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

  Like fossil fuels or political capital, attention is a limited resource. We have only so much we can allocate before it is used up. For Diego, all his attention is focused on himself and the management of his anxiety, a phenomenon aptly called self-focused attention. Self-focused attention eats up our bandwidth by focusing on our bodies (I look weird, don’t I?), emotions (I’m freaking out here), performance (Why did I say that? I sound like an idiot), or management (I should smile at her. But maybe that looks creepy. But not smiling is creepier, isn’t it? Argh, I probably look like I want to stuff her in my car trunk). Thus, we come away from social encounters with very little information about how things actually went. And where do we look to fill in the gaps? Unfortunately, we ask our anxiety, which is about as credible as asking the used-car salesman which model we should buy. Or we ask the Inner Critic, which is even worse. In short, we look inside to see how things outside are going. Whether at a high school dance or our annual performance review we use our discomfort to determine how we are coming off to others. This is called the felt sense. We feel like an idiot, so we must be spouting nonsense. We feel like a loser, so everyone must be secretly signing an L on their foreheads when we turn around. Again, it feels true, so we ask our anxiety, arguably the least credible source of information, for reassurance. No wonder it’s not working. To top it off, this self-absorption reverberates far beyond just our anxious moments. Researchers from Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario asked socially anxious undergrads to have a five-minute getting-to-know-you conversation with a lab assistant (as you probably noticed by now, social anxiety researchers love the five-minute getting-to-know-you conversation). In order to induce self-focused attention, half the participants were instructed to pay close attention to their own feelings, thoughts, actions, and body sensations during the conversation. By contrast, the other half were asked to pay close attention to their partners’ words and facial expressions. After the conversation, the researchers let them stew for twenty-four hours. The next day, the self-focused group reported lashing themselves with criticism more harshly and more often than the partner-focused group. Indeed, the first myth of social anxiety—I must always monitor myself and my anxiety—set in motion a twenty-four-hour-long ripple effect of negativity. For Diego, the myth kept him trapped in the closed circuit of social anxiety as well. He desperately wanted things to go well, which made him anxious, which made him monitor his performance. But all the management limited his attention and, ironically, made things go poorly. His Inner Critic’s forecasts about poor performance became a self-fulfilling prophecy. * * * So if monitoring is getting in our way, what do we do instead? How do we get out of our heads? The answer is your next tool: turn your attention inside out.

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

  These things scare me a little. And I’d be hypocritical if I asked you to do things that scare you a little and didn’t do the things I was scared of. Believe me, I considered faking it, but for you, dear reader, I’ll face my fears. Let’s take the first one. I hate it when someone is lying in wait for my parking space. I feel pressured, imagining the person is growing impatient with me. I worry they’ll honk in disapproval or give me the finger as they floor it and roar away. So for my own practice, I decided I would simply go at my normal pace the next time someone was waiting for my space. What happened? Nothing. The guy waited. It was such a nonissue I felt like it didn’t count. But it did. That was an easy Moment. A few days later, it happened again. That time, the driver slowly drove away after it became obvious I had a cart full of groceries and two wiggly boys unwilling to get in their booster seats. There were no honks or fingers. He just rolled on to someone who might vacate her space before, say, sundown. But even if he had honked or given me the finger? Remember Replace from chapter 5? How bad would that really be? What are the odds? How would I cope? Being on the receiving end of a honk or finger from a stranger would be a little alarming, but I could handle it. I could text my husband and say: “Can you believe this guy?” I could turn it into a teachable moment for the kids about the importance of being patient. All in all, it would be fine. Speaking of giving the finger, for your own Challenge List practice things that scare you, but don’t practice being a jerk. Practice being the authentic you, not a pissed-off, unhinged you. Even though the prospect of telling off your boss makes you anxious, it’s not something you want to practice. Use common sense. Just because the thought of indulging in some road rage makes you anxious doesn’t mean it’s a good choice. Instead, choose things that will build a more authentic you. In fact, one might even call this Challenge List an Authenticity List. Think of it this way: What would you be doing if anxiety weren’t standing in your way? What do you want to do without overthinking? What would the you-without-fear do? Put those things, big and little, on the list. Now it’s your turn. Let’s start with things that scare you a little. List some small, concrete things that buy you an express ticket to the land of (a little) social anxiety. 1. ____________________ 2. ____________________ 3. ____________________ 4. ____________________

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  You can’t rely on your health-care practitioner to make you feel comfortable talking about sex. Physicians trained in the United States receive less instruction in human sexuality than volunteers at some sex-information hotlines. Your doctor may be even less comfortable than you discussing the details of your sex life—especially if your physician sees few other lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered patients. Charles Moser, author of Health Care Without Shame: A Handbook for the Sexually Diverse and Their Caregivers, recommends that you come out to your physician during your first visit—if not sooner. Don’t wait until you suspect you have an STD. What should you tell your health-care practitioner about your sex life? Here are some of the points Moser suggests you cover: • The sexual activities you typically engage in—such as oral sex, vaginal or anal penetration with fingers or a dildo, or fisting. • The safer-sex precautions you employ. • The number of partners with whom you have sexual contact. • Whether you engage in activities that might involve bruising or breaking the skin (such as caning or play piercing). • The family structures or relationships you wish to have taken into account for hospital visitation or decisions regarding your care.3 Finally, if you don’t feel comfortable following Moser’s recommendations, some health advocates suggest you simply say that you are sexually active and want to be tested for the full spectrum of STDs. Gynecological CareAll sexually active females should get annual gynecological exams, including Pap smear, pelvic exam, and breast exam. Whether you have sex with one partner or many, with women only or with both women and men, you need regular gynecological care. Regardless of your gender identity—stone butches (and many FTMs)4 require gynecological care, too. If you engage in unprotected sexual activities, ask to be screened for STDs. If you engage in anal sex, ask for a rectal exam—some STDs can infect you rectally as well as genitally. As you’ll see below, STDs often occur without any symptoms—or with symptoms you could easily mistake for the flu. A Pap smear, blood test, or culture may be the only way you know you’ve been exposed to an STD. If you’re diagnosed with an STD or have had an abnormal Pap smear, your physician will recommend treatment. It’s important that you follow up on recommended procedures and return visits. Your annual Pap smear can prevent cervical cancer only if you treat any dysplasia or other conditions revealed by the test. Consult a gynecologist if you experience pain during penetrative sex or if you experience spotting after deep thrusting with a dildo, fingers, or fist. You may have a small tear or abrasion on your cervix. If you notice a rash or sore on your genitals or anus, unusual discharge, or irregular bleeding, or if you experience genital itching or irritation, painful urination, abdominal or pelvic pain, nausea, fatigue, or fever, consult a physician. Don’t ignore these symptoms.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Still one-fifty an hour. No discounts for being a better patient?” The following week, as she listened yet again to Ernest’s countertransference dictation on the way to her therapy hour, Myrna decided to steer the discussion to his comments about her physical appearance and sexual attractiveness. It wasn’t difficult. “Last week,” she began, “you said we should continue where we left off.” “All right. Where shall we start?” “At the end of the session last week, you were talking about my whining about the singles scene—” “Whoa! You keep quoting me as though I said you were whining. That was not my word—repeat, not my word. I said something about your circular or repetitious comments.” Myrna, of course, knew better. Whining was precisely his term: she had heard him use it on the tape. But, eager to proceed, she’d let him have his little lie. “You were saying you were bored by my talking about the singles scene. How am I supposed to deal with it if I don’t talk about it?” “Certainly you’ve got to talk about the major concerns in your life. As I said, it’s how you talk about them.” “What does ‘how’ mean?” “Well, you didn’t seem to be speaking to me. I felt out of the loop. Time and again, you’d tell me the exact same things—the unfair ratio, the meat-market scene, the ten-second visual checkout in singles bars, the impersonality of Internet matching services. And each time you’d say it as though you were telling me for the first time, as though you’d never thought of asking yourself whether you’d ever said this before or how I might regard your repeating it so often.” Silence. Myrna stared at the floor. “What do you feel about what I just said?” “I’m digesting it. Tastes a little bitter. Sorry I wasn’t more considerate.” “Myrna, I’m not judging you. It’s good that the issue has come up, and it’s good that I gave you feedback. That’s how we learn.” “Hard to think of others when you’re feeling trapped, feeling you’re spinning in a vicious circle.” “You’re going to stay in the vicious circle as long as you keep thinking it’s always someone else’s fault. Your incompetent CEO, say, or the dating scene being a jungle, or the people in marketing being jerks. I’m not saying these things aren’t true; I’m saying”—Ernest gave it all he had, emphasizing each word forcefully—‘I can’t help you with them. The only way I can help you break the vicious circle is to focus on whatever it is in you that might initiate or aggravate these happenings.” “I go into a singles event, and there are ten women for each guy,” Myrna spoke more hesitantly, the steam going out of her words, “and you want me to focus on my responsibility for that?”

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  But there’s a difference between occasionally worrying about the potential day when we’ll lose someone we hold dear, and agonizing all the time about when that day will come. Before we go on, let’s just take a moment to assess how intense the separation anxiety may be for you.190 , 191 Note how many of these hold true for you. 1. You dread having to say goodbye to your loved ones and put off having to part ways. 2. You avoid getting into fights with loved ones because you’re afraid it could be the last time you see them. 3. You check in with your loved ones daily to make sure they are safe and you feel guilty if you forget to reach out. You may even monitor their behavior and their health to ensure they’re not putting themselves in potential danger. 4. The holidays can be especially nostalgic and bittersweet, where you wonder whether this will be the “last time” that you’re all together. 5. You often have visions or nightmares about the worst-case scenario happening to your loved ones. 6. Even though you may need alone time, you push yourself to be with others because you feel a pressure that this could be your last chance to have quality time together. 7. You feel like you will never be okay again once your loved one passes away or if they were to leave you. 8. You have trouble leaving your home or another place where your loved one lives. You’d rather be with them than go somewhere new by yourself or to meet new people. 9. You often have somatic symptoms (headaches, nausea, panic symptoms) when a goodbye is coming up or happening. 10. Every time the phone rings you worry that something bad has happened. If a lot of this is hitting home for you, you’re not alone. I would argue that our generation has seen an uptick in separation anxiety. Why? Because we have so much unpredictability in our lives. Things have changed—drastically. No one and nowhere feels safe. Many of us now refuse to go to movie theaters, shopping malls, or concerts because we’re so afraid of what might happen. The grim reality is that we never know when our loved ones could be ripped from us.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  I talked about how, even if you define yourself as a Christian and believe in eternal life, you’ve got to realize your time on earth is incredibly short. And I explained further that along with this has to go the realization that we not only die alone, but that, really, we live alone, too. That no matter how we love our families and friends, we can’t breathe for each other when our alveoli clog up with cigarette smoke and car exhaust, that we can’t pee for each other when our kidneys stop working, and that we can’t really comfort each other once we know these things. This is the real reason Thomas Wolfe couldn’t go home again and why old Don Genaro won’t ever reach Ixtlan and most of all why we’ve got to love the people who deserve it as fiercely as we love our own lives. And then Balldozer says, “Oh, you’re writing about growing up.” I passed over the remark and went on. But now the bastard’s got me wondering. XXISunday night is sure a weird night for a dance. But it’s New Year’s Eve and that’s when the dance is traditionally held. I feel as though I should be doing leftover homework. I think I’d like to see Christmas and New Year’s made Wednesday every year. Carla notes, however, that there’s a sense of orderliness in beginning a new week and a new year on the same day. Although she denies responsibility, I’m blaming Carla for some embarrassment I suffered this afternoon. Actually, it was the fault of general fatigue and my often intractable libido, but it’s more fun to blame Carla. I was really, really tired last night. I puzzled over Balldozer’s comment until I fell asleep. I vaguely remember him waking me in the school parking lot and Carla driving me home. I remember flopping into bed and Katzenburger licking my face, or maybe it was Carla taking advantage of me. Anyway, I was dog tired. I got up around nine and ran three miles and came home and did a workout in the laundry room. I started my laundry-room workouts again because without school and work I was afraid I wouldn’t burn enough energy to keep my weight down. I start the school year with my laundry-room workouts and only give them up when I feel really in good shape. I take my tape player in and put on a special workout tape. I keep the tape player in a plastic bag so the moisture doesn’t get to it. I dry a load of laundry so the room’s good and hot and I wear my rubber sweat suit under my cotton one. I’ve got ten songs on my tape. I skip rope through one song, stop the tape, do a hundred pushups, then a hundred sits, then turn the next song on and do it till the tape is over.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  wisdom. Linked to this “fear of the L ORD ” is a similar deferential disposition toward parents and teachers. “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching” (1:8). The student is warned repeatedly of the dire fate that awaits those who do not pay heed to authority: “At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, ‘Oh, how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. Now I am at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly’ ” (5:12-14). Two themes predominate in Proverbs 1–9. One consists of repeated warnings against various temptations that beset the young. The other is the praise of wisdom itself. These themes reach a climax in chapters 7–9, where both folly and wisdom are personified in female form. The theme of warning is introduced in 1:8-19, in an admonition that is rather typical of the concerns of parents for their teenage children. They worry that the son (or daughter) may “get in with the wrong crowd” and so come to grief. The warning is typically dire. These “sinners” are plotting murder, and in the end they will lose their own lives. The real issue, both in ancient and in modern times, is one of control and influence. Will the young person be guided by his or her parents, or succumb to the pressures of the peer group? Such concerns are timeless and not peculiar to any historical period. They are, perhaps, more typical of urban than of rural society, insofar as the youth are exposed to more influences and less likely to be restrained by the force of tradition. Most scholars have assumed that these chapters were written in Jerusalem in the Second Temple (probably Persian) period, but the evidence is not conclusive. The “Strange Woman” The primary image of temptation in these chapters, however, is “the strange woman” ( ’ishah zarah ) . This figure is first introduced in 2:16-19, where she is associated with the adulteress: “You will be saved from the strange woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the partner of her youth, and forgets her sacred covenant.” Again in 5:3-4 we are told that “the lips

• From Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times

  While Sandel makes a fair point, Rawls nevertheless gives us a workable framework for engaging the concerns highlighted in this chapter. Rawls uses the notion of a ‘reasonable comprehensive doctrine’ to organise and arrange our beliefs so that they can ‘express an intelligible view of the world’, which involves the recognition of judgement in balancing conflicting values.42 The political task is to work out a conception of justice that ‘a plurality of reasonable comprehensive doctrines’ are able to endorse and support,43 while recognising that many of the ‘comprehensive doctrines’ are incompatible with each other. Disagreement over beliefs is not necessarily a barrier to agreement about social and political outcomes. Yet the studied neutrality of Rawls’ analysis raises difficult questions. One difficulty concerns the increasingly polarised nature of American political discourse since the 1970s. An ideological polarisation, resulting from divergent viewpoints, is increasingly being supplemented with an affective polarisation, expressing distaste and dislike for the people holding these views.44 It is not simply that American culture has become more polarised; the nature of that polarisation has become more complex, involving often trenchant views about the morality, intelligence and integrity of those who hold alternative viewpoints. It remains unclear whether Rawls’ views regarding finding agreement about fair outcomes can be sustained when there is such personal distrust within and across the political spectrum. Beyond the difference that believing makes to individuals, we have begun to contemplate how these shape public life and debate. In the next chapter, we shall focus on the question of the relation of beliefs and communities, focusing particularly on how ‘communities of belief’ come into being, function, and are prone to losing their way. Chapter 8Beliefs and CommunitiesAccording to the World Population Review of 2022, some eighty-five per cent of people on this planet claim adherence to a faith. In earlier chapters, we considered some ways in which beliefs affect the outlooks and lives of individuals, while occasionally touching on their more communal aspects. We now need to focus on the interaction of beliefs and communities, why they arise and the purpose they serve. A ‘community’ arises in response to many factors, including the need for social interaction, a sense of solidarity, shared interests and views of the world, and collective action.1 Some of these communities have a territorial basis, in that they are restricted to or focused on a geographical space around which a boundary can be drawn – for example, a local place-based community, such as a rural sports club. Other communities, however, are spatially dispersed, focusing on more general issues that are not specifically linked with a geographical location – such as political, philosophical or religious beliefs.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  I was driving along when a car, having failed to heed the stop sign, suddenly entered the road from an intersecting side street. The other driver didn’t see me in time and crashed into the left side of my car. I also didn’t see him until the last minute and couldn’t respond to avoid the accident. I sat in the car for a moment, stunned. Realizing that I was OK, I got out of the car to assess the damage. Although the car was pretty badly crunched, I was not overly upset about it, because the guy had insurance and the police report would show that he was at fault. I also noticed myself thinking that I wanted to get the car repainted anyway. I felt pretty good, almost euphoric. I was pleased at how easily I moved from the accident into a difficult business meeting later that day. I was prepared for the meeting and handled it quite well. The next day I began to feel agitated. There was a stiffness in my neck, right shoulder, and arm that surprised me, since I had been hit on the left side. Looking back at what happened earlier the day of the accident (periphery of the event), and working through the event with his friend Tom, Joe (we will call the man who had the accident Joe) remembered get- ting into his car to go to work and being mad at his wife. As he recalls this, he becomes aware that his jaw is clenched and trembling. His body begins to shake and feels like it is going out of control. His friend Tom reassures him it’s going to be OK. Once Joe stops shaking and feels some relief, they go on to explore more of the details prior to the accident. Joe remembers backing out of the driveway and turning his head to the right to see where he is going. He feels his arms turning the wheel, and at the same time he notices that as a result of being angry, he is accelerating too hard. His right leg tenses as he moves his foot to the brake to slow down (he senses this action in the muscles of his legs). Encouraged by his friend Tom, Joe takes time to feel the tensing and relaxing that is happening in his right leg. As he moves from gas to brake and back again, he feels some trembling in his legs.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  “Me, too, Dad,” I said reflexively. When I thought about it, though, I wasn’t sure if it was true. In order to really be able to talk about “anything,” I’d have to learn how to talk about dying. Why was this so hard? I bought books on Buddhism, listened to the meditations, took the classes, and hired the professionals. But nothing prepared me for this. We learn so many important skills for navigating life. Essential hygiene practices: check. Don’t take rides from strangers: check. How to use jumper cables: check (or just call AAA). Supporting someone we love through their last breath: crickets. Even with all the preparation in the world—even when we think we know what we’re doing—practicing it is a whole other skill. Dad had opened a big door, one he needed to explore, but I wasn’t capable of accompanying him through it yet, so I hid behind anal prolapses as an escape from my own discomfort. The next night, we celebrated his birthday at a beautiful restaurant with a gorgeous view of the water. The air was warm, salty, and slightly breezy—the temperature just right. The ocean shimmered like a Monet painting sparkling with magic-hour light. Even our table was the best in the house (I made sure of it, as I didn’t want to leave anything to chance). Dad ordered a great bottle of wine, as he always did. Brian, my normally stoic husband, was tasked with kicking off the birthday toast. One sentence in, his lips began quivering, unleashing a chain reaction of feels that rippled throughout the table. Mom’s eyes welled up. I retreated to my mental safe house—What would it be like to be the ocean? I wondered, as I willed my tears away with thoughts. Something that endures and remains no matter how life changes. But I wasn’t the ocean; I was a hurting human, surrounded by other hurting humans who didn’t know how to express their big feelings, let alone realize that it might be appropriate. Just then Dad swooped in to save us, allowing us to breathe again. “Thank you for coming here to celebrate this special day with me,” he said, gazing at the ocean I was trying to become. “You know, if I could do it all again, I’d give myself more like this. Summer has always been my busy season. And even though I could have, I rarely took a day off to experience something like this. So figure out what your ‘more like this’ looks like and make it happen sooner; don’t save it for your golden years.” Before I had a chance to let his words sink in, words that would become my compass in this next stage of life, he lobbed the final bomb that demolished my brittle defenses. “I hope you’ll all come back here on my birthday from time to time. This is a good spot to remember me. I love you all.”

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

  The worst, Diego said, was when he had to do a physical exam and actually touch someone’s body. “And the absolute worst is when I have to do a Pap smear, a breast exam, a testicular exam, or anything like that,” he said. Between being observed by supervisors and having to touch patients, Diego said, “I’m anxious all the time.” So Diego worked hard to cover himself. When he spoke, he monitored himself to ensure he was using his “doctor voice” and sufficiently impressive vocabulary. While other people were talking, he thought about what to say next, weighing and rehearsing to make sure he didn’t say anything impolite, insensitive, or stupid. But all Diego’s impression management—focusing on his anxiety and monitoring what he said—was royally screwing up his work. He often missed what was being said to him—by patients, attending physicians, his resident. He had to ask people to repeat themselves. He would get distracted and lose his place while taking a history or forget the entire circulatory system while performing a physical. During bedside teaching sessions, he didn’t answer the attendings’ questions unless they asked him directly, and then his mind would go blank, unable to remember the lines he had just been rehearsing in his head. But after a couple of months in the hospital, his midsemester evaluations, to put it lightly, left room for improvement. He was distracted and unfocused, said the residents. He seemed preoccupied, said the attendings. Diego was discouraged and unnerved. He wanted nothing more than to do well, to be a good doctor. Something had to change. * * * As you know by now, social anxiety is fundamentally a distortion: it’s a mistaken belief that something is wrong with you and everyone will notice. That you’ll be Revealed. But that’s not the only lie social anxiety tells. In this section of How to Be Yourself, we’ll put the myths of social anxiety in the hot seat. Diego is a classic example of the first myth of social anxiety: I must always monitor myself and my anxiety. He plans and rehearses what he says, ensures his voice isn’t squeaky or cracking, and weighs his words to ensure he simultaneously sounds smart, doesn’t offend anyone, and generally avoids criticism. But all this impression management is exhausting, plus in the end, it actually hinders his performance and keeps him mired in social anxiety.

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

  Just like Brandon talking to strangers, the first few times will be the most difficult. Experience hasn’t yet balanced out our fearful imaginings of all possible worst-case scenarios. So while you’re in the tough early stages, base your achievement on what you do rather than how you feel. You were anxious and you said hi. You were sweating bullets and you asked for a raise. You didn’t have the perfect answer ready and you raised your hand. You felt like throwing up and you asked her out. Your anxiety isn’t credible, so don’t ask it for feedback. Instead, look at what you did. Let your accomplishments be the measure of your success. Your confidence is there. See? Here it comes. It’s sprinting to catch up. 8 No False Fronts in This Town: Play a Role to Build Your True Self Pretend you’re Beyoncé. —FIFTH-GRADE GIRL AT MY LOCAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, ENCOURAGING A NERVOUS FRIEND BEFORE THE SPRING RECITAL In a vintage episode of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson welcomed guest Rona Barrett, 1970s gossip columnist and celebrity interviewer. She turned the tables on Johnny, plying him with questions about his start in show business. In their conversation, Johnny shared a memory: As a child, he performed in a play and got the audience to laugh. In that moment, he realized he liked being the center of attention. Barrett pounced. “Why did you want the attention?” she asked. Carson answered, “Why did I want the attention? Because I was shy. Now that sounds like ambivalence, right? Onstage, you see, when you’re on stage in front of an audience, you’re kind of in control. When you’re off of the stage or in a situation where there are a lot of people, you’re not in control, and I felt awkward. So I went into show business thinking it would give me a little more…” He paused. “I could overcome that shyness.” The young Johnny Carson intuited something that many of us discover. For some, in order to stop reading about the bicycle and get on the bicycle it helps to have some structure. Being left to your own devices is overwhelming: What to do? What to say? But counterintuitively, the structure of a task or a role can be oddly liberating. For Johnny, the role of “Entertainer” was his way to feel more certain of his purpose and direction. Limitless options are overwhelming. If you’ve ever been faced with a yawning expanse of a blank page with no idea what to write or a looming white canvas with no idea what to paint, you know the pain of trying to start from scratch. Oddly, it’s much easier to work within constraints. Give me some direction, some structure, or a model to follow, and magically I feel much more confident. Contrary to common sense, limitations get things moving.

• From Between Us

  In my own country, I was used to being a socially adept and emotionally intelligent person. But when I arrived at the University of Michigan in November 1993, I felt emotionally out of sync. My new colleagues were gracious, happy, and outgoing. They exchanged niceties with each other and with me. I liked their company, and I liked how they treated me. Yet, things were not easy, because I was unable to reciprocate in appropriate ways: I felt my own emotional shortcomings. In conversations, it did not come naturally to me to be outgoing and appreciative, to offer compliments, or to acknowledge effort and intention. I was not happy or grateful enough; not as happy as I clearly felt I ought to be, given the situation and given how everybody else was acting. It bothered me that I was emotionally underperforming, and I was not merely imagining that I was. I simply was not smooth. One day, a colleague asked me if I would like to have lunch with her the next day. I replied in truth, “Tomorrow I can’t.” My new friend Michele Acker overheard the conversation, and coached me privately that I could have been more forthcoming and pleasant: “I would love to go out for lunch with you, can we do it some other time though? I already have plans for tomorrow. . . .” Instead, she said I sounded rude. Rude? It certainly wasn’t what I meant to be; in my mind, it was simply informative. I also had difficulty making sense of others’ emotions. When Michele and I entered a drugstore, and she greeted the store clerk with an enthusiastic “How are you?,” I asked her if she knew this woman (she did not). The interest she displayed in the clerk’s well-being did not seem to fit the situation. The clerk, without missing a beat, reciprocated with a smooth, “Wonderful, and what about yourself?” I was left wondering what I had missed in this enthusiastic exchange between strangers.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  The employees told us how appreciative they were of their team leader, who was effective in relieving anxiety about keeping up on the expectations for speed. She coached her workers to accept that the system was what it was, and other regions of the country weren’t any faster. She encouraged her people to redirect their attention to accuracy . She absorbed any flack from above, and helped her team focus on what they could get done each day. She helped them establish workable timelines and motivated them to deliver; and at the end of each week they celebrated quality successes. She said, “What we can control is our work ethic, the quality of the product we deliver, and how we treat each other and our clients.” What this boss had her people practice is called “emotional acceptance.” She didn’t try to quash feelings of stress with positive thinking, which often just makes things worse. Instead, she restructured their to-do lists to give emphasis to what they could realistically master. Unfortunately, vague or unrealistic goals aren’t uncommon nowadays. Unreachable or ambiguous targets are often used to push teams to their limits. But when no one ever reaches the mark, it can lead to burnout, disengagement, and intense anxiety about missing expectations. This leader was able to explain how each person was making valued contributions, and it made all the difference. One way to do this is to redistribute employee to-do lists to ensure that each item contains an action verb, e.g., “Return phone calls within one hour.” If you can’t find a concrete action verb for a goal, it’s a sign that the action is beyond a person’s control and is likely to cause undue stress. As one example, a goal of “good phone habits are essential” is vague and will most likely cause more stress for team members. Method 5: Have a Bias to Action“To help our people self-regulate their anxiety, we show them how to accept risk and have a bias to action,” explained Stan Sewitch, vice president of Global Organization Development for the WD-40 Company. “One of the best stress relievers—proven to be useful in reducing the sympathetic nervous system enervation—is movement. That can include intellectual movement as well as physical.” With a team-wide bias to action, employees become less afraid to make decisions and move forward, even in the face of uncertainty. In these cultures, people don’t spend days, weeks, or months debating if their approach is the only logical one; they do things and realize not everything will be perfect. They are also not afraid of being held accountable for making a poor decision. This is such an important concept that “Bias for Action” is one of retail giant Amazon’s core values. As that company proclaims: “Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  Cindy and Willa were here. Dad said they watched TV and babysat Willa while she babysat the cat. I didn’t realize Dad was such a sucker for little kids. I thought guys his age were over that. He gives Willa roller-coaster rides on his knee and horsey rides on his back. He buys her animal books with lots of pictures and reads them to her on his lap. A couple months ago when I was in the very most agonizing stages of my diet, Carla ran upstairs one morning and fainted in the kitchen. Dad and I had just the day before commented that she seemed to be losing weight. As she sat in a kitchen chair getting some of her color back, Dad began to ask her questions. “Carla.” He bent to look her in the face. “Have you been losing weight?” “A couple pounds,” Carla replied. “Have you been feeling sick in the mornings?” Carla and I looked at each other. Dad thought she was pregnant. “I’ve been dieting,” Carla explained in a reassuring voice. “I can’t stand to eat while Louden starves himself.” That was a surprise to both Dad and me. I told Carla please to eat and assured her that in a couple months I’d be eating like my old pig self again. Dad wanted to pursue it. “Look,” he said to both of us. “You two have a home under my roof as long as you want and you can live here any way you want. But you’ve got to be careful about your futures. Don’t let things get out of control.” He looked like he was going on, but Carla interrupted. “Dad,” she said. “I’m not pregnant and I’m not going to get pregnant.” “Well, you’ve got to be sure to use—” “Condoms,” I interrupted. Carla had been taking pills but I’d convinced her to stop. “Rubbers.” Carla smiled. “Prophylactics.” Dad nodded. “Worth a pound of cure.” I smiled at Carla. “I’m hungry,” she said. * * * I’ve just realized a funny thing. This is the first New Year’s Eve in my life I haven’t either been with Mom and Dad at midnight or talked to them on the phone to wish them a Happy New Year. My first impulse is to run upstairs right now to tell Dad Happy New Year and call Mom. By God, I’m going to. Katzen squeaks as I lift her off my chest and tuck her under the covers. Carla is dead to the world. Dad’s door is closed and I don’t hear the TV. He must be asleep. It’s nearly two o’clock. I guess I can tell him in the morning. I should probably wait till then to call Mom, too. XXIIIt’s still snowing as I run back from practice. I can’t believe it. It started on my way running home from practice yesterday, so that makes about twenty-four hours of straight snow.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  results is one of the more appealing aspects of this literature because of its down- to-earth, realistic character. We do, however, also find moments of idealism in Proverbs, when the conduct recommended cannot easily be identified with self-interest. This appears especially in the form of concern for the poor. There is, to be sure, some tension within Proverbs on this subject. On the one hand, there is a tendency to blame the poor for their condition and to assume that poverty is the result of laziness. “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (10:4). “Poverty and disgrace are for the one who ignores instruction, but one who heeds reproof is honored” (13:18). Yet Proverbs also warns frequently against oppressing the poor. This is one of the few occasions where Proverbs appeals to YHWH. “Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him” (14:31). “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the L ORD , and will be repaid in full” (19:17). “Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the L ORD pleads their cause” (22:22-23). We need not suppose that this concern arises from the influence of the Torah or the Prophets. We find a similar concern in the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope: “Beware of robbing a wretch, of attacking a cripple; don’t stretch out your hand to touch an old man. . . . He who does evil, the shore rejects him, the floodwater carries him away” (Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:150). The idea that justice required the protection of the needy was recognized throughout the ancient Near East from very early times. The tension between pragmatism and idealism in Proverbs sometimes results in contradictory advice. According to Prov 26:17, someone who meddles in the quarrel of another is “like somebody who takes a passing dog by the ears.” Yet we are told in 24:11–12: “If you hold back from rescuing those taken away to death, those who go staggering to the slaughter; if you say, ‘Look, we did not know this’—does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?” Again, some sayings seem to condone bribery. “A gift in secret averts anger; and a concealed bribe in the bosom, strong wrath” (21:14). Yet we are told that “the wicked accept a concealed bribe to pervert the ways of justice” (17:23). Presumably, not all bribes lead to perversion of justice. It is of the essence of the wisdom literature,

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  I think that style is a complicated terrain, and not one that we unilaterally choose or control with the purposes we consciously intend. Fredric Jameson made this clear in his early book on Sartre. Certainly, one can practice styles, but the styles that become available to you are not entirely a matter of choice. Moreover, neither grammar nor style are politically neutral. Learning the rules that govern intelligible speech is an inculcation into normalized language, where the price of not conforming is the loss of intelligibility itself. As Drucilla Cornell, in the tradition of Adorno, reminds me: there is nothing radical about common sense. It would be a mistake to think that received grammar is the best vehicle for expressing radical views, given the constraints that grammar imposes upon thought, indeed, upon the thinkable itself. But formulations that twist grammar or that implicitly call into question the subject-verb requirements of propositional sense are clearly irritating for some. They produce more work for their readers, and sometimes their readers are offended by such demands. Are those who are offended making a legitimate request for “plain speaking” or does their complaint emerge from a consumer expectation of intellectual life? Is there, perhaps, a value to be derived from such experiences of linguistic difficulty? If gender itself is naturalized through grammatical norms, as Monique Wittig has argued, then the alteration of gender at the most fundamental epistemic level will be conducted, in part, through contesting the grammar in which gender is given. The demand for lucidity forgets the ruses that motor the ostensibly “clear” view. Avital Ronell recalls the moment in which Nixon looked into the eyes of the nation and said, “let me make one thing perfectly clear” and then proceeded to lie. What travels under the sign of “clarity,” and what would be the price of failing to deploy a certain critical suspicion when the arrival of lucidity is announced? Who devises the protocols of “clarity” and whose interests do they serve? What is foreclosed by the insistence on parochial standards of transparency as requisite for all communication? What does “transparency” keep obscure?

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  4. In this problematization of relationships with adolescent boys, the question of timing was important, but it was raised in a singular fashion; what mattered was not, as in dietetics, the opportune moment for the act, nor, as in economics, the continual maintenance of a relational structure; rather, it was the difficult question of precarious time and fugitive passage. It was expressed in different ways—as a problem of “limit” first of all: what was the age limit after which a boy ought to be considered too old to be an honorable partner in a love relation? At what age was it no longer good for him to accept this role, nor for his lover to want to assign it to him? This involved the familiar casuistry of the signs of manhood. These were supposed to mark a threshold, one that was all the more intangible in theory as it must have very often been crossed in practice and as it offered the possibility of finding fault with those who had done so. As we know, the first beard was believed to be that fateful mark, and it was said that the razor that shaved it must sever the ties of love.23 In any case, one should note that people criticized not only boys who were willing to play a role that no longer corresponded to their virility, but also the men who frequented overaged boys.24 The Stoics were criticized for keeping their lovers too long—up to the age of twenty-eight—but the argument they gave, which was more or less an extension of that given by Pausanias in the Symposium (he held that in order to make sure that men became attached only to youths of merit, the law should prohibit relations with boys who were too young),25 shows that this limit was less a universal rule than a subject of debate that permitted a variety of solutions.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  In order for us to move forward, Jed and Coral each need a stronger sense of where the other is coming from. We do an exercise in which they divide a piece of paper by drawing a line down the middle, then separately write their immediate associations of the word “love” on the left-hand side. I give them prompts: “When I think of love, I think of…” “When I love I feel…” “When I am loved I feel…” “In love, I look for…” As soon as they finish, they write their answers to the next set of prompts on the right-hand side: “When I think of sex I think…” “When I desire, I feel…” “When I am desired, I feel…” “In sex, I look for…” This exercise, though simple, is remarkably illuminating. First, because it lays out exactly how love and desire are parsed in each partner’s mind—how separate they are and how interwoven. Second, it enables me to look at the congruence of these arrangements between partners. As I suspected, Jed and Coral experience sex in opposing ways, and they look to sex for different things. Coral seeks intimate connection through sex, and love charges her desire. She associates love with warmth and security. Being loved makes her feel safe. Being wanted does the same. For her, sex is sanguine, wholesome, luxe. “I’ve connected with every person I’ve had sex with. Even in one-night stands I would walk away smiling, thinking I was in love. I had to learn that sex and love aren’t always the same thing, that I didn’t have to want to marry every man I slept with.” For Jed, intimate connection emerges after the fact, and love and sex don’t blend nearly as seamlessly as they do for Coral. Love feels safe, but also confining. It is laced with conflict. “I feel like I have to restrict what I do and say to avoid hurting her. I feel vulnerable, exposed, and disoriented. It’s painful. I think I may not deserve it because I just don’t feel worth it. It’s still hard to see sometimes what inspires her to love me. I’m anxious.” But when it comes to sex, he has an entirely different experience. “Sex has always fascinated me. It’s the one place I can really be myself, where I can express all kinds of feelings I usually keep under wraps. Sex is deeply entwined with power; they’re not fully distinct for me.” Aggression is an intrinsic part of his sexuality. It emboldens him. He doesn’t need to subordinate himself to the woman’s needs or feelings; nor does he get lost in them. “I need the power because I felt so powerless for so long in my life. I need to compartmentalize.” “When the emotional connection is too intense it hinders the sex because you start confining yourself. The same confining you described in the ‘love’ column.” I suggest.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  3 [image file=image_rsrc2B8.jpg] Risks and DangersThe regimen of the aphrodisia, with the need to moderate their practice, did not operate on the assumption that sexual acts in themselves and by nature were bad. They were not the object of any disqualification based on principle. The question that was raised concerning them had to do with use, a use that was to be modulated according to the condition of the body and external circumstances. However, the need to have recourse to a careful regimen and to bring vigilant attention to bear on sexual practice was justified by two sets of reasons that reveal a certain anxiety about the effects of this activity. 1. The first set of reasons concerns the effects of the sexual act on the individual’s body. Granted there were constitutions for which sexual activity was beneficial on the whole: this was the case for those suffering from an abundance of phlegm—for intercourse facilitated the elimination of fluids which would otherwise become corrupt, giving rise to that humor—or for those whose digestion was bad, whose body consumed itself, and whose belly was cold and dry.1 But for others, whose bodies and heads were congested with humors, its effects were largely detrimental.2 Yet, despite this neutral valuation, this contextual ambivalence, sexual activity was the object of a rather constant suspicion. Diogenes Laertius reports a phrase by Pythagoras in which the general requirements of a seasonal regimen are directly associated with a need for continuous rarefaction and a conviction that the aphrodisia are intrinsically harmful: “Keep to the winter for sexual pleasures, in summer abstain; they are less harmful in autumn and spring, but they are always harmful and not conducive to health.” And he goes on to cite this response from Pythagoras to the person who asked him when the best time was for making love: “When you want to lose what strength you have.”3 But the Pythagoreans were not the only ones by any means to manifest this sort of apprehension; the rule of “as little as possible” and the pursuit of the “lesser evil” are also invoked in texts whose aims are purely medical or hygienic: Diodes’ Regimen proposes to establish the conditions in which the use of pleasures would cause “the least harm” (hēkista enochlei); and the Aristotelian Problems, where the effects of the sexual act are compared to those of pulling a plant from the ground, which always damages the roots, advises one to have relations only in case of a pressing need.4 In this dietetics, whose business it was to determine when it was beneficial and when it was harmful to practice the pleasures, one perceives the emergence of a general tendency toward a restrictive economy.