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 Boys & Sex (2020)

  For some college men, treating a sexual partner—especially one who was not suitably hot or selective—with roughness or disinterest and then bragging about it the next day became a form of image management, a preemptive strike against potential ridicule, the loss of social currency. So, when boys assured me that their friends, their frat brothers, their classmates would never assault a girl (it was always those other boys), that could feel like a very low bar: having sex that is technically “legal” is hardly the same as sex that is ethical, mutual, reciprocal, or kind. “Casual sex can be great,” a sophomore at a Los Angeles college told me. “But you can forget to treat the other person as a human being.” Boys felt less strongly than girls that the game was rigged against them; still, few felt the competitive, detached nature of hookup culture fully served them. They struggled not only with unexpected feelings of connection and vulnerability, but with other emotions: inadequacy, anxiety, insecurity, confusion, disappointment, embarrassment—none of which, as guys, they felt permission to express. That was especially true in high school, where hookup culture, while less studied (academics tend to focus on college students), truly begins. Ws and Ls Nate, a high school junior from the Bay Area, recalled sinking deeper into the couch, trying to look chill, like he was such an insider that he didn’t need to prove it by standing around with the other kids gathered in Nicole’s living room. The party was slowly filling up with students from his high school: first the sophomores, then, later, other juniors and a few seniors. The table next to him was crowded with handles of liquor, beer bottles, and a fruit-flavored malt drink called Great America that was packaged like moonshine, in mason jars. Kids were drinking shots and moking. Some were Juuling. “People at my school like to get fucked up, because they have so much pressure on them,” he told me. “So at parties they just want to fucking destroy their bodies and feel like they have no inhibitions. There is a lot of getting drunk and there’s a lot of ‘fun’ I don’t completely understand.” Nate described himself as in the middle of his school’s social scene: friends with the “popular” kids, but also with the “lower” kids. “But the hierarchy really centers around who has access to the parties,” he explained. “And I do get invited to all the parties.” Nate didn’t drink much himself, and he never got high: he wasn’t morally opposed to it; he just didn’t like the feeling of being out of control. So he usually ended up as designated driver, or taking care of the guy who was puking on the sidewalk, or “protecting” a female friend from some wasted, creepy guy’s advances, slinging an arm around her shoulder as if making a claim.

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  Lecture Nineteen Book X—Augustine the Bishop Scope: Unlike the previous nine books, Book X of the Confessions is written in the present. Augustine is no longer reflecting on his life up to the time of his conversion; rather, he is reflecting on the present, on his life as a bishop. In the course of this reflection, he tells us that his flock ought to know who their bishop is. This means that part of what he is doing in the Confessions is setting the record straight. Augustine is no spin doctor. He is not trying to present a sanitized account of his life, either in the past or in the present. Rather, he knows that people have heard stories about him. (He was already a famous writer by this time and one who had something of a “past.”) He presents himself in Book X as one who is still seeking and struggling, who is still subject to temptations, especially sexual temptations (which he describes movingly), and therefore, as one whose struggle can serve as a model for the brothers and sisters who are part of his flock. Thus, Book X offers a powerful interpretation of the idea of conversion, not as something over and done with, but as a continual struggle in the present. Book X of the Confessions provides a unique account of some of the reasons why Augustine undertook the writing of this book. Outline I. Unlike the previous nine books, Book X of the Confessions is written in the present. A. Most modern readers tend to think of the strictly biographical part of the work contained in Books I through IX as what is most interesting and most important. B. Indeed, many ignore the last four books in the reading and evaluation of the work. C. We need to ask both what the purpose of the last four books is and how they are related to what has come before. D. The form of the Confessions remains the same: The last books are, like the first, a prayer addressed to God. 58 ©2004 The Teaching Company.

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  II. If the most important meaning of “confession” is “praise,” then we can look at the last four books as also providing praise, although in a different way. A. The first nine books are only one way of “praising.” B. The last four books also offer praise but in different ways. C. These books contain more overtly philosophical and theological material. D. But it is also important to point out that the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the first nine books are often not given sufficient attention. III. In Book X, Augustine is still reflecting on his life, but now, he is reflecting on his life in the present, as a bishop with all the responsibilities that office entails, rather than as a series of events leading up to his conversion. A. Because he is a bishop addressing his flock directly, he is concerned with misinterpretations that they might have had. 1. In the course of his reflections, he affirms that his flock ought to know who their bishop is. 2. This means, for Augustine, that he needs to tell the truth. He is not interested in being a spin doctor. 3. He realizes that he is someone with a past and that people may have heard stories about him. 4. He is also a famous writer by this time and must deal with the implications of that. 5. Thus, he is addressing those who “know me but who do not really know me.” B. Augustine believes that his confessions can make his readers his brothers and sisters, a model for those who are in his flock. C. He now understands more fully the power of storytelling, whether in the Bible or in the works of pagan writers. D. He considers himself part of a brotherhood with those, like Paul or Antony, who have taken a similar spiritual journey. IV. Augustine talks movingly about temptations in the present. A. He talks about the presence of temptation, especially sexual temptation. ©2004 The Teaching Company. 59

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  B. But he does not know “which temptations I may have the strength to resist and to which ones I shall succumb.” C. Sexual images have been imprinted on his mind because of his previous life. D. They act on him in the present, especially when he is asleep. V. This book provides a powerful support for the idea that conversion is not something that is over and done with but is, rather, a continuous activity. We might easily overlook this idea if we paid attention only to the first nine books of the Confessions. Suggested Readings: Cambridge Companion, chapter 11. O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul, chapter 14. Wills, St. Augustine’s Memory, pp. 3–36. Questions to Consider: 1. What are some of the reasons that Augustine tells his readers about his current temptations in Book X, even though he is now not only converted but also the bishop of the city of Hippo? 2. What does Augustine tell us in Book X that helps us understand the structure of the Confessions as a whole, including the non-narrative books? 60 ©2004 The Teaching Company.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  When Iggy first came home from the hospital, in that ecstatic, disarranged week of almost no sleep, my intense happiness was sometimes punctured in the dead of night by the image of him with a half scissor sticking out of his precious newborn head. Perhaps I had put it there, or perhaps he had slipped and fallen into it. For whatever reason, this image seemed the very worst thing I could imagine. It came to me when I was trying to fall asleep, after many hours—sometimes many nights—of not sleeping. We were up so often that we put a red lightbulb in the living room lamp and kept it on all the time, so that there were periods of sun followed by periods of red, no real night. Once, while wandering in the red soup, I told Harry I was worried I was having a postpartum crash, as I was having bad thoughts about the baby. I couldn’t tell him about the half scissor. I can’t remember now the connection between the little boy’s building of ships in the bottles (Argo’s?) and his commitment to paranoid anxiety, but I’m sure there was one. Nor can I find the original story. I wish that I could find it, as I’m pretty sure its moral wasn’t that all good comes from repeatedly imagining the worst things that could ever happen. Likely a wise old crinkly grandpa drifts into the tale and disabuses his grandson of his rotten notion by taking him to see some wild birds flying over a hillside. But now I think I’m mixing and matching. That wise old crinkly grandparent has not yet waltzed into my life. Instead I have my mother, who lives and breathes the gospel of prophylactic anxiety. When I tell her that it would be easier for me if she could keep her anxieties about my newborn to herself, rather than have her e-mail me to tell me that she’s having trouble sleeping for fear of bad things happening to him (and to everyone else she loves), she snaps: “They’re not all irrational anxieties, you know.” My mother thinks that people don’t really know what they’re in for in this life—what the risks are. How could there be such a thing as an irrational peril, if anything unexpected or horrific that has ever happened could happen again? Last February a sinkhole opened up under a man’s bedroom near Tampa, Florida, while he was sleeping; his body will never be found. When Iggy was six months old, he was stricken by a potentially fatal nerve toxin that afflicts about 150 babies of the 4 million+ born in the United States each year.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  REFINING THE ART OF EROTIC COMMUNICATIONSex therapists and educators are forever harping on the value of communication. To sustain satisfying sex lives, partners must exchange a tremendous amount of information, much of which changes with time and circumstance. Most couples rely primarily on nonverbal clues about how the other likes to be approached and touched. Yet even the best nonverbal communication is severely hampered because it depends on trial and error, with feedback limited to ambiguous groans and squirms. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t encounter a couple who discovers in therapy that long-held beliefs about the other’s likes and dislikes are completely inaccurate. Such mistaken convictions typically are solidified when subtle signs are either misinterpreted or never tested again. During one session Marty described with matter-of-fact certainty how Debbie, his wife, didn’t like him to pump vigorously during intercourse. “Where did you get that idea?” Debbie asked with a look of utter disbelief. “A couple of times you’ve pushed me away and you sure looked unhappy,” he retorted. “I was,” said Debbie with exasperation, “but that’s because I wasn’t wet enough. When I’m hot and lubricating I love it when you get rough!” Marty and Debbie had a genuine desire to please each other. But you can see how only words could describe the specific conditions under which Debbie welcomed vigorous intercourse. No matter how sophisticated we think we are, the fact is that talking about sex is difficult for everyone, even those of us who comfortably bring up sexual matters professionally. Not only are sexual desires, worries, or frustrations hard to articulate, but your partner holds special powers to hurt you by poking fun at you, ignoring you, or acting as if you’re weird. No wonder productive discussions about sex are so difficult to initiate. Sexual communication has a dual function. Besides passing along crucial facts about what you like, don’t like, or might like to try, it’s also important to bolster—or at least not undermine—your partner’s sexual self-esteem. There’s no question that we’re at our best when our partners make us feel as if we have a special knack for turning them on. Conversely, we’re our unsexiest when we’re convinced we can’t do anything right. Don’ts and dos of sexual communication Most couples know when communication is necessary but aren’t sure how to proceed. To that end I offer some suggestions. Because some errors are virtually guaranteed to turn a discussion into a disaster, I’m going to start by violating a truism of marriage counselors that absolute words such as “always” or “never” be judiciously avoided. No matter how tempted you may be, never do these three things:

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  “I’m dressed in this way I never normally dress, I’m playing the whore, the slut, the nympho, whatever, and I can have fun with that, but they don’t realize it’s just a role. I like role-playing with friends, too, sometimes, but they know who the real me is. I think most guys love the whole garter-belts-and-stockings thing, they want you all done up, looking slutty and sucking their dick on all fours.” Prostitution inevitably comes back to desire. When I interviewed Jackie Daniels, and she talked about how some men just love women, that prostitutes needn’t be beautiful, she added, “You could be a sex worker. Easily.” And I was flattered, in an odd way. Could I, really? And on the other hand, when I talked to Alex, sitting cross-legged on a bare double mattress in an empty apartment, I realized how attractive I found her and thought: I could pay her for sex. Two hundred dollars, one hour, what the hell, it’s only money, and as soon as I imagine it my lust expands outward, and as soon as I feel the desire, I feel embarrassed about my body, anxiety about my performance, fear of rejection. The fact that I know so clearly that for her it would be just work is both a relief and a sorrow. All our fears and fantasies about whores center around the fact that they know us in a certain way, a professional way that is disconcerting. I wonder how many of these same confused feelings, these human feelings, are shared by every young businessman, every balding, potbellied CEO who buys Alex’s time. And how she calms their fears. The genital dance of sex work demystifies the spiritual image of sex, and, at the same time, remystifies. Sex work has the potential to tease the true anxiety men feel about women, the anxiety they hide in brutality or simply bravado, tease it up to the surface to be transformed into something else—desire, affection, rest, wonder. The original “harlots” were sacred women who worked in temples, a widespread practice in the ancient world. Temple prostitutes had sex with visitors in exchange for donations to the temple and as a way of both gaining and giving spiritual merit. If we respect myth and the living power of cultural history in any way, we have to bemoan the loss of the sacred harlot; we have to mourn her translation into the pitiful whore of modern myths. The degrading of prostitutes is a direct comment on the degradation of the concept of the Goddess and the ancient celebration of the power of women.

• From While You Were Out (2023)

  I was starving for answers. Where was my mother? Why did she leave us? When was she coming home? She was coming home again, wasn’t she? No one would say. Whenever we had trouble, Sister told us to ask our guardian angels for help. Guardian angels, we learned, are invisible little creatures whose sole purpose is to protect us, like a celestial offensive lineman. Everyone has a guardian angel, Sister said. You must leave room in your life and at your desk for yours. This sounded like crazy talk to me, but I was yearning for anyone to watch over me, so I scooched over to the side of my desk and waited for my guardian angel to appear. Let’s not forget the saints, Sister said. They’ll protect you, too. Saints, we learned, are noble people, now long dead, with marvelous names like Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, and Cyprian. They knew how to joyfully embrace suffering as a way to share in Jesus’s death and resurrection, Sister told us. Suffering was good, Sister said. When we suffer, we are walking with Christ. Because they are so close to God, saints can advocate on our behalf, Sister said. Pray to them and ask them to whisper into God’s ear for what you need. We were told to thumb through a book of saints and find one that we liked the most. I found that I fancied Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. “The Little Flower,” as she was known, was a spitfire of a girl who’d grown up in France in the late 1800s, about the time that Grandma was born. This kid knew how to keep her piehole shut. Even when she developed tuberculosis and started coughing up blood, she simply spit it into her fancy lace handkerchief and hid the evidence under her pillow, never peeking at it, not telling a soul. I started praying to the Little Flower, asking her to help me figure out what was going on with my mother. Secrets fascinated me. What a thrill to know something that no one else does. You decide whom to tell and when to tell it. I used to spend hours collecting treasures from around the house—feathers, rocks from the beach, doll shoes, or my mother’s perfume bottles—and hiding them in a wooden box I called my “secret hiding place.” Then I’d try to get my brothers and sisters to guess where it was. Even if they said they weren’t interested, which was often, I’d tell them anyway. Then I’d start over again. But secrets also made me nervous. Secrets required discipline, a quality I knew that I sorely lacked. ON THE FRIDAY BEFORE Thanksgiving, my mother still missing in action, Sister Ann Christine’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. Terrible news, children. Someone had shot the president in the head in Dallas. We dropped to our knees on the cold linoleum and prayed the rosary. Then the nuns sent us home early.

• From Christian Saints

  10. Thomas Aquinas: The Saintly Scholar arts, all of which required fluency in Latin and familiarity with some religious and some classical texts. A good student with resources could then apply to a master of the university to begin studies in theology, church or civil law, or medicine. It may be here that Thomas first encountered some of the works of Aristotle, which were to influence him profoundly throughout his career. Certainly, it was in Naples that he was swayed to join the Dominican order, to the shock and dismay of his family. Thomas’s Entry to the Dominican Order The Dominicans were founded in 1215 by a Spanish priest from Castile, Saint Dominic, who had set out to establish an order to address the problem of heretical communities. His would be a brigade of learned men, trained as preachers and theologians. Their duties would be to hear confessions, provide theologically sound guidance to the laity, and combat heresy. Thomas’s affiliation with the Dominican order would have seemed personally and politically disastrous to his Ghibelline family. His mother rushed to Naples to try to prevent him from entering the order, only to find the clever Dominicans had already sent him away for his protection. She then ordered Thomas’s brothers to kidnap him from his traveling party and bring him to the family stronghold. Thomas was kept under house arrest by his mother for more than a year, though he was allowed to study and write, and he was even visited by friends and Dominican friars. During this time, the emperor Frederick was formally deposed from his throne by the pope, which may have convinced Theodora to change her stance against the emperor’s enemies, the Dominicans. In the autumn of 1245, Thomas was set free. In one telling, his mother finally relented; in another, his siblings connived to sneak him out through the window. We know that Thomas remained on good terms with his family throughout his career. 72

• From Christian Saints

  12. Saints and the Protestant Reformation The Reformation’s Impact on Women The voices of Protestant leaders and theologians did not, of course, reflect the views of ordinary people. They continued to live in an atmosphere saturated with saints and to observe feast days and festivals. Women, too, resisted the social and cultural changes that went along with theologians’ attempts to demote the Virgin Mary and other female saints. During pregnancy and childbirth, the comfort that women derived from the arrival of a local relic of the Virgin or Saint Anne was a powerful social and emotional force. Ceremonies surrounding childbirth were also difficult to shed, such as the practice of “churching,” or celebrating a woman’s purification and return to the community 40 days after giving birth. Protestants rejected the need for purification, but in some communities, the celebration remained a form of thanksgiving for the mother’s survival and health. It also became used as a form of social control: Churching ceremonies were forbidden to unwed mothers in some Lutheran areas, while in England, unwed mothers were only allowed to celebrate their churching if they named the father and dressed in penitential garb. Cultural views of the Virgin Mary did change noticeably in Protestant areas during the 16th century—part of a larger social debate about the danger of “disorder” from powerful or unmarried women. Increasingly, women’s primary role was seen as marriage and motherhood; there was now no celibate path to a religious career available in most Protestant regions. In comparison with their medieval counterparts, who had more freedom in social spheres and business endeavors, women in the Reformation experienced more restricted opportunities. 88

• From Banned Books

  6. Books on Fire: The Reformation to Rushdie Lynd’s Middletown, A Rising Wind by Walter White (who led the NAACP for a quarter of a century), and Washington Witch Hunt by New York Herald Tribune correspondent Bert Andrews . FAHRENHEIT 451 The year 1953 was a signal year in the history of book burning because of the publication of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 . Bradbury, who was born in 1920, grew up during the Great Depression . He didn’t have the money to further his education . As a teenager, he moved with his family from Illinois to California . The Los Angeles Public Library became his “college” of sorts, where he read widely . Inspired by the terrible newsreel images of the Nazi book burnings, Bradbury wrote the first draft of what would become Fahrenheit 451 in nine days at UCLA’s Powell Library . That first draft was 25,000 words long . When Bradbury’s publisher asked for a novel-length work, he returned to the library and spent nine more days doubling the story’s length . Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel . It’s set in the near future, a time when designated “firemen” are given the work of burning books banned by the government . The title refers to the temperature at which paper autoignites . Guy Montag, a fireman and the hero of his story, has his doubts about the morality of this mission . He eventually joins a band of exiles who have memorized essential books to save civilization and pass on its written inheritance to future generations . Ironically, Fahrenheit 451 has itself been subject to, if not burnings, expurgations and bannings . In 1957, Ballantine issued an edition directed squarely at the high school audience in which words such as hell, damn, and abortion were censored and some 75 passages modified . In the decades following, local school boards censored or banned the novel . In 1987, a much- publicized review of books assigned to students in Bay County, Florida, ordered the removal of Fahrenheit 451 from all classrooms because of its “vulgarity .” After a class action suit, extensive media coverage, protests by the local chamber of commerce, and a demonstration in which teachers and hundreds of high school students wore black armbands, the banning was withdrawn . 48

• From The Mystical Tradition

  2. It belongs with Judaism and Christianity because of its characteristic features: Monotheism, creation, revelation, history, law, faith, and future, all combined in a vision both simple and stringent. II. In every respect, Islam can look to the Prophet of God, the Rasul of Allah, Muhammad (570–632 C.E.) as its founder. A. Like Moses and Jesus, Muhammad (meaning “highly praised”) is subject to intense interpretation within the tradition; there are two main sources for his life. 1. The Qur’an mentions many aspects of the Prophet’s life and teaching in a nonsystematic and often allusive manner. 2. The Qur’an must be supplemented by the Hadith, stories concerning the Prophet that proliferated among followers after his death. 3. Liberal and conservative Muslims disagree on the degree to which these sources should be critically analyzed. B. The significance of Muhammad’s mission is best measured against its historical backdrop. 1. Pre-Islamic Arabia experienced profound social dislocation caused by the shift from Bedouin to merchant existence, from rural life to urban life. 2. The religious context was one of native Polytheism, with some elements of Judaism and dissident Christianity. 3. Muhammad’s hometown of Mecca housed the shrine of the Ka’bah, which was controlled by wealthy families of the city. C. Muhammad’s early life (570–610 C.E.) combined elements of normal endeavor and religious searching. 1. A member of the Quraish tribe, he was an orphan raised by an uncle who ran a well called Zamzam. 2. Muhammad became the business manager of a woman 15 years his senior, Kadijah, and married her in 595. 3. Disturbed by the religious and moral corruption in Mecca, he sought solitude and prayer at Mount Hira, “wrapped in a mantle.” D. The Prophet’s call in 610 is, in the perspective of this course, a mystical experience. 1. It is an encounter with the divine mediated by the angel Gabriel (Sura 53:4–12). ©2008 The Teaching Company. 105

• From The Mystical Tradition

  II. Each of the tensions in some fashion involved the relationship between revelation and human reason. A. An early theological dispute divided Muslims on the question of faith and works, but the most important theological debate concerned determinism and free will, a tension that arose from the extreme position of the Qur’an on each point: How can Allah both be all-powerful and hold humans accountable? 1. The rationalist position was represented by the Mu’tazila party, which made human reason the measure of the Qur’an. God’s justice must be measured by the human understanding of justice; as a consequence, the Qur’an is not an eternal word but a human word. 2. The Orthodox party, represented by Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), appealed to Allah as revealed through the Qur’an as an absolute measure: We know justice from Allah’s actions; the Qur’an is, thus, eternal and not subject to human reason. 3. A mediating position was offered by Abu’l-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (d. c. 936), who applied reason to faith but still made faith the measure of the Qur’an. He distinguished between the physical Qur’an as a finite expression and the eternal word of Allah seeking a compromise. B. Islamic philosophers similarly challenged the ultimate truth of the Qur’an on the basis of Greek philosophy, above all, the thinking of Plato and Aristotle. 1. Al-Farabi (d. c. 950) and Ibn Sina (also called Avicenna, d. 1037) challenged the teaching of the Qur’an on creation (the world is eternal) and on the physical resurrection (only the soul is immortal). For them, the choice was stark: reason or revelation. 2. After the challenge of al-Ghazzali, the Spanish Arabic philosopher Ibn Rushd (also called Averroës, d. 1198) offered a position closer to that of faith and mediated a version of Aristotle to Jews (Moses Maimonides) and Christians (Thomas Aquinas). C. In its own fashion, Sufism also challenged the adequacy of revelation found in the Qur’an. 1. Statements arising out of ecstasy, such as those of Bistami and Hallaj, could challenge the teaching on the unity of Allah. Had 124 ©2008 The Teaching Company.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  What they had in common was that they were undistinguished. Paul could boast nonparticipation in any varsity sport. And he wasn’t a rock-and-roll musician or yearbook photographer like some nonathletes. And he was unattractive. And he hadn’t—unlike many of his fellow students—attended Greenwich Country Day or New Canaan Country Day or any of the other Country Days. The Cult was populated with just this sort of lost soul. The rest of the student body knew one another from summers on Nantucket or in Camden, or from tennis camp, or else they were related, or they were children of trustees or legacies or other prominent alumni. The Kittredge Cult was the remainder. To them, adolescence was nearly fatal. Surprise. To survive a sober afternoon was heroic. Only a state of witless inebriation was really sensible. The best of life was intoxication. The promise of liberated sexuality, dangled before others of their age group, completely eluded Paul and his friends. They whacked off and got caught. They got stoned, and drank, and whacked off. They tortured freshmen, re-inflicting their frustration on these new kids, javelining them with cross-country ski poles. Then they stole five minutes to jerk off a second time. The Cult’s precise origin was unknown. It included women, too. Not only Carla the Bear, but Christina Whitman and her roommate, Debby Vartagnan. Debby had these episodes in which she would permit guys from Kittredge, whom she usually loved only in a platonic fashion, to lie with her on a Saturday night, in violation of major school rules, and to touch her unnaturally large breasts. Each victim would then be marked with a number of unmistakable welts on his neck. Paul hadn’t yet had his turn, but he had seen Hal Frost, another Cultist, come back from one of these encounters at first elated—he was going to be the first one to stain her blankets! to shower with her! to meet her parents!—and then ashamed. In the days afterward, Debby Vartagnan wouldn’t speak to Frost. Where was the free love in this? Where was the revolution? The size of the Cult was shifting, as was its group identity. Francis Chamberlain Davenport IV, Paul’s closest friend, was a founding member, as was Hal Frost. And there were Christina and Debby and Penny Belvedere and Johnny Wilde and Mike Russell and a host of secondary characters. Sometimes they all got along. Sometimes they could rest assured that the difficult moments of the day—the moment, for example, when each of them entered the dining hall unaccompanied and was subjected to its system of gazes and ratings—they had company. This company was worth the anxious apartness it also fostered in them. The Cult comforted, Paul Hood thought, as the train passed through Greenwich. The Cult was a tonic and a comfort. But one thing the Kittredge Cult could not do was instruct about love. They were all orphans this way, from broken homes. They knew shit about love. Paul had gone out , in St.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  But leave aside his religion and see him only as a figure of the western past, and he is still threatened with misunderstanding and obscurity, and he is not alone. Fundamental assumptions that he made about humankind, assumptions that undergird everything he wrote even before his religious conversion, are on the brink of a historic challenge. He is an heir and a shaper of a long tradition that takes from the Greco-Roman past assumptions about human beings and how they work. The intellectual revolution of Greek antiquity and the cultural revolution of Christian antiquity both made sense within that underlying tradition. If that tradition now gives way, ideas built on them will find the ground shifting precipitously. Whatever becomes of “soul” will determine what becomes of Augustine. Augustine writes and worries at length about the nature of the human soul because that soul is central to his understanding of himself, of humankind, and indeed of his god. If “heart” was always metaphor, “soul” was regularly insisted on as standing for something quite real. Augustine’s soul is a spiritual creature, somehow both coterminous with the body but immortal, whether destined for heaven or for hell, often torn by emotion and distraction but potentially a serene unity at the heart of human existence. Augustine knows his soul well enough to talk to621 and sees his life’s work to reside in soul management. Body will fail, so soul must be saved. Body and soul will be reunited in resurrected life, soul now to dominate body and its impulses. Augustine could never quite say exactly how this would come about. But if there is no soul? If there is no soul substitute called “mind” or “personality”? Contemporary cognitive science challenges our deepest western assumptions about human beings and what they are. Attempt after attempt to locate a mental or spiritual unity in some convincing relation with the brain and body of a mortal human fails, fails increasingly often in our times, to be replaced by a series of competing hypotheses about the loosely coupled functioning of multiple systems distributed throughout the body. Deeply held personal, political, philosophical, social, and religious ideas depend on the view of the human person that they share. Roughly, we all know the broad western view that there exists something spiritual that we might as well call a soul, something that accompanies humankind through life, explains our differences from the animal kingdom, is the locus of solace and grief, love and hate, lust and abashment, and is the object of whatever hopes for a life beyond the visible and the mortal that we may still cherish.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I had repeatedly thanked my lucky stars that I had met Michael when we were college students, enabling me to bypass the anxiety and challenges that my friends seemed to be enduring (note: ironically, every one of these friends is still married to the husband she eventually found). Before Michael, I had met one boyfriend at a summer job and the other at a fraternity party. They just happened, I didn’t have to put up a billboard with photos showing my face and body from every angle to see if they were worthy enough to capture a man’s attention. Friends keep floating the idea of online dating past me, but I steadfastly refuse. I picture a man zooming into my photos to see the size of my breasts or wrinkles on my face without being drawn to a characteristic that you can only witness in real life, like the way I am quick to laugh or how I talk with my hands excitedly. I want a man to be attracted to me for something other than my physical appearance; I want to be attracted to a man for deeper reasons too. It’s not clear to me how that could possibly happen by looking at two-dimensional photos. Thus far, I’ve managed to meet men by going to bars, or agreeing to a blind date, all of which has served me well by giving me the illusion, albeit an admittedly false one, that I just happened upon these men – not that I was actively looking for them. Taking my quest online seems akin to posting a ‘Help Wanted’ sign. So when Karen brings her daughter over to play with Georgia one afternoon and I complain that I am soon to be kid-free for a couple of days but dateless and she suggests I take my search online, I am indignant, insisting that those apps are just hook-up sites. “And your problem with that is …?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “Fair enough. But I can’t make myself public like that. What if Michael is on one of these apps and sees my profile? Or a dad from school? Or a teacher from one of the kids’ schools? I can’t,” I say. “It would be embarrassing. It seems pathetic, like I can’t find a date on my own.” “You’ve got bigger fish to fry than worrying about being embarrassed. You’ve already proven that you can find a date on your own, but you have limited time and this is how people date now. No offense, Laura, but you haven’t dated since the last century. Do you want to be chaste or do you want to be back out there?” she asks. “Back out there?” I say as more of a question than a statement. “Right. So come on, let’s make you a profile on Tinder. It’ll be fun,” she says. “Fine, let’s make the profile and when I’m ready I’ll make it live or whatever you do with it,” I say.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  On the phone, I decide to ignore his heavy Brooklyn accent tinged with a nasal quality, opting instead to focus on the fact that he is smart and funny. We set a date for me to go to the residential neighborhood where he lives in Brooklyn. He will meet me at the subway station and we can walk to a café from there. I tell him I know my way around the area and can meet him somewhere, but he says it’ll be easier to pick me up at the station. I will soon learn a valuable lesson: meet on neutral ground and have a plan so you don’t have to make decisions on the fly, especially when you’re someone like me who often resorts to being polite first and self-protective second. Climbing up the stairs of the subway station on a beautiful blue-sky September day, I spot Kevin waiting at the top. He looks like his pictures – bald, gleaming head, muscular, a bit thicker and more solid than I had pictured him. He leans in for a quick hug and then points me in the direction we will walk in, which I know is where the main street is, with lots of cafés where we can perch for an hour or two. He asks if I want to grab cups of coffee that we can take to the park, which I immediately agree to – going for a walk seems less intimidating than sitting face to face. A few blocks later, he says, “Actually, we can make coffee at my place to take to the park, my apartment is right here.” “Oh,” I say, pausing. “Um, no, you don’t have to bother, we can just pick it up.” “It’ll just take a minute and we’re here already,” he says, pointing to a street-level door at the base of a brownstone. I reluctantly agree. This is my first Tinder date and he seems so self-assured that I try to ignore the red flag being waved directly in front of me. I don’t want to seem nervous or suspicious as that would be a huge turn-off, but entering his apartment seems like a frankly bad idea. I feel trapped and unsure what to do, still more concerned with how I appear than with my own safety, but I try to exude nonchalance, following him as he slides the key into the iron gate leading to the front door. Inside, the apartment is dark and drab – the natural light is dim and his room-length bookshelves are filled with bulky hardcovers, CDs and DVDs. There is an abundance of art and cumbersome sculptural objects hanging on the wall. The kitchen is an open area between the living room and the bedrooms in the back, and true to his promise, he starts filling the coffee pot and dumping scoops of coffee from a huge tub of Folgers into the filter.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I hate when I recognize myself being a snob but nonetheless note the Folgers with disdain, thinking a writer in Brooklyn who insists on making his own coffee should have some artisanal blend that he makes in a special coffee filtration system only the most coffee-educated could appreciate – not Folgers in a Mr. Coffee pot. As the coffee brews, he suggests that when it’s done, we take it to his backyard instead of to the park. I hesitate and then quietly agree again, admonishing myself for not saying what I want to say, which is that I feel uncomfortable and would prefer a walk in a public space. I want him to know that I recognize that I am being deceived in some way, that I’m not so gullible I don’t see it, but I don’t want to appear to be a mousy, timid, nervous woman. Reluctantly, I accept the coffee, which tastes bitter and stale, and follow him out the back door to the yard. The yard is small but pretty, with an abundance of greenery and a porch swing under an awning, where we sit, gently swaying as we talk about his writing, until twenty minutes in, I confess that I am terribly uncomfortable, that I’m getting bitten up by mosquitoes, pointing to swollen red spots on my bare legs, and he leads the way back inside. This time, we sit on his couch in the living room and I ask about his vast collection of DVDs and CDs, items that don’t get a lot of shelf space in most homes anymore. Only a few minutes into our having settled on the sofa, he leans toward me as I am mid-sentence and starts kissing me. “OK,” I say, pulling back slightly. “Well, that’s one way to get me to stop talking.” “Can we move to my bedroom?” he asks, his coffee-laden breath too close to my face. “Um, OK, sure. That was fast,” I say, grimacing slightly. I don’t really want to sleep with him, but I don’t know how to get myself out of here. He has steered me here, but I have shown only hesitation, not one sign of actual resistance. I feel completely disconnected from myself, as if I am no longer here in this gloomy apartment but on the other side of the door where a brilliant blue sky shines on my real life, where I should be right now. I am scared to say no to this man – he is intense and determined, and I fear that I might have led him to this inevitable conclusion so that saying no now would brand me a tease, a blue-baller, a naïf, someone who doesn’t understand the sexual dynamics between a man and a woman.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  At the last minute he informs me that he’s only 5’7” so if height is an issue for me, I should not feel obliged to proceed with the date. I tell him that at 5’3”, I’ve never been in a position to complain about anyone else’s height. In the taxi, I get a text from Scott, saying he is looking forward to our date tomorrow night and asking what I’m up to. I tell him I’m on my way to meet a friend and he says he assumes I mean a date and that I don’t have to be coy. I consider this progress, that now I don’t have to be secretive about who I am seeing, that going on multiple dates in a short time period is what is expected of me in the online arena. Karl is already sitting at the table when I arrive, and when he stands to greet me I notice that he’s handsome, smartly dressed and, well, short. Not shorter than me, but not much taller either. I inhale a Margarita even though this bar’s specialty is whiskey (I have to stick with what I know on these dates), he orders appetizers for the table and we break the ice. He’s gentle and kind, has a twinkle in his eye and is clearly a history buff, as he keeps peppering our conversation with stories about ancient noblemen and bits of Russian history. I concentrate on following what he’s saying – it’s noisy and I’m on my second drink and the stories seem to randomly appear without context. I don’t think he’s showing off for me, but maybe citing historical facts is a kind of nervous tic. When I stand to use the restroom, I totter for a moment in my high heels and hold onto the edge of the table to get my bearings. In the awkward lulls of our conversation, I consumed two drinks at lightning speed. When I return to the table, he has already paid the bill and is ready to go. I wonder if he’s anxious to get this date to its end, but he walks with me toward home and on the way suggests that we should stop for dessert. I doubt we will be able to get a table at the crowded restaurant he points to, but he says he knows the host and we will get in, no problem. Walking next to him, I note that we are eye-level, though in all fairness I’m wearing heels. Still, it feels weird to me and I realize that I’ve always been diminutive compared to men I’ve been with. If I’m being honest – even though I admit this with regret that I care – I like being the smaller one and feeling protected by a larger man at my side. I think of a friend who always dates men who are her height, with whom she can even share jeans – I shudder at the thought.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I’ve often teased her that she likes men to be petite so she can tuck them in her pockets when she’s out and about and keep them close by. I have always conformed to gender stereotypes of physicality, feeling that masculinity is defined in part by physical prowess, but I also fully embrace the concept of metrosexuality. Michael had been more interested in fashion and shopping than I had ever been, and arguments we had about spending too much money on clothes, accessories or fancy toiletries were due to his bills, not mine. I didn’t like how much money he spent, but I liked that he cared about what he wore and how he looked. One friend, when I told her that Michael and I had separated, admitted to me that she had always thought he was gay. I had never even thought of that as a possibility, and laughingly told her how when we were younger and would walk the city hand in hand, I would often feel him squeeze my hand and I would know that an attractive woman was walking toward us – this was his silent and inadvertent reaction. He loved women, but he also loved Paul Smith blazers, expensive scented candles and Alexander McQueen scarves. I was comfortable with this aspect of his personality, as long as he was taller and bigger than me. The restaurant is packed when we arrive and the host Karl said he knew does not seem to know him, so I hang back and pretend I can’t hear the seating arrangements he’s negotiating. We are finally sent to a lone barstool squeezed tightly between seated patrons at the bar and Karl directs me to sit while he lingers behind me. I try to turn so that I am sideways both to him and the bar and can thus talk to him, but it’s too crammed. He leans over me to order another drink and desserts to share and we shout comments to each other that neither of us can hear. When we are expelled back into the street, I am relieved that we are only a few blocks from my apartment. “You’re very cool, you know that? A lot of women I go on dates with won’t let me walk them home because they don’t want me to know where they live. They often seem paranoid. You exude confidence,” he says. I ponder his words – is that how it’s supposed to be done, am I screwing up in my self-protection department yet again and he is confusing confidence with ignorance? As we near my building, a teenage girl approaches us, her arms weighed down by a mound of long-stemmed red roses individually wrapped in plastic sleeves. I walk past her, stopping a moment later when I realize Karl is no longer next to me.