character from his face. And every Indian ought to know Indian history. This has no connection with the practice of law, but you ought to have that knowledge. I see that you have not even read kaye and Malleson’s history of the Mutiny of 1857. Get hold of that at once and also read two more books to understand human nature.’ These were lavator’s and Shemmelpennick’s books on physiognomy.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Critical as my mind was in observing these things, there was enough charity in me, and so I always thought that it might, after all, be impossible to do better in the circumstances, and that saved me from undervaluing any work. 71IN THE CONGRESSIn the Congress at last. The immense pavilion and the volunteers in stately array, as also the elders seated on the dais, overwhelmed me. I wondered where I should be in that vast assemblage. The presidential address was a book by itself. To read it from cover to cover was out of the question. Only a few passages were therefore read. After this came the election of the Subjects Committee. Gokhale took me to the Committee meetings. Sir Pherozeshah had of course agreed to admit my resolution, but I was wondering who would put it before the Subjects Committee, and when. For there were lengthy speeches to every resolution, all in English to boot, and every resolution had some well-known leader to back it. Mine was but a feeble pipe amongst those veteran drums, and as the night was closing in, my heart beat fast. The resolutions coming at the fag- end were, so far as I can recollect, rushed through at lighting speed. Everyone was hurrying to go. It was 11 o’clock. I had not the courage to speak. I had already met Gokhale, who had looked at my resolution. So I drew near his chair and whispered to him: ‘Please do something for me.’ He said: ‘Your resolution is not out of my mind. You see the way they are rushing through the resolutions. But I will not allow yours to be passed over.’ ‘So we have done?’ said Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. ‘No, no, there is still the resolution on South Africa. Mr. Gandhi has been waiting long,’ cried out Gokhale. ‘Have you seen the resolution?’ asked Sir Pherozeshah. ‘Of course.’ ‘Do you like it?’ ‘It is quite good.’ ‘Well then, let us have it, Gandhi.’ I read it trembling. Gokhale supported it. ‘Unanimously passed,’ cried out everyone. ‘You will have five minutes to speak to it Gandhi,’ said Mr. Wacha. The procedure was far from pleasing to me. No one had troubled to understand the resolution, everyone was in a hurry to go and, because Gokhale had seen the resolution, it was not thought necessary for the rest to see it or understand it! The morning found me worrying about my speech. What was I to say in five minutes? I had prepared myself fairly well but the words would not come to me. I had decided not to read my speech but to speak ex tempore. But the facility for speaking that I had acquired in South Africa seemed to have left me for the moment. As soon as it was time for my resolution, Mr. Wacha called out my name. I stood up. My head was reeling. I read the resolution somehow.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  The evening I was presented with the bulk of these things I had a sleepless night. I walked up and down my room deeply agitated, but could find no solution. It was difficult for me to forego gifts worth hundreds, it was more difficult to keep them. And even if I could keep them , what about my children? What about my wife? They were being trained to a life of service and to an understanding that service was its own reward. I had no costly ornaments in the house. We had been fast simplifying our life How then could we afford to have gold watches? How could we afford to wear gold chains and diamond rings? Even then I was exhorting people to conquer the infatuation for jewellery. What was I now to do with the jewellery that had come upon me ? I decided that I could not keep these things. I drafted a letter, creating a trust of them in favour of the community and appointing Parsi Rustomji and others trustees. In the morning I held a consultation with my wife and children and finally go rid of the heavy incubus. I knew that I should have some difficulty in persuading my wife, and I was sure that I should have none so far as the children were concerned. So I decided to constitute them my attorneys. The children readily agreed to my proposal. ‘We do not need these costly presents, we must return them to the community, and should we ever need them, we could easily purchase them,’ they said. I was delighted.’ Then you will plead with mother won’t you ? ‘ I asked them. ‘Certainly,’ said they. ‘That is our business. She did not need to wear the ornaments. She would want to keep them for us, and if we don’t want them, why should she not agree to part with them?’ But it was easier said than done. ‘You may not need them,’ said my wife. ‘ Your children may not need them. Cajoled they will dance to your tune. I can understand your not permitting me to wear them. But what about my daughters-in-law? They will be sure to need them. And who knows what will happen tomorrow ? I would be the last person to part with gifts so lovingly given.’ And thus the torrent of argument went on, reinforced, in the end, by tears. But the children were adamant. And I was unmoved. I mildly put in: ‘The children have yet to get married. We do not want to see them married young. When they are grown up, they can take care of themselves. And surely we shall not have, for our sons, brides who are fond of ornaments. And if after all, we need to provide them with ornaments, I am there. You will ask me then.’ ‘Ask you ? I know you by this time.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  They all argeed to abide by the rules and were accepted. But their admission created a flutter amongst the friends who had been helping the Ashram. The very first difficulty was found with regard to the use of the well, which was partly controlled by the owner of the bungalows. The man in charge of the water-lift objected that drops of water from our bucket would pollute him. So he took to swearing at us and molesting Dudabhai. I told everyone to put up with the abuse and continue drawing water at any cost. When he saw that we did not return his abuse, the man became ashamed and ceased to bother us. All monetary help, however was stopped. The friend who had asked that question about an untouchable being able to follow the rules of the Ashram had never expected that any such would be forthcoming. With the stopping of monetary help came rumours of proposed social boycott. We were prepared for all this. I had told my companions that, if we were boycotted and denied the usual faclities, we would not leave Ahmedabad. We would rather go and stay in the untouchables’ quarter and live on whatever we could get by manual labour. Matters came to such a pass that Maganlal Gandhi one day gave me this notice: ‘We are out of funds and there is nothing for the next month.’ I quietly replied: ‘Then we shall go to the untouchables’ quarter.’ This was not the first time I had been faced with such a trial. On all such occasions God has sent help at the last moment,. One morning, shortly after Maganlal had given me warning of our monetary plight, one of the children came and said that a Sheth who was waiting in a car outside wanted to see me. I went out to him. ‘I want to give the Ashram some help,’ said I. ‘And I confess I am at the present moment at the end of my resources.’ ‘I shall come tomorrow at this time,’ he said. ‘Will you be here?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, and he left. Next day, exactly at the appointed hour, the car drew up near our quarters, and the horn was blown. The children came with the news. The Sheth did not come in. I went out to see him. He placed in my hands currency notes of the value of Rs. 13,000, and drove away. I had never expected this help, and what a novel way of rendering it! The gentleman had never before visited the Ashram. So far as I can remember, I had met him only once. No visit, no enquiries, simply rendering help and going away! This was a unique experience for me. The help deferred the exodus to the untouchables’ quarter. We now felt quite safe for a year. Just as there was a storm outside so was there a storm in the Ashram itself.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I recall this as the first occasion on which a woman, other than my wife, moved me to lust. I passed that night sleeplessly, all kinds of thoughts assailing me. Should I leave this house? Should I run away from the place? Where was I? What would happen to me if I had not my wits about me? I decided to act thenceforth with great caution; not to leave the house, but somehow leave Portsmouth. The Conference was not to go on for more than two days, and I remember I left Portsmouth the next evening, my companion staying there some time longer. I did not then know the essence of religion or of God, and how He works in us. Only vaguely I understood that God had saved me on that occasion. On all occasions of trial He has saved me. I know that the phrase ‘God saved me’ has a deeper meaning for me today, and still I feel that I have not yet grasped its entire meaning. Only richer experience can help me to a fuller understanding. But in all my trials of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in politics I can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone. ‘When helpers fall and comforts flee,’ I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal. Such worship or prayer is no flight of eloquence; it is no lip-homage. It springs from the heart. If, therefore, we achieve that purity of the heart when it is ‘emptied of all but love’, if we keep all the chords in proper tune, they ‘trembling pass in music out of sight’. Prayer needs no speech. It is itself independent of any sensuous effort. I have not the slightest doubt that prayer is an unfailing means of cleaning the heart of passions. But it must be combined with the utmost humility. ‘Nirbal ke bala Rama’-Refrain of Surdas's famous hymn, ‘He is the help of the helpless, the strength of the weak.’ ↵ 24NARAYAN HEMCHANDRAJust about this time Narayan Hemchandra came to England. I had heard of him as a writer. We met at the house of Miss Manning of the National Indian Association. Miss Manning knew that I could not make myself sociable. When I went to her place I used to sit tongue-tied, never speaking except when spoken to. She introduced me to Narayan Hemchandra. He did not know English. His dress was queer a clumsy pair of trousers, a wrinkled, dirty, brown coat after the Parsi fashion, no necktie or collar, and a tasselled woolen cap. He grew a long beard. He was lightly built and short of stature. His round face was scarred with small-pox, and had a nose which was neither pointed nor blunt.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Let the child learn his letters by observation as he does different objects, such as flowers, birds, etc., and let him learn handwriting only after he has learnt to draw objects. He will then write a beautifully formed hand. Two more reminiscences of my school days are worth recording. I had lost one year because of my marriage, and the teacher wanted me to make good the loss by skipping a class a privilege usually allowed to industrious boys. I therefore had only six months in the third standard and was prompted to he forth after the examinations which are followed by the summer vacation. English became the medium of instruction in most subjects from the fourth standard. I found myself completely at sea. Geometry was a new subject in which I was not particularly strong, and the English medium made it still more difficult for me. The teacher taught the subject very well, but I could not follow him. Often I would lose heart and think of going back to the third standard, feeling that the packing of two years’ studies into a single year was too ambitious. But this would discredit not only me, but also the teacher; because, counting on my industry, he had recommended my promotion. So the fear of the double discredit kept me at my post. When however, with much effort I reached the thirteenth proposition of Euclid, the utter simplicity of the subject was suddenly revealed to me. A subject which only required a pure and simple use of one’s reasoning powers could not be difficult. Ever since that time geometry has been both easy and interesting for me. Samskrit, however, proved a harder task. In geometry there was nothing to memorize, whereas in Samskrit, I thought, everything had to be learnt by heart. This subject also was commenced from the fourth standard. As soon as I entered the sixth I became disheartened. The teacher was a hard taskmaster, anxious, as I thought, to force the boys. There was a sort of rivalry going on between the Samskrit and the Persian teachers. The Persian teacher was lenient. The boys used to talk among themselves that Persian was very easy and the Persian teacher very good and considerate to the students. The ‘easiness’ tempted me and one day I sat in the Persian class. The Samskrit teacher was grieved. He called me to his side and said: ‘How can you forget that you are the son of a Vaishnava father? Won’t you learn the language of your own religion? If you have any difficulty, why not come to me? I want to teach you students Samskrit to the best of my ability. As you proceed further, you will find in it things of absorbing interest. You should not lose heart. Come and sit again in the Samskrit class.’ This kindness put me to shame. I could not disregard my teacher’s affection. Today I cannot but think with gratitude of Krishnashankar Pandya.