Contentment

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 Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  “serve to lay the foundations of the heaven and to strengthen the earth and to renew all the luminaries which are in the firmament;” 21 and the third is “when God’s sanctuary and the Messianic Kingdom are established amongst men.” 22 The final renewal will set in, “when the heavens and the earth shall be renewed” and “all the luminaries shall be renewed.” 23 According to the author of Jubilees there are special locations of God’s dwelling in the new creation: “For the Lord has four places on the earth, the Garden of Eden, and the Mount of the East, and this mountain on which thou art this day, Mount Sinai, and Mount Zion (which) will be sanctified in the new creation for a sanctification of the earth; through it the earth will be sanctified from all (its) guilt and its uncleanness throughout the generations of the world” (4:26). The blessedness 17 OTP 2, trans. Wintermute, 54–5. 18 R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or The Little Genesis (Jerusalem: Makor, 1972; orig. pub.: London: Black, 1902), 9. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 10. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 65 New Creation Motif 65 of the new creation will be accompanied by a renewed study of the law. We read in 23:26, “And in those days the children will begin to study the laws, and to seek the commandments, and to return to the paths of righteousness.” In the new creation human beings will be able to attain the number of years original y designed for them. Jubilees 23:27–29 states: And the days will begin to grow many and increase amongst those children of men, till their days draw nigh to one thousand years, and to a greater number of years than (before) was the number of the days. 28. And there will be no old man, nor one who is not satisfied with his days, for all will be as children and youths. 29. And all their days they will complete and live in peace and in joy, and there will be no Satan nor any evil destroyer; for all their days will be days of blessing and healing. At times we have the impression that in this new creation there is hope not only for Israel but also for the whole world. We recall that in Jub. 19:25 the seed of Abraham and Jacob will be blessed so that “they will serve to establish heaven and to strengthen the earth and to renew all of the lights which are above the firmament.” In 22:13 Abraham prays that his seed would have the same new creation blessings “with which he [God] blessed Noah and Adam,” so that they might be a blessing in and for all the earth. In this sense, there is a multiple blessing by God focused on Israel “in the earth” and “for the earth” in the eschatological age. Summary

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  down. Coretta had just given birth to their first child, and his responsibilities as a father and as a minister were great enough. He would remain very active in local politics, but his duty was to his church and family. He reveled in the simple and satisfying life he was now leading. His congregation adored him. In early December of 1955, Dr. King (as he was now known) watched with great interest as a protest movement began to take shape in Montgomery. An older black woman named Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, as prescribed by the local law for segregated buses. Parks, an active member of the local NAACP chapter, had spent years fuming at this treatment of black people and at the abusive behavior of bus drivers. Finally she had had enough. For her defiance of the law she was arrested. This served as a catalyst for activists in Montgomery, and they decided upon a one-day boycott of Montgomery buses to show their solidarity. Soon the boycott stretched into a week, then several weeks as organizers managed to create a substitute system of transportation. One of the organizers of the boycott, E. D. Nixon, asked King to take a leading role in the movement, but he was reluctant. He had so little time to spare from his congregation work. He would do what he could to lend his support. As the boycott gained momentum, it became clear to its leaders that the local chapter of the NAACP was not big enough to handle it. They decided they would form a new organization, to be called the Montgomery Improvement Association. Because of his youth, his eloquence, and what seemed to be his natural leadership skills, at a local town meeting those who had formed the MIA nominated King to be its president. It was an offer they half expected him to refuse— they knew of his past hesitations. King, however, could feel the energy in the room and their faith in him. Without his usual careful premeditation, he suddenly decided to accept. As the boycott continued, the white administrators who controlled the city became increasingly adamant in their refusal to end the segregated practices on the city’s buses. The tension was escalating —several blacks involved in the boycott movement had been shot at and assaulted. In the speeches he now delivered to large crowds at the MIA meetings, King developed his theme of nonviolent resistance, invoking the name of Gandhi. They would defeat the other side through peaceful protests and justified boycotts; they would take the campaign further, aiming at complete integration in Montgomery’s public places. Now the local authorities saw King as a dangerous man, an interloper from outside the state. They initiated a whispering campaign, inventing all sorts of rumors to be spread about King’s youthful indiscretions, insinuating he was a communist. Almost every night he received phone calls threatening his life

• From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)

  Even Stewart Butterfield, who was steadfast in the decision to shut Glitch down, echoed this concern. Doesn’t the founder owe it to their employees to persevere? Conway, again, points out that life’s too short, and that applies to the employees’ lives as well. Joining a start-up means working for little pay in exchange for the promise of equity. These talented individuals are willing to make that trade because they believe they are building something world-changing and, if successful, they will reap the benefits of doing so. Once it’s clear that’s not going to happen, continuing on is just trapping them in an endeavor that’s going to fail. It’s stopping them from being able to move on to something better. Just as Conway doesn’t want to see the founders trapped in something that’s failing, the founders shouldn’t want that for their employees. In an ideal world, we would be as rational about our quitting decisions as someone who is fresh to the choice. But we know that we can’t do that. Once you have a history with a choice, with all the accumulated debris that goes along with that, you will be subject to the forces that make it hard to walk away. Essentially, what Ron Conway is doing is offering the fresh perspective to his founders that all of us have trouble seeing when we’re in it. That perspective, and his deft use of kill criteria, are what make him a legendary quitting coach. (Over) OptimismHelen Keller said, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.” This belief that optimism will get you to where you want to go faster is deeply embedded in popular culture, as evidenced by a host of perennial bestsellers, such as Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking , Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich , and The Secret , to name just a few. Combined, these three titles alone have sold over seventy-four million copies. And let’s not forget the classic children’s book The Little Engine That Could , with its message of “I think I can.” The mandate, soaked up by a massive audience, is unchanged. Just believe in yourself and your chances of success will increase. Even William James, the father of modern psychology, said, “Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.” James believed in the power of positive visualization, which he described with an example involving, of all things, mountaineering. He asserted that if you’re climbing a mountain and get stuck in a spot where you need to take a “bold dangerous leap,” you should imagine that you can do it, that confidence will help you succeed. But if you waver through self-doubt, you’ll leap in despair and fall into a crevasse. Don Moore, a professor at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, has called out the absurdity of James’s example.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  Paul clearly anticipates events that will final y defeat what remains of the present evil age. The climax of the coming battle will include the defeat of God’s last enemy— Death (1 Cor 15:26). It is critical to note, however, that Paul thinks that those in Christ are already freed from God’s last enemy by virtue of being in Christ.47 They eagerly await the redemption of their bodies (Rom 8:23); they know that the Spirit of the one who raised Christ from the dead lives in them and will give their mortal bodies life (Rom 8:11); they know that they will be raised with Christ (2 Cor 4:14) and that there is a house from God waiting for them in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1). Paul personal y exhibits the significance of such knowledge in relation to his own death. Writing to the Philippians, Paul faces the strong possibility that he will soon die and finds that possibility to be of no consequence. When he dies, it will in fact be gain (Phil 1:21). The death of his body will allow Paul to depart the flesh and be with Christ (Phil 1:23). In other words, as Paul exemplifies, believers know and experience and live now apart from this age that is shaped by God’s enemy—Death. Those in Christ will physical y die, but they live. Put another way, God’s eschatological activity will not change the temporality in which those in Christ now live. For believers, the eschatological events will not change two overlapping ages into one age. This has already happened by virtue of their being in Christ. The final defeat of death at the eschatological climax will obliterate the age ruled by sin and death, but for those who are in Christ Jesus this has already happened. We will physical y die, but we live. The eschaton is of less concern for believers than it should be for the defining actor of this present evil age—Death. At the eschaton those in Christ will continue to share Christ’s life and time, even to the point of ultimate subjection to God (1 Cor 15:28). For Death, however, Christ’s return means its obliteration. Living in Christ and so in Christ’s time is not realized eschatology. That believers do not live in eschatological tension (already/not yet) but in Christ is not the same as there being nothing more to come. There is more to come—more of Christ’s God-directed activity in Christ’s time. In particular, Paul looks ahead to Christ’s return when those who belong to Christ (1 Cor 15:23) will not only experience what he has 46 Schweitzer, Mysticism, 119. Schweitzer writes further that those who are united with Christ “are already supernatural beings … [though] this is not yet manifest” (110).

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  What saved me from succumbing to prolonged trauma symptoms? Along with the method I have described throughout this book were the conjoined twin sisters of embodiment and awareness. This asset, even beyond its crucial role in regulating stress and healing trauma, is a master tool for personal enrichment and self-discovery. My job here is to entice you to take your body seriously enough to learn a bit more about its promptings. Yet I also want to encourage you to hold it lightly enough to engage it as a powerful ally in transforming intense “negative” or uncomfortable emotions—and so to experience what it’s like to truly embody goodness and joy. Since these twin sisters of mercy are so essential to the prevention and healing of trauma, let’s consider what embodied awareness looks like and feels like. Though we don’t usually bring conscious awareness to the multitude of internal bodily sensations happening moment by moment, these experiences are frequently referred to in common parlance. We “bite into and chew on” tough issues. There are things that we cannot “swallow or stomach,” while others make us “want to puke.” And of course most of us have experienced “butterflies in our stomachs.” Surely the sensation of being bloated, constricted or “tight-assed” catches our awareness and has its emotional meaning. We may be “tight-lipped” on one occasion and “loose-lipped” on another. Or we may just feel open in our bellies and chest or even “breathless with excitement.” Such are the poignant messages from our muscles and viscera. All human experience is incarnate, that is to say, “of the body.” Our thoughts are guided by our sensations and emotions. But how you know when you are angry? Or, do you know how you know when you are happy? Typically, people tend to ascribe a mental causation to an emotion; for example, I am feeling (angry, sad, etc.) because he/she did this (said this, forgot to do this, etc.). However, when people learn to focus on what is going on in their bodies in the here and now, they typically report, “My stomach is tight,” or “My chest feels bigger—my heart is more relaxed and open.” These physical cues let us know not only what we are feeling but also what to do to remedy difficult sensations and emotions. They also inform us that we are alive and real. All of our experiences (tracing back as early as growing in our mother’s womb), all of the stresses, injuries and traumas, as well as the feelings of safety, joy, grace and goodness that have affected our lives—all of these change the shape of our bodies. Sometimes these changes are obvious, such as tightly folded arms, a stiff spine, slumped shoulders or a caved-in chest.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Porges concurs on this key regulatory system: “The afferent feedback from the viscera provides a major mediator of the accessibility of prosocial circuits associated with social engagement behaviors.”78 The salubrious sensations evoked by the combination of breathing and the sound’s reverberations allow the individual to contact an inner security and trust along with some sense of orientation in the here and now. They also facilitate a degree of face-to-face, eye-to-eye, voice-to-ear, I-thou contact and thus make it possible for the client to negotiate a small opening into the “social engagement system,” which is then able to help him or her to develop a robust resilience through increasing cycles of sympathetic arousal (charge) and discharge and thereby to deepen regulation and relaxation. Charles Darwin, I can happily imagine, would have knowingly winked his approval at the “voo” clinical application of his astute, anatomical and physiological 1872 observation. Another exercise can provide clients with a way to manage and regulate distressing arousal symptoms. This “self-help” technique is taken from a system of “energy flows” called Jin Shin Jyutsu.w Figures 6.5A–D demonstrate a simple Jin Shin sequence to help clients learn to regulate their arousal and deepen their relaxation.79 Again, I suggest that therapists experiment first on themselves before teaching these exercises to their clients. Encourage your clients to practice at home, first at times when they are not upset and then when they are. Each position can be maintained for two to ten minutes. What the client looks for is a sensation of either energy flow or relaxation. Jin Shin Jyutsu Energy Flows [image file=image_rsrc2NM.jpg] Figure 6.5a These figures show the arm/hand positioning that help to establish energy flows between upper and lower body segments. These exercises promote relaxation. [image file=image_rsrc2NN.jpg] Figure 6.5b [image file=image_rsrc2NP.jpg] Figure 6.5c These figures show the arm/hand positioning for containing arousal and promoting self-compassion. [image file=image_rsrc2NR.jpg] Figure 6.5d A Note on Feedback and Core RegulationIn 1932 Sir Charles Sherrington received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for showing that the nervous system is made up of a combination of excitatory and inhibitory nerve cells. It is the balance of these two neural systems that allows us to move our limbs in a smooth, coordinated, accurate way. Without inhibition, our movements would be wildly spastic and uncoordinated. While Sherrington’s work was primarily on the sensory/motor system (at the level of the spinal cord), the balancing of excitatory systems by inhibitory ones occurs throughout the nervous system and is considered a fundamental principle of it. This organization is the basic architecture of self-regulation. Let us look at an analogy from ordinary life:

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

  On the contrary, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 26): “As the soul is the life of the body, so God is man’s life of happiness: of Whom it is written: ‘Happy is that people whose God is the Lord’ (Ps. 143:15).” I answer that, It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e. of man’s appetite, is the universal good; just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that naught can lull man’s will, save the universal good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by participation. Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of Ps. 102:5: “Who satisfieth thy desire with good things.” Therefore God alone constitutes man’s happiness. Reply to Objection 1: The summit of man does indeed touch the base of the angelic nature, by a kind of likeness; but man does not rest there as in his last end, but reaches out to the universal fount itself of good, which is the common object of happiness of all the blessed, as being the infinite and perfect good. Reply to Objection 2: If a whole be not the last end, but ordained to a further end, then the last end of a part thereof is not the whole itself, but something else. Now the universe of creatures, to which man is compared as part to whole, is not the last end, but is ordained to God, as to its last end. Therefore the last end of man is not the good of the universe, but God himself. Reply to Objection 3: Created good is not less than that good of which man is capable, as of something intrinsic and inherent to him: but it is less than the good of which he is capable, as of an object, and which is infinite. And the participated good which is in an angel, and in the whole universe, is a finite and restricted good. WHAT IS HAPPINESS (EIGHT ARTICLES)We have now to consider (1) what happiness is, and (2) what things are required for it. Concerning the first there are eight points of inquiry: (1) Whether happiness is something uncreated? (2) If it be something created, whether it is an operation? (3) Whether it is an operation of the sensitive, or only of the intellectual part? (4) If it be an operation of the intellectual part, whether it is an operation of the intellect, or of the will? (5) If it be an operation of the intellect, whether it is an operation of the speculative or of the practical intellect? (6) If it be an operation of the speculative intellect, whether it consists in the consideration of speculative sciences?

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  Even though I was safe—my back was exposed to the air and I was inches from oxygen—I gasped and lifted my face out of the water. My brother said, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” and I tried to explain but could not. A few seconds later, Rollo surfaced, grinning. “Did you see?” he asked. A theory about the end of everything: the heat death of the universe. Entropy will take over and matter will scatter and nothing will be anymore. Dream House as DestinationYou drive to Bloomington with her, because you love her and you want to deliver her safely. You don’t trust those airplanes to remind her how much she is loved. The Dream House looks just as you remember it. The pod full of her things has been delivered and sits in the yard like a shed. It occurs to you, when you open it, that someone could live in one of these, probably. A microapartment. Then you think about Narnia; the way Lucy enters the wardrobe and steps through those fur coats until she is in the snow, and there is the lamppost, and there is a whole new world frozen in a terrible winter by the White Witch. You unload it under the watchful eyes of her parents, who observe as you lift her tiny frame high to untie the mattress from the ceiling. She tells you later that they looked starry-eyed to see you picking her up like that—like you were some strapping lad showing off your strength. After you all go out to dinner, you fall into bed and cry and marvel, all at once. Dream House as UtopiaBloomington: even the name is a promise. (Living, unfurling, soft in your mouth.) Dream House as DoppelgängerWhen your cell phone rings in the late afternoon, you know what’s happening before you pick up. You do not believe in psychic powers, but still, you are certain. “I need to know this is real,” she says when you pick up. “I need to know that you’re in this for real.” “I am, I am.” “I just broke up with Val,” she says. “It’s just—it’s just clear from what’s been happening since she moved that this won’t work between us. We’re gonna stay friends, of course, and she adores you. But she’s going to go back to the East Coast.” You email Val, feeling strange. She writes back: “I hope eventually we can be really good friends. I want to be in your lives for a long time.” Afterward, you feel happy. Then you feel guilty for feeling happy, then happy again. You’ve won the game. You didn’t know you were playing, but you’ve won the game just the same. From now on, it will just be you and the woman in the Dream House.15 Just the two of you, together.16

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  We go in the bedroom sometimes and close the door to get away from them, then feel sorry and open it again and let them boil up onto the bed and stick their noses in our faces. We do a wavery but heartfelt rendition of “Good Night, Irene” as we’re driving, late, back from friends’ houses. On a beach in South Carolina we lie on our backs and stare at the night sky and congratulate ourselves on getting along so well. Months later we discover grains of sand in the cuffs of his trousers, remember, and give each other secret, sappy looks. We’re pretty nice people for the most part, although neither of us ever sands off the edges we started out with. I am prone to my usual fits of melancholy and self-doubt; he has a tendency toward a manic energy that is enervating for anyone who beholds it. I have long ago lost all interest in drugs and alcohol but each evening he disappears inside a plume of smoke and emerges mellowed and distant. Rock and roll, of course, never dies. Sometimes very late at night we sit in the dark living room listening to the voices of various dead guys — Tommy Bolin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley — while studiously ignoring each other. I observe that he isn’t fully present past eight o’clock each night, and surprise myself by feeling grateful. I am left free to traipse around in my own psychic landscape. When we have fights he has a tendency to reply in baby-talk, which causes me to go berserk. I rant, then I rave, berating him in such florid terms that no one can keep a straight face. We get sheepish, we make up. The years tick by. My lifelong addiction to books wanes, leaving me feeling bored and bereft. Some time later I discover that I’ve left off reading them because I’ve decided to write them instead. He thinks this is a fine idea and supports it unconditionally, but finds that he is unable to read what I write because drowsiness overtakes him. I watch him several nights running as he nods and dozes, tries with an enormous effort to focus, and finally gives up. We agree without much discussion that it isn’t necessary for him to read my writing. His own work is too consuming, he doesn’t need one more task piled on top of the others. The match stops flaring, the bong stops bubbling, the old familiar chords of “Secret Agent Man” no longer bounce like tennis balls around the room. The dogs skulk into their corners. His own work. Political organizing that begins on a power-to-the-people grassroots level and gradually works its way up to power-to-the-person. He educates the sheep and then becomes the shepherd. It’s a rush to have them all listening, paying attention, laying down their votes. Another case where reefer has led to the hard stuff. We’re on the slippery slope now, it’s only a matter of time.

• From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)

  It’s easier to mark and celebrate your progress toward a goal if the goal itself is not so all-or-nothing. There are some goals that you set where there is little of value that you can glean if you come up short. While there are other goals where there are lots of things of value that you can accomplish or learn along the way, no matter whether you actually cross the finish line. Those are the types of goals we should prioritize. This is something Astro Teller really gets. If he has a choice between a project where there is little technology or learning that will come out of the trying versus one where there is, he will prioritize the project where he gets more out of it along the way. The hyperloop offers an example of an all-or-nothing type of goal. Building track was something that was old technology. Getting the train to accelerate and run at high speeds, likewise, was something that had already been figured out. Accomplishing those things would not demand developing anything new. The monkey, whether they could get passengers on and off safely, was the technological challenge. The problem was that they had to build all those pedestals before they could figure out whether they could tackle that monkey. And if they failed to do so, they would come away with nothing new. Contrast that with a project like Loon, whose mission was to bring internet access to remote areas using giant balloons. There were lots of different approaches for how to get the balloons to talk to the ground. One of the first things they tried was to invent new laser technology to do that. That turned out to not be the best solution, so they pivoted to a different approach, but the laser technology they developed became very valuable to X on a later project. Loon’s team of laser experts became part of Taara, which is rolling out a significant increase in telecommunications bandwidth. On a big scale, Teller is thinking hard about how you can create a culture that celebrates the wins along the way, that celebrates the 5Ks and 10Ks and half-marathons we run, even if we fall short of 26.2 miles. This is an important lesson for leaders in general to learn because the way that we lead can exacerbate the problems that both the pass-fail and the fixed nature of goals can create. Leaders commonly fall into the trap of evaluating people solely by whether they’ve achieved a goal or not. When they do that, they’re increasing the potential for escalation of commitment. If leaders act like success is just whether you hit the target or goal or deadline, then the people they’re leading are going to learn pretty quickly that they need to get across the finish line at all costs. They won’t speak up if they think the goal isn’t worth pursuing any longer.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  From then on he had come more and more often, and now only deep snow in winter could prevent him from making the long journey again in the afternoon to spend a few hours with Hanno Buddenbrook. They sat together in the large children's room on the second floor and did their schoolwork. There were long arithmetic problems to be solved which, after covering both sides of the slate with additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions, simply had to result in zero in the end and as a result - if not, there was a mistake somewhere that had to be looked for, had to be searched for until the little malicious animal was found and could be destroyed: and I hope it wasn't too high, because otherwise the whole thing would almost have to be written over again. Furthermore, it was necessary to study German grammar, to learn the art of comparison and to write very cleanly and straightforward observations, such as: »Horn is transparent, glass is more transparent, air is the most transparent. ' Whereupon one took his dictation notebook to study sentences like this: 'Our Hedwig is very willing, but she never sweeps up the rubbish on the attic properly.' In this exercise, full of temptations and snares, the intention was that one should write Hedwig, willing and sweeping with a ch, Estrich with a g and Kehricht possibly also with a g, and that had been taken care of thoroughly, which is why the correction now had to be made. But when everything was ready, you packed up and sat on the windowsill to hear Ida read to you. that one should write Hedwig, willing and sweeping with a ch, Estrich with a g and Kehricht with a g, and that had been taken care of thoroughly, which is why the correction now had to be made. But when everything was ready, you packed up and sat on the windowsill to hear Ida read to you. that one should write Hedwig, willing and sweeping with a ch, Estrich with a g and Kehricht with a g, and that had been taken care of thoroughly, which is why the correction now had to be made.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Glad to hear it, Will,’ he replied, following me round the little maze of banked lockers. I found one that was free, slung my bag into it, and began to undress. Bill stood by me, amicable, massive, flushed, his head and shoulders still rinsed with sweat. There was a kind of handsomeness lost in his heavy, square face. He sat down on the bench, where he could politely talk while also watching me take my clothes off. It was typical of his behaviour, discreet, but not prurient: his was the old-fashioned ethos of a male community, delighting in men, but always respectful and fraternal. I knew he would never ask a personal question. ‘That boy Phil’s coming on well,’ he said. ‘Very nice definition. Said he was a bit loose after being off for a spell, but I should say he’d put on a centimetre or two this week alone.’ Phil, I knew, was a lad he had a bit of a soft spot for; I’d seen him hanging around to count for him when he was on the machines, and because Phil was genuinely interested in his own body Bill was always able to engage him in earnest analyses of methods and results. I could see, too, that Phil, who was shy and stocky, might be a tricky proposition, and sensed some resistance in him to Bill’s cheery and paternal chatter across the crowded shower room. ‘Phil’s all very well,’ I suggested, ‘but he’s the plump type: he’ll always have to work hard.’ I pulled off my T-shirt and Bill shook his head. ‘I’d like to see you do some more work,’ he said with a sucking in of his breath. ‘You’ve got the makings of something really choice.’ I looked down, as it were modestly, at my lean torso, the smooth, tight tits, the little fuse of hair running down to my belt. The swimming-pool at the Corry is reached down a spiral staircase from the changing-rooms. It is the most subterraneous zone of the Club, its high coffered ceiling supporting the floor of the gym above. Corinthian pillars at each corner are an allusion to ancient Rome, and you half expect to see the towel-girt figures of Charlton Heston and Tony Curtis deep in senatorial conspiracy. Instead, a bored attendant paces around the narrow mosaic border of the pool in flip-flops. The water comes to within an inch or so of the margin, and any waves run over the floor, which glistens and, being uneven, holds little cold puddles. Some regulation, I suspect, stipulates how many turns around the pool the attendant must take each hour, for he combines his vigilance with relaxing in the spectators’ seats and reading a book; after a longish spell of this he will then trot around the pool for a minute or two as if to make up his ration. I have never known, or known of, any occasion on which his services were needed.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  phenomena, as neutral as comets or plants. They simply exist. They come in all varieties, making life rich and interesting. Work with what they give you, instead of resisting and trying to change them. Make understanding people a fun game, the solving of puzzles. It is all part of the human comedy. Yes, people are irrational, but so are you. Make your acceptance of human nature as radical as possible. This will calm you down and help you observe people more dispassionately, understanding them on a deeper level. You will stop projecting your own emotions on to them. All of this will give you more balance and calmness, more mental space for thinking. It is certainly difficult to do this with the nightmare types who cross our path—the raging narcissists, the passive aggressors, and other inflamers. They remain a continual test to our rationality. Look at the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, one of the most fiercely rational people who ever lived, as the model for this. His family was large and poor, and his father, an alcoholic, mercilessly beat all of the children, including young Chekhov. Chekhov became a doctor and took up writing as a side career. He applied his training as a doctor to the human animal, his goal to understand what makes us so irrational, so unhappy, and so dangerous. In his stories and plays, he found it immensely therapeutic to get inside his characters and make sense of even the worst types. In this way, he could forgive anybody, even his father. His approach in these cases was to imagine that each person, no matter how twisted, has a reason for what they’ve become, a logic that makes sense to them. In their own way, they are striving for fulfillment, but irrationally. By stepping back and imagining their story from the inside, Chekhov demythologized the brutes and aggressors; he cut them down to human size. They no longer elicited hatred but rather pity. You must think more like a writer in approaching the people you deal with, even the worst sorts. Find the optimal balance of thinking and emotion. We cannot divorce emotions from thinking. The two are completely intertwined. But there is inevitably a dominant factor, some people more clearly governed by emotions than others. What we are looking for is the proper ratio and balance, the one that leads to the most effective action. The ancient Greeks had an appropriate metaphor for this: the rider and the horse. The horse is our emotional nature continually impelling us to move. This horse has tremendous energy and power, but without a rider it cannot be guided; it is wild, subject to predators, and continually heading into trouble. The rider is our thinking self. Through training and practice, it holds the reins and guides the horse, transforming this powerful animal energy into something productive. The one without the other is useless. Without the rider, no directed movement or purpose. Without the horse, no energy, no

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  The nervous birds are gone from the ground now, it is night. The coyote runs in a mile-wide circle, at a lope, thirty miles an hour. There is nothing else moving. The moon bounces in the sky, over his right shoulder, now behind. A rock rises, a cholla extends soft elbows in his path, a dry husk stares up from the ground. There is nothing. The moon is a wide, mottled face, the countenance of an enraged idiot. The coyote runs and runs, not gasping, until there is something. Three mule deer spring and run in various directions, bounding, flinging their hooves in the air. He picks one and chases halfheartedly for a distance, hearing his own feet, feeling the moon. They reassemble farther out, staring at him through the dimness, long ears moving back and forth like wings, each face small and wary. The one he chased turns first and takes up its occupation again: finding forage and trying not to die. He holds the moment until he can stay still no longer and begins running again, away from the sky. The ground is silver, the rocks are gleaming. There is nothing. We play euchre and hearts, drink beer, rearrange the lantern thirty times. Finally we put it under the picnic table and it i-luminates our legs and shorts, blows the whistle on a large furred spider. “It’s got knees,” I marvel. Actually, it has sort of a face, too, attached to a slender neck. I decide to sit on top of the table for a while. “Let me get my spider stick,” Eric says. He holds the tines of the divining rod and gently points the way for the spider. It scuttles a few feet and then pauses, goes back into a trance. “Get along, buddy,” he urges, giving it a prod. It does several push-ups, puts a leg in the air, and then moves of its own volition out from under the table and into the darkness. We play a few more hands of hearts, until I realize that we both want me to win and I still can’t manage it. The whole desert is disappointed. We fold our hands and practice being bored for a while. Our dogs are sleeping at home, two of them nose to nose and snoring, one off by herself, flat on her side, dreaming of me. The stars are no match for the wash of the moon, the night air is navy blue and coolish against our skin. The camper people are out of it. Their colored lanterns are dark now and the TV is on inside, the glow of Letterman and his guests reflected in the window. I can see a head framed in the light, surrounded by a frizz of hair. It’s the poodle, looking at stars. We clear the table and spread out a sleeping bag on it, flannel side up. This is the best way to watch the sky.

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  In a few hours the world will resume itself, but for now we’re in a pocket of silence. We’re in the plasmapause, a place of equilibrium, where the forces of the Earth meet the forces of the sun. I imagine it as a place of silence, where the particles of dust stop spinning and hang motionless in deep space. Around my neck is the stone he brought me from Poland. I hold it out. Like this? I ask. Shards of fly wings, suspended in amber. Exactly , he says. Bulldozing the Baby [image "art" file=Image00000.jpg] A t age three, my most successful relationship was with Hal, a boy doll. He had molded brown hair, a smiling vinyl face, and two outfits. One was actually his birthday suit, a stuffed body made of pink cloth with vinyl hands and feet attached. Clothes encumbered me; I liked the feeling of air on skin, and when left alone for more than five minutes, I’d routinely strip us down to our most basic outfits and we’d go outside to sit on the front stoop. Hal’s other outfit was a plaid flannel shirt with pearl buttons and yellow pants with flannel cuffs. He had black feet molded in the shape of shoes. The gorgeous thing about Hal was that not only was he my friend, he was also my slave. I made the majority of our decisions, including the bathtub one, which in retrospect was the beginning of the end. Our bath routine was like this: My mother would pick me up and stand me in the tub — I had fat, willful legs, and I wouldn’t bend them while she was touching me — then while I was settling into the water and coordinating the bathtub toys, she’d undress Hal and sit him down on the toilet tank to watch me. “Tell Jo-Jo she is not to stand up in the tub,” she’d say to Hal, before leaving us to our own devices. I found it unnerving to have her speak directly to him; didn’t she know he was a doll? Plus, Hal couldn’t stop me from doing anything. The moment she left I’d stand up and sit back down whenever I felt like it. Hal’s job was to watch. The bathtub toys were dull in an indestructible kind of way. You could drown them or bounce them off the ceiling and they were still unbreakable plastic in primary colors. Hal, however, was both filthy and destructible; my mother had proved it by trying to scour his head with an S.O.S. pad — he now had a small bald patch on the crown of his head, just like a real guy. I decided on impulse to bring Hal into the tub with me, just to see what would happen. First he floated, then when I pressed on his stomach he submerged, smiling placidly.

• From Stripped: Las Vegas (2021)

  And then now to finish the song, I'm finding some interesting words to use just to make it music. If I'm having a creative block, I'll open up the dictionary, just randomly. I'll find one of the words, and then I'll use that to start a verse with, I'll go to Google and I'll try to other meanings or other words that match with that. I'll go to the thesaurus, flip through that, see if I can find something more creative in there. And I just try to fact check what I'm writing, just in case. You never know if someone's gonna fact check you. So, I fact check myself first. ♪ I can't believe where this life has got us ♪ ♪ Didn't expect to have diamonds and dollaz ♪ - [Recorder] That was a great take. - Okay [laughs] yeah. [upbeat music] [birds chirping] - I changed my degree to computational mathematics. Not because I was good at math, but because it was interesting to me, and I really like reading math books, books about math in terms of the universe. And so, I don't like reading fiction, I don't like reading stories about stuff. - My love of reading, it followed all the way into adulthood, to say the least. I read every day. If I am not physically reading a book, I'm listening to a book on Audible. I've currently just finished reading "The Metamorphosis". I've read that book for probably the fourth time. - I learned how to code Python in college. And I've been teaching myself web design out of college, JavaScript, HTML with CSS. It just feels like another way to use my skills and kind of abstract them and apply them to new things. Right now, I'm working on a website, just my website. It's been really fun to make just from scratch. [chess piece thumping] Chess is a really a mathematical, logical game. And [laughs] it's funny, I've actually started playing chess with people from OnlyFans. And if they lose, they have to pay me. And if I lose, I send them a nude. And I haven't lost yet. [upbeat music] - I used to watch "Being Mary Jane" a lot. And I kinda took from her when she would write her quotes on a sticky note and place them on her room window. Whenever I'm having a rough day or even if I'm not having a rough day and I just walk past and I stop, and it's normally the first one that I look at that has the most relevance to me for that time. And it's just another way of humbling me and just another comfort, coping mechanism for my anxiety. [upbeat music] - My favorite thing to do on my time off is absolutely nothing. The club itself is the party. I need to recuperate from the night before.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  drugs, the cowardice of the political leadership. He linked this with his own sense of doom—he knew he would be assassinated. Such moods would overwhelm him. But the voice he had heard so many years before in Montgomery allowed him to squelch his fears and rise above the depression. Whenever he felt connected to his mission and purpose in life, he would experience a profound sense of fulfillment. He was doing what he was called to do, and he would not have traded this life for any other. In his last days, the connection grew deeper: he would bring change to the people of Memphis, but his fate would cut this short. Understand: In many ways, the dilemma that King faced is the dilemma that all of us face in life, because of a profound element in human nature. We are all complex. We like to present a front to the world that is consistent and mature, but we know inside that we are subject to many different moods and wear many different faces, depending on circumstances. We can be practical, social, introspective, irrational, depending on the mood of the moment. And this inner chaos actually causes us pain. We lack a sense of cohesion and direction in life. We could choose any number of paths, depending on our shifting emotions, which pull us this way and that. Why go here instead of there? We wander through life, never quite reaching the goals that we feel are so important to us, or realizing our potential. The moments in which we feel clarity and purpose are fleeting. To soothe the pain from our aimlessness, we might enmesh ourselves in various addictions, pursue new forms of pleasure, or give ourselves over to some cause that interests us for a few months or weeks. The only solution to the dilemma is King’s solution—to find a higher sense of purpose, a mission that will provide us our own direction, not that of our parents, friends, or peers. This mission is intimately connected to our individuality, to what makes us unique. As King expressed it: “We have a responsibility to set out to discover what we are made for, to discover our life’s work, to discover what we are called to do. And after we discover that, we should set out to do it with all the strength and all of the power that we can muster.” This “life’s work” is what we were intended to do, as dictated by our particular skills, gifts, and inclinations. It is our calling in life. For King, it was an impulse to find his own particular path, to fuse the practical with the spiritual. Finding this higher sense of purpose gives us the integration and direction we all crave. Consider this “life’s work” something that speaks to you from within—a voice. This voice will often warn you when you are getting involved in unnecessary entanglements or when you are about to

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  Wendell and I work on decorating our bikes and complaining about no training wheels. “What about if there’s a corner? ” I say. “I know,” says Wendell. “Or if there’s dog poop?” I don’t know exactly how this relates but I shudder anyway. We shake our heads and try twisting the crepe paper into the spokes the way our mothers showed us but it doesn’t work. We end up with gnarled messes and flounce into the house to discipline our dolls. Here is the parade. Boys in cowboy getups with cap guns and rubber spurs, hats that hang from shoestrings around their necks. The girls squint against the sun and press their stiff dresses down. This is the year of the can-can slip so we all have on good underpants without holes. Some kids have their ponies there, ornery things with rolling eyes and bared teeth, all decorated up. Two older boys with painted-on mustaches beat wildly on drums until they are stopped. Mothers spit on Kleenexes and go at the boys’ faces while fathers stand around comparing what their watches say to what the sun is doing. Two little girls wear matching dresses made from a big linen tablecloth, a white background with blue and red fruit clusters. One has a bushy stand of hair and the other a smooth pixie. Both have large bows, one crunched into the mass and the other practically taped on. The scalloped collars on their dresses are made from the border of the tablecloth, bright red with tiny blue grapes, little green stems. There are sashes tied in perfect bows, and pop-bead bracelets. Our shoes don’t match. The dolls rode over to the parade in the trunk of the car so we wouldn’t wreck their outfits. They have the ability to drink water and pee it back out but they’re dry now, our mothers put a stop to that. They have on dresses to match ours, with tiny scalloped collars and ribbon sashes. We set them carefully in our bike baskets with their skirts in full view. Mine’s hair is messed up on one side where I put hairspray on it once. Wendell’s has a chewed-up hand and nobody knows how it got that way. We stand next to our crepe-papered bikes in the sunlight, waiting for them to tell us what to do. Our sisters have been forbidden to throw their batons until the parade starts and so they twirl them around and pretend to hurl them up in the air, give a little hop, and pretend to catch them again. They are wearing perfume and fingernail polish with their cowboy boots and shorts. They don’t like us very much but we don’t care. My mother tells me to stand up straight and Wendell’s mother tells her to push her hair back down. The baton twirlers get a last minute talking-to with threats.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  power. In most people the horse dominates, and the rider is weak. In some people the rider is too strong, holds the reins too tightly, and is afraid to occasionally let the animal go into a gallop. The horse and rider must work together. This means we consider our actions beforehand; we bring as much thinking as possible to a situation before we make a decision. But once we decide what to do, we loosen the reins and enter action with boldness and a spirit of adventure. Instead of being slaves to this energy, we channel it. That is the essence of rationality. As an example of this ideal in action, try to maintain a perfect balance between skepticism (rider) and curiosity (horse). In this mode you are skeptical about your own enthusiasms and those of others. You do not accept at face value people’s explanations and their application of “evidence.” You look at the results of their actions, not what they say about their motivations. But if you take this too far, your mind will close itself off from wild ideas, from exciting speculations, from curiosity itself. You want to retain the elasticity of spirit you had as a child, interested in everything, while retaining the hard-nosed need to verify and scrutinize for yourself all ideas and beliefs. The two can coexist. It is a balance that all geniuses possess. Love the rational. It is important to not see the path to rationality as something painful and ascetic. In fact, it brings powers that are immensely satisfying and pleasurable, much deeper than the more manic pleasures the world tends to offer us. You have felt this in your own life when absorbed in a project, time flowing by, and experiencing occasional bursts of excitement as you make discoveries or progress in your work. There are other pleasures as well. Being able to tame the Emotional Self leads to an overall calmness and clarity. In this state of mind you are less consumed by petty conflicts and considerations. Your actions are more effective, which also leads to less turmoil. You have the immense satisfaction of mastering yourself in a deep way. You have more mental space to be creative. You feel more in control. Knowing all of this, it will become easier to motivate yourself to develop this power. In this sense, you are following the path of Pericles himself. He envisioned the goddess Athena embodying all of the practical powers of rationality. He worshipped and loved this goddess above all others. We may no longer venerate the goddess as a deity, but we can appreciate on a deep level all of those who promote rationality in our own world, and we can seek to internalize their power as much as we can. “Trust your feelings!”—But feelings are nothing final or original; behind feelings there stand judgments and evaluations which we inherit in the form of . . . inclinations, aversions. . . . The

• From Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality (2007)

  There’s a reason why these four promises are so significant—they’re the promises a Jewish groom makes to a Jewish bride. This is wedding language. Somebody hearing this story in its original context would realize that some sort of marriage is going to take place. The next fourteen chapters anticipate the coming marriage between these newly liberated Hebrews and this God of the oppressed. The marriage of God and people. The union of the divine and the human. What they learn is that the desert is a very, very hard place to live. It’s hard to find food and hard to find water and hard to defend against enemies and hard not to grumble that maybe they were better off in their old life. The writer wants us to see that God is with these people. In their grumbling and complaining and ingratitude, God is with them. The text says that a “cloud by day and a fire by night were with them all the time.”4 The Hebrew word here for the presence of God is Shekinah. The Shekinah of God, hovering over his people in a cloud and in fire. God tells them, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.”5 “Treasured possession” is the phrase a groom would call his bride. More wedding language. The response of the Hebrews is, “We will do everything the Lord has said.”6 The people essentially say, “We do.” Then God says to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.”7 So Moses does this. The text then adds this detail: “After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them, and they washed their clothes. Then he said to the people, ‘Prepare yourselves for the third day.’ ”8 Ketubah The key word here is consecrate. In Hebrew it’s the word qadhash, which means “to set apart, to separate for something sacred.” The third day comes, there’s thunder and lightning and a thick cloud covers the mountain, and Moses leads the people out to meet with God. God then speaks the words of the Ten Commandments. Now, often the Ten Commandments are seen as the harsh rules of a God who is looking for ways to judge and control people. Just follow the rules and no one will get hurt. As if the best that God can come up with is a list of things people shouldn’t do. Often religion with this understanding of God has very little to say to people beyond “don’t do this and don’t do that.”