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 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 Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  All the other kids at school got brands, Nike and Adidas. I never got brands. One time I asked my mom for Adidas sneakers. She came home with some knockoff brand, Abidas. “Mom, these are fake,” I said. “I don’t see the difference.” “Look at the logo. There are four stripes instead of three.” “Lucky you,” she said. “You got one extra.” We got by with next to nothing, but we always had church and we always had books and we always had food. Mind you, it wasn’t necessarily good food. Meat was a luxury. When things were going well we’d have chicken. My mom was an expert at cracking open a chicken bone and getting out every last bit of marrow inside. We didn’t eat chickens. We obliterated them. Our family was an archaeologist’s nightmare. We left no bones behind. When we were done with a chicken there was nothing left but the head. Sometimes the only meat we had was a packaged meat you could buy at the butcher called “sawdust.” It was literally the dust of the meat, the bits that fell off the cuts being packaged for the shop, the bits of fat and whatever’s left. They’d sweep it up and put it into bags. It was meant for dogs, but my mom bought it for us. There were many months where that was all we ate. The butcher sold bones, too. We called them “soup bones,” but they were actually labeled “dog bones” in the store; people would cook them for their dogs as a treat. Whenever times were really tough we’d fall back on dog bones. My mom would boil them for soup. We’d suck the marrow out of them. Sucking marrow out of bones is a skill poor people learn early. I’ll never forget the first time I went to a fancy restaurant as a grown man and someone told me, “You have to try the bone marrow. It’s such a delicacy. It’s divine.” They ordered it, the waiter brought it out, and I was like, “Dog bones, motherfucker!” I was not impressed. As modestly as we lived at home, I never felt poor because our lives were so rich with experience. We were always out doing something, going somewhere. My mom used to take me on drives through fancy white neighborhoods. We’d go look at people’s houses, look at their mansions. We’d look at their walls, mostly, because that’s all we could see from the road. We’d look at a wall that ran from one end of the block to the other and go, “Wow. That’s only one house. All of that is for one family.” Sometimes we’d pull over and go up to the wall, and she’d put me up on her shoulders like I was a little periscope. I would look into the yards and describe everything I was seeing. “It’s a big white house! They have two dogs! There’s a lemon tree! They have a swimming pool!

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Oil meant she wanted to end it. My grandmother Frances Noah was the family matriarch. She ran the house, looked after the kids, did the cooking and the cleaning. She’s barely five feet tall, hunched over from years in the factory, but rock hard and still to this day very active and very much alive. Where my grandfather was big and boisterous, my grandmother was calm, calculating, with a mind as sharp as anything. If you need to know anything in the family history, going back to the 1930s, she can tell you what day it happened, where it happened, and why it happened. She remembers it all. My great-grandmother lived with us as well. We called her Koko. She was super old, well into her nineties, stooped and frail, completely blind. Her eyes had gone white, clouded over by cataracts. She couldn’t walk without someone holding her up. She’d sit in the kitchen next to the coal stove, bundled up in long skirts and head scarves, blankets over her shoulders. The coal stove was always on. It was for cooking, heating the house, heating water for baths. We put her there because it was the warmest spot in the house. In the morning someone would wake her and bring her to sit in the kitchen. At night someone would come take her to bed. That’s all she did, all day, every day. Sit by the stove. She was fantastic and fully with it. She just couldn’t see and didn’t move. Koko and my gran would sit and have long conversations, but as a five-year-old I didn’t think of Koko as a real person. Since her body didn’t move, she was like a brain with a mouth. Our relationship was nothing but command prompts and replies, like talking to a computer. “Good morning, Koko.” “Good morning, Trevor.” “Koko, did you eat?” “Yes, Trevor.” “Koko, I’m going out.” “Okay, be careful.” “Bye, Koko.” “Bye, Trevor.” — The fact that I grew up in a world run by women was no accident. Apartheid kept me away from my father because he was white, but for almost all the kids I knew on my grandmother’s block in Soweto, apartheid had taken away their fathers as well, just for different reasons. Their fathers were off working in a mine somewhere, able to come home only during the holidays. Their fathers had been sent to prison. Their fathers were in exile, fighting for the cause. Women held the community together. “Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo!” was the chant they would rally to during the freedom struggle. “When you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” As a nation, we recognized the power of women, but in the home they were expected to submit and obey. In Soweto, religion filled the void left by absent men.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  One afternoon, when I was around five years old, my gran left me at home for a few hours to go run errands. I was lying on the floor in the bedroom, reading. I needed to go, but it was pouring down rain. I was dreading going outside to use the toilet, getting drenched running out there, water dripping on me from the leaky ceiling, wet newspaper, the flies attacking me from below. Then I had an idea. Why bother with the outhouse at all? Why not put some newspaper on the floor and do my business like a puppy? That seemed like a fantastic idea. So that’s what I did. I took the newspaper, laid it out on the kitchen floor, pulled down my pants, and squatted and got to it. When you shit, as you first sit down, you’re not fully in the experience yet. You are not yet a shitting person. You’re transitioning from a person about to shit to a person who is shitting. You don’t whip out your smartphone or a newspaper right away. It takes a minute to get the first shit out of the way and get in the zone and get comfortable. Once you reach that moment, that’s when it gets really nice. It’s a powerful experience, shitting. There’s something magical about it, profound even. I think God made humans shit in the way we do because it brings us back down to earth and gives us humility. I don’t care who you are, we all shit the same. Beyoncé shits. The pope shits. The Queen of England shits. When we shit we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how famous or how rich we are. All of that goes away. You are never more yourself than when you’re taking a shit. You have that moment where you realize, This is me. This is who I am. You can pee without giving it a second thought, but not so with shitting. Have you ever looked in a baby’s eyes when it’s shitting? It’s having a moment of pure self-awareness. The outhouse ruins that for you. The rain, the flies, you are robbed of your moment, and nobody should be robbed of that. Squatting and shitting on the kitchen floor that day, I was like, Wow. There are no flies. There’s no stress. This is really great. I’m really enjoying this. I knew I’d made an excellent choice, and I was very proud of myself for making it. I’d reached that moment where I could relax and be with myself.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  He leaned forward. “It’s too fucking weird working nights in a plant with no windows. You could come out in the morning and find out there’s been a nuclear meltdown and you never knew it.” Jim laughed. “Well, if you see the sun rising in the west, come back and tell the rest of us, OK?” Jim sighed. “I know what you mean, though. I remember one time I came out of work at dawn and there was two feet of snow on the ground. I didn’t even know it was going to snow. I felt like I missed something the whole rest of the world saw and I was somewhere else,” “Tt’s like working in a fucking submarine,” Bill agreed. “You know what I hate the most?” Jim continued. “I get so disoriented about which is today and when is tomorrow. When I get up at night to go to work, my girlfriend says she’ll see me tomorrow. But for me, ’'m going to see her later today.” I nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. I feel like ’m living between the cracks of today and tomorrow.” “Ooh,” Bill said, “T like that. Can I quote you?” We all laughed. “You know what I really hate about shift work?” I said. ““The way the whole world is geared to first shift. When I get off work I don’t want bacon and eggs. I want steak and baked potato. I want dinner!” “Yeah,” Jim chimed in. “And I want to see a movie.” “And go dancing with my old lady at a club so wild it stays open past noon,” Bill said. “And when I turn on TV,’ I added, “I don’t want to see game shows and soap operas—it’s depressing.” “Hey, guy,” Bill said. “Why don’t you come to the gym with us in the morning? We go swimming right after work. They got a steam room, too. We can get you in on a pass.” It sounded like heaven, but I fumbled for an excuse. “I don’t have a swimsuit or towel or anything, Maybe another time.” Jim cut me off. “They got towels there. Hell, they wouldn’t care if you swim naked.” I shook my head. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn my Fred Flintstone boxer shorts today.” The guys laughed. “Another time. But thanks for the offer.” Bill shrugged. “Suit yourself.” During the summer I made a list of things Id like to accomplish: join a gym, find out more about my aunt who had been a union organizer, and have my picture taken in front of the Stonewall bar where the rebellion took place in 1969. After visiting a lot of gyms I found one in Chelsea that felt comfortable. It was mostly gay men, some lesbians, different nationalities. It was expensive, but the nice thing about having a decent-paying job most of the year was it meant I could join.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  wives waiting to join them in these camps. These women and their daughters would resort to prostitution to stay alive. Everything was designed to degrade people’s spirits and drain them of every ounce of dignity. It reminded him of his family dynamic, on a much larger scale. This was certainly the lowest rung of hell he could have visited, and it affected him deeply. He now longed to return to Moscow and write about what he had seen. His sense of proportion had been restored. He had finally freed himself of the petty thoughts and concerns that had weighed him down. Now he could get outside of himself and feel generous again. The book he wrote, Sakhalin Island , caught the attention of the public and led to substantial reforms of conditions on the island. By 1897 his health had deteriorated, and he began to cough blood rather regularly. He could no longer disguise his tuberculosis from the world at large. The doctor who treated him advised that he retire from all work and leave Moscow for good. He needed rest. Perhaps by living in a sanatorium he could extend his life a few years. Anton would have none of this. He would live as if nothing had changed. A cult had begun to form around Chekhov, comprising younger artists and adoring fans of his plays, all of which had made him one of Russia’s most famous writers. They came to visit him in large numbers, and although he was clearly ailing, he radiated a calmness that astonished almost everyone. Where did it come from? Was he born this way? He seemed to absorb himself completely in their stories and problems. No one ever heard him talk about his illness. In the winter of 1904, as his condition worsened, he suddenly had the desire to take an open-sleigh ride into the country. Hearing the bells of the sleigh and breathing the cold air had always been one of his greatest pleasures, and he needed to feel this one more time. It put him in such high spirits that he did not care anymore about the consequences, which were dire. He died a few months later. • • • Interpretation: The moment his mother left him to be alone in Taganrog, young Anton Chekhov felt trapped, as if he had been thrown into prison. He would be forced to work as much as he could outside his studies. He was now stuck in this hopelessly dull backwater with no support system, living in the corner of a small room. Bitter thoughts about his fate and about the childhood he had never had gnawed at him in his few free moments. But as the weeks went by, he noticed something very strange—he actually liked the work he did as a tutor, even though the pay was meager and he was continually running around town. His father had kept telling him he

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  My mom would go to that, and I would go to the youth side, to Sunday school. In Sunday school we got to read cool stories. Noah and the flood was obviously a favorite; I had a personal stake there. But I also loved the stories about Moses parting the Red Sea, David slaying Goliath, Jesus whipping the money changers in the temple. I grew up in a home with very little exposure to popular culture. Boyz II Men were not allowed in my mother’s house. Songs about some guy grinding on a girl all night long? No, no, no. That was forbidden. I’d hear the other kids at school singing “End of the Road,” and I’d have no clue what was going on. I knew of these Boyz II Men, but I didn’t really know who they were. The only music I knew was from church: soaring, uplifting songs praising Jesus. It was the same with movies. My mom didn’t want my mind polluted by movies with sex and violence. So the Bible was my action movie. Samson was my superhero. He was my He-Man. A guy beating a thousand people to death with the jawbone of a donkey? That’s pretty badass. Eventually you get to Paul writing letters to the Ephesians and it loses the plot, but the Old Testament and the Gospels? I could quote you anything from those pages, chapter and verse. There were Bible games and quizzes every week at white church, and I kicked everyone’s ass. Then there was black church. There was always some kind of black church service going on somewhere, and we tried them all. In the township, that typically meant an outdoor, tent-revival-style church. We usually went to my grandmother’s church, an old-school Methodist congregation, five hundred African grannies in blue-and-white blouses, clutching their Bibles and patiently burning in the hot African sun. Black church was rough, I won’t lie. No air-conditioning. No lyrics up on Jumbotrons. And it lasted forever, three or four hours at least, which confused me because white church was only like an hour—in and out, thanks for coming. But at black church I would sit there for what felt like an eternity, trying to figure out why time moved so slowly. Is it possible for time to actually stop? If so, why does it stop at black church and not at white church? I eventually decided black people needed more time with Jesus because we suffered more. “I’m here to fill up on my blessings for the week,” my mother used to say. The more time we spent at church, she reckoned, the more blessings we accrued, like a Starbucks Rewards Card. Black church had one saving grace.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: The practical intellect is ordained to good which is outside of it: but the speculative intellect has good within it, viz. the contemplation of truth. And if this good be perfect, the whole man is perfected and made good thereby: such a good the practical intellect has not; but it directs man thereto. Reply to Objection 3: This argument would hold, if man himself were his own last end; for then the consideration and direction of his actions and passions would be his happiness. But since man’s last end is something outside of him, to wit, God, to Whom we reach out by an operation of the speculative intellect; therefore, man’s happiness consists in an operation of the speculative intellect rather than of the practical intellect. Whether happiness consists in the consideration of speculative sciences?Objection 1: It would seem that man’s happiness consists in the consideration of speculative sciences. For the Philosopher says (Ethic. i, 13) that “happiness is an operation according to perfect virtue.” And in distinguishing the virtues, he gives no more than three speculative virtues—“knowledge,” “wisdom” and “understanding,” which all belong to the consideration of speculative sciences. Therefore man’s final happiness consists in the consideration of speculative sciences. Objection 2: Further, that which all desire for its own sake, seems to be man’s final happiness. Now such is the consideration of speculative sciences; because, as stated in Metaph. i, 1, “all men naturally desire to know”; and, a little farther on (2), it is stated that speculative sciences are sought for their own sakes. Therefore happiness consists in the consideration of speculative sciences. Objection 3: Further, happiness is man’s final perfection. Now everything is perfected, according as it is reduced from potentiality to act. But the human intellect is reduced to act by the consideration of speculative sciences. Therefore it seems that in the consideration of these sciences, man’s final happiness consists. On the contrary, It is written (Jer. 9:23): “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom”: and this is said in reference to speculative sciences. Therefore man’s final happiness does not consist in the consideration of these. I answer that, As stated above (A[2], ad 4), man’s happiness is twofold, one perfect, the other imperfect. And by perfect happiness we are to understand that which attains to the true notion of happiness; and by imperfect happiness that which does not attain thereto, but partakes of some particular likeness of happiness. Thus perfect prudence is in man, with whom is the idea of things to be done; while imperfect prudence is in certain irrational animals, who are possessed of certain particular instincts in respect of works similar to works of prudence.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  This dynamic also wreaks havoc not only on the body but also on relationships. The “voo” sound—by, first of all, focusing awareness upon the inner locus of the real problem—allows one to begin to change one’s experience from dreadful to pleasant and thus moves the situation from being a positive feedback loop (with negative consequences) to being a negative feedback loop, which helps restore homeostatic balance, equilibrium and, hence, feelings of goodness. This shift, even if only brief, opens an opportunity for the client to experience the warmth of the supportive therapeutic relationship, which, in turn, also provides a buffer against the rush of (sympathetic) hyperarousal soon to follow. Then the self-regulatory system (negative feedback loop) brings down arousal, allowing for much deeper, more stable and enduring sensations of goodness, as well as a more resilient nervous system and psyche. * Merriam-Webster’s definition of organism is “a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole.” Organism describes a wholeness, which derives not from the sum of its individual parts (i.e., bones, chemicals, muscles, nerves, organs, etc.); rather, it emerges from their dynamic, complex interrelation. Body and mind, primitive instincts, emotions, intellect, and spirituality all need to be considered together in studying the organism. † Namely, in the cartilaginous and even jawless fish, in which it regulates metabolic energy conservation. ‡ Any situation that can increase one’s sense of safety has the potential of enlisting the evolutionarily more advanced neural circuits that support the behaviors of the social engagement system. § For a thorough discussion of the structure and complexities of dissociation, the reader is referred to the following comprehensive article: van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E., Steele, K., & Brown, D. (2004). Trauma-Related Dissociation: Conceptual Clarity Lost and Found. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 38, 906–914. These authors define dissociation, contextually, thus: “Dissociation in trauma entails a division of an individual’s personality, that is, of the dynamic, biopsychosocial system as a whole that determines his or her characteristic mental and behavioral actions. This division of personality constitutes a core feature of trauma. It evolves when the individual lacks the capacity to integrate adverse experiences in part or in full, can support adaptation in this context, but commonly also implies adaptive limitations.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The important element is to be mindful of how your muscles feel from the inside as they are being squeezed. You can begin to recognize the rigidity or flaccidity of the tissue as well as its general quality of aliveness. Generally, tight, constricted muscles are associated with the alarm and hypervigilence of the sympathetic arousal system. Flaccid muscles, on the other hand, belie how the body collapses when dominated by the immobilization system. In the case of flaccid muscles, you need to linger and gently hold them, almost as though you were holding a baby. With the practice of gentle, focused touch and resistance exercises, you can learn to bring life back into those muscles as the fragile fibers learn to fire coherently and thus vitalize the organism. These two exercises are best done regularly, several times per week. As body consciousness grows, so, too, will a more palpable sense of boundary awareness, as well as greater aliveness. For some clients, classes in gentle yoga or martial arts, such as tai chi, aikido or chi gong, can be beneficial in restoring connection to their bodies and defining body boundaries. For these classes to be helpful, it is important that the teacher have some experience in working with traumatized individuals. Changing the Paradigm Most psychotherapists work with clients when both are sitting in chairs. Since sitting requires little proprioceptive and kinesthetic information to maintain an erect posture, the body easily becomes absent, disappearing from its owner. Recall the fMRI study of Lanius and Hopper, where dissociated patients showed a great reduction of activity in the parts of the brain (insula and cingulate) that register body sensations. In contrast, a standing position requires one to engage in at least a modicum of interoceptive activity and awareness to maintain one’s balance via proprioceptive and kinesthetic integration. Often, this simple change in stance can make the difference between whether or not a client is able to stay present in the body while processing difficult sensations and feelings. Another supportive variant is to invite the client to sit on a suitable-sized gymnastic ball. Since balancing on a ball requires making multiple adjustments to maintain equilibrium, not only does it help one to be in touch with internal sensations due to the feedback from this pliable surface, but in addition, explorations in muscle awareness, grounding, centering, protective reflexes and core strength bring a whole new dimension to developing a body consciousness. Naturally, the therapist has to be sure that the client is present and integrated enough not to fall off the ball and possibly sustain an injury. The following is another technique to help clients remain conscious of their bodily sensations while at the same time learning how to manage assertion and aggression. First, have your client stand up and face you.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I began to realize how emotionally wounded I was, how damaged. But Theresa could always sense when I was about to petrify like stone. She could see it coming by the way I held my body as I walked in the door. She could hear it building up in the stories of life’s daily abuses—on the job, at the corner store, on the street. Those were the times she would tell me stories in bed—wonderful, sensuous, tactile fantasies about how your body feels when you're lying on sand in the sun and the ocean’s waves are lapping near your toes. Or climbing worn wooden stairs to visit a quaint sunlit room where a lover awaits. The stories were relaxation therapy and sexual fantasy combined, meant to simultaneously calm and arouse me. They did both. Theresa could always melt my stone. It was 1968. Revolution seemed to glimmer on the horizon. Millions took to the streets in protest. The world was exploding with change. Everywhere, that is, except in the factories where I worked. Every morning at dawn we punched in as usual. We only dreamed at night. It wasn’t that we didn’t know there was a wart raging. There were hardly any draft-age guys in the plants anymore. Co-workers who were absent for several days were assumed to have lost a husband, son, or brother. The ashen grief on their faces when they returned to work confirmed the fact. I knew there was a wat. I wasn’t stupid. I just didn’t know what on earth I could do about it. It was Theresa’s job as a secretary at the university that opened a window, allowing me to feel the hurricane force of change. She brought home leaflets, pamphlets, and underground newspapers. I read about Black Power and Women’s Liberation. I began to understand that outrage against the war was much deeper and more organized than I'd realized. “There’s campus rallies and protests almost every day now,” she told me, “not just against the war, but to open up the schools to everybody.” Theresa ordered home subscriptions to the morning and evening papers. One day she left a copy of The Ladder on the couch. It was a magazine put out by a group called the Daughters of Bilitis. I didn’t know who Bilitis was. ’'d never seen anything about women like us in print before. “Where'd you get this?” I shouted to her. She called back from the kitchen, “In the mail.” “You got this sent to our address in the mail? Was it wrapped? What if someone in the building saw it?” After a long silence, Theresa came in with a hand mirror and held it up to my face. “Did you think you were a secret?”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  limits to what they can do, making it a self-fulfilling cycle. Those who age well continue to engage in physical activity, only moderately adjusted. You have wellsprings of energy and health you have yet to tap into. How to view other people: First you must try to get rid of the natural tendency to take what people do and say as something personally directed at you, particularly if what they say or do is unpleasant. Even when they criticize you or act against your interests, more often than not it stems from some deep earlier pain they are reliving; you become the convenient target of frustrations and resentments that have been accumulating over the years. They are projecting their own negative feelings. If you can view people this way, you will find it easier to not react and get upset or become embroiled in some petty battle. If the person is truly malicious, by not becoming emotional yourself you will be in a better place to plot the proper countermove. You will save yourself from accumulating hurts and bitter feelings. See people as facts of nature. They come in all varieties, like flowers or rocks. There are fools and saints and sociopaths and egomaniacs and noble warriors; there are the sensitive and the insensitive. They all play a role in our social ecology. This does not mean we cannot struggle to change the harmful behavior of the people who are close to us or in our sphere of influence; but we cannot reengineer human nature, and even if we somehow succeeded, the result could be a lot worse than what we have. You must accept diversity and the fact that people are what they are. That they are different from you should not be felt as a challenge to your ego or self-esteem but as something to welcome and embrace. From this more neutral stance, you can then try to understand the people you deal with on a deeper level, as Chekhov did with his father. The more you do this, the more tolerant you will tend to become toward people and toward human nature in general. Your open, generous spirit will make your social interactions much smoother, and people will be drawn to you. — Finally, think of the modern concept of attitude in terms of the ancient concept of the soul . The concept of the soul is found in almost all indigenous cultures and in premodern civilizations. It originally referred to external spiritual forces permeating the universe and contained in the individual human in the form of the soul. The soul is not the mind or the body but rather the overall spirit we embody, our way of experiencing the world. It is what makes a person an individual, and the concept of the soul was related to the earliest ideas of personality. Under this concept, a person’s soul could have depths. Some people possessed a greater degree of this spiritual

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

  The barn rafters, where the picked tobacco was to be hung to dry, were now empty. By September’s end, each barn would house almost two tons of tobacco, two times over. In between bites of runny eggs, I examined the structure. To encourage faster drying, every other wood panel on the barn’s siding was raised up, creating rib-like slits, allowing air flow, where the day’s heat now ran its hot breath across my neck, carrying with it the sweet-bitter scent of tobacco and the iron of red dirt. The men too smelled of the fields. Before their boots met the soil, their bodies, even after morning showers, exuded the salt and sunbaked underscent from the previous day’s work. Soon the same smell would permeate my own pores. A forest-green Ford Bronco pulled into the drive. The men rose in unison and tossed their plates and cups into the wastebasket. They put on their gloves, some poured water on rags and stuffed them under their caps. Mr. Buford walked in. A tall, lanky white man of about seventy, he wore a Red Sox cap pulled low over a pair of aviators and a cheddar cheese grin. Hands on his hips, he reminded me of that maniac sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, the one who got his brains blown out by one of his own privates for being an asshole. But Buford was cheery enough, charming even, if only a bit forced with it. He grinned, his one gold tooth sparking between his lips, and said, “How’s my United Nations this morning? ¿Bueno?” I walked up to him and introduced myself. I shook his hand, which was rough and chapped, which surprised me. He patted me on the shoulder and said I’ll do fine as long as I just follow Manny, my crew leader. The men and I piled in the back of three pickups and we drove out to the first field, where the crop was tallest, their heavy heads just starting to tilt. We were followed by two tractors, on which the plants would be loaded. By the time we got there, there was already a crew of ten men crouched over the first five rows of tobacco. That was the cut team. Armed with machetes sharpened in the day’s first light, they would set out a hundred yards ahead of us and chop down the stalks in quick slashing sweeps. Sometimes, when we worked fast enough, we’d catch up to them, the sound of their blades louder and louder, until you could hear their lungs working as they cut, the stalks falling in bright green splashes around their hunched backs. You could hear the water inside the stems as the steel broke open the membranes, the ground darkening as the plants bled out.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  area again unless I was in real bad shape. And besides, the thought of a doctor opening my legs and examining me chilled me to the bone. “Thanks for listening,” I told her. “Almost nobody hears me anymore.” She squeezed my arm. “You can make an appointment at the front desk on your way out. Don’t put it off too long.” I could still feel her hand on my arm after she’d walked away. I suddenly realized I didn’t know her name. I might need to come back someday. I started down the hall after her. Roz came out of the examining room and blocked my way. “What’s her name?” I asked Roz. “I forgot to ask.” Roz’s voice was cold. “You got what you wanted, now leave.” “You're wrong, Roz,” I corrected her. “I got 29 what I needed. You have no idea how much I want. Hog Every time I got a paycheck I used part of it on my apartment. I spent one whole weekend spackling the cracks in my walls and ceilings. As I applied paint to each room with broad strokes my spirits lifted. On my most ambitious weekend I sanded all the wood floors. Then I started from the furthest corner of the apartment and polyurethaned myself out the door. That night I slept at a 42° Street theater again—yjust for one more night! The floors were dazzling, It added a new dimension underfoot, as though the ceilings were raised, or the apartment had grown in size. I found a black Guatemalan rug at a flea market. It had tiny flecks of white in it. I unrolled it in my living room and stood back to look. It reminded me of the night sky filled with stars. Gradually I bought furniture—a sturdy couch and reading chair, a mahogany kitchen table and chairs. At the Salvation Army I found a bed—the head and footboards were ovals carved out of cherry. I went crazy buying sheets at Macy’s. As my house came together, I suddenly wanted things that made my body feel good. I threw out my old jeans and bought new chinos, underwear, shirts, and two pairs of sneakers, so that I didn’t have to pound the pavement in the same pair every day. I bought thick, soft towels and fragrances for my bath that pleased me. And then one day I looked around at my apartment and realized I’d made a home. Stone Butch Blues 259

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Moving in the opposite direction, you are much more progressive. How to view your energy and health: Although we are all mortal and subject to illnesses beyond our control, we must recognize the role that willpower plays in our health. We have all felt this to some degree or another. When we fall in love or feel excited by our work, suddenly we have more energy and recover quickly from any illnesses. When we are depressed or unusually stressed, we become prey to all kinds of ailments. Our attitude plays an enormous role in our health, one that science has begun to explore and will examine in more depth in the coming decades. In general, you can safely push yourself beyond what you think are your physical limits by feeling excited and challenged by a project or endeavor. People get old and prematurely age by accepting physical limits to what they can do, making it a self-fulfilling cycle. Those who age well continue to engage in physical activity, only moderately adjusted. You have wellsprings of energy and health you have yet to tap into. How to view other people: First you must try to get rid of the natural tendency to take what people do and say as something personally directed at you, particularly if what they say or do is unpleasant. Even when they criticize you or act against your interests, more often than not it stems from some deep earlier pain they are reliving; you become the convenient target of frustrations and resentments that have been accumulating over the years. They are projecting their own negative feelings. If you can view people this way, you will find it easier to not react and get upset or become embroiled in some petty battle. If the person is truly malicious, by not becoming emotional yourself you will be in a better place to plot the proper countermove. You will save yourself from accumulating hurts and bitter feelings. See people as facts of nature. They come in all varieties, like flowers or rocks. There are fools and saints and sociopaths and egomaniacs and noble warriors; there are the sensitive and the insensitive. They all play a role in our social ecology. This does not mean we cannot struggle to change the harmful behavior of the people who are close to us or in our sphere of influence; but we cannot reengineer human nature, and even if we somehow succeeded, the result could be a lot worse than what we have. You must accept diversity and the fact that people are what they are. That they are different from you should not be felt as a challenge to your ego or self-esteem but as something to welcome and embrace. From this more neutral stance, you can then try to understand the people you deal with on a deeper level, as Chekhov did with his father.

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

  And when he had eaten his supper with milk or heavily malted brown beer in his room, while his mother later dined with a larger group on the glass veranda of the Kurhaus, as soon as he lay again between the age-thin linen of his bed, he sank down to the soft and full beats this one satisfied heart working in benevolent order he always took with him from the sea! And when he had eaten his supper with milk or heavily malted brown beer in his room, while his mother later dined with a larger group on the glass veranda of the Kurhaus, as soon as he lay again between the age-thin linen of his bed, he sank down to the soft and full beats this one with a satisfied heart and the subdued rhythms of the evening concert without any terror or fever, sleep over him... On Sunday, like some other gentlemen who were held back from their business in the city during the week, the senator appeared with his family and stayed until Monday morning. But although ice cream and champagne were then served at the table d'hote, although donkey rides and sailing parties were organized out into the open sea, little Johann did not love these Sundays very much. The peace and seclusion of the bath was disturbed. A crowd of people from the city who didn't belong here at all, "ephemeral from the good middle class," as Ida Jungmann called them with benevolent contempt, populated the spa gardens and beach in the afternoon to drink coffee, listen to music, bathe, and Hanno would have preferred to wait in the closed room for these festively dressed troublemakers to drain off... No, he was glad And a fortnight was over, and Hanno told himself and assured everyone who would listen that there was still a long time to come, as long as the Michaelis holidays. But that was a deceptive consolation, for once the height of the holidays had been reached, things went downhill and towards the end, fast, so terribly fast that he felt like clinging to every hour so as not to let it pass, and slowing down every breath of sea air to not wasting happiness carelessly. But time passed inexorably in the alternation of rain and sunshine, sea and land wind, still, sweltering warmth and noisy thunderstorms that could not cross the water and seemed to want no end. There were days when the northeast wind swept the bay with black-green tides that covered the beach with seaweed, shells and jellyfish and threatened the pavilions. Then the murky, choppy sea was wide and broadly covered with foam. Great, mighty waves rolled on with an unrelenting and fearsome stillness, bent majestically, forming a dark green, metal-shined curve, and tumbled over the sands, roaring, cracking, hissing, thundering...

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

  “You don’t need to be scared, Little Dog. You smarter than me.” Something crinkled. In her arms, held like a baby, was a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. In her other hand was a Poland Spring water bottle filled with warm jasmine tea. She kept muttering to herself, “You don’t need to be scared. No need.” Then she stopped and trained her eyes on him. They watched each other between the shivered leaves. She blinked once. The branches clacked and clacked, then stopped. — Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn’t have to live on one side or the other? Main Street was empty the night Trevor and I rode our bikes down the middle of the road, our tires swallowing the fat yellow lanes as we sped. It was seven p.m., which meant there were only five hours left of Thanksgiving Day. Our breaths smoked above us. With each inhale, the pungent wood fires made a bright note in my lungs. Trevor’s old man was back at the trailer, in front of the football game, eating TV dinners with bourbon and Diet Coke. My reflection warped over the storefront glass as we rode. The stoplights blinked yellow and the only sound was the clicking spokes beneath us. We rode back and forth like that, and for a stupid moment it felt like that strip of concrete called Main Street was all we ever possessed, all that held us. Mist came down, diffracted the streetlights into huge, van Gogh orbs. Trevor, ahead of me, stood up on his bike, arms out on both sides, and shouted, “I’m flying! Hey, I’m flying!” His voice cracked as he mimicked the scene in Titanic where the girl stands at the bow of the ship. “I’m flying, Jack!” he shouted. After a while Trevor stopped pedaling and let his bike slide to a stop, arms at his side. “I’m starving.” “Me too,” I said. “There’s a gas station up there.” He pointed to a Shell station ahead of us. Surrounded by the vast night, it looked like a spaceship had crashed on the side of the street. Inside, we watched two frozen egg-and-cheese sandwiches spin together in the microwave. The old white lady at the counter asked us where we were headed. “Home,” Trevor said. “My mom’s stuck in traffic so just getting a snack before she comes for dinner.” The woman’s eyes flicked over me as she handed him the change. Trevor’s mom moved to Oklahoma with her boyfriend almost five years ago.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  with saliva and my glands ached from the aroma. Just as I got my keys, Ruth opened her door. “T’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not skulkinge—honestly. It’s just been a long time since I smelled rhubarb cooking, It takes me back.” Ruth nodded. “I’m making pies. Would you like some coffee?” I hesitated. We both faced each other stiffly. But I was so weary of our caution and defensiveness. “Thank you,” I smiled. “Oh,” I groaned as I walked into her kitchen. “It smells so good.” Ruth smiled. “Well, I wish I could send you home with a small pie, but these are for friends in the hospital.” I nodded. “When I was a kid I used to eat it plain in a bowl with brown sugar.” Ruth stirred the pot. “I’m sure there’s enough for that.” She stopped puttering and buried her hands in the pockets of her old-fashioned floral apron. I pointed to one of the small watercolor paintings on her kitchen wall. “I recognize the Queen Anne’s Lace, but what are these purple flowers?” “Asters,” she said. “And that’s goldenrod.” I didn’t usually like pictures of flowers, but these reminded me of the way flowers looked the first time I saw them. “These are really nice,’ I said. “Thank you.” “Did you paint theme” I asked. She nodded. “This is beautiful.” I pointed to a framed handkerchief, embroidered with colorful pansies. “I always loved pansies, but they embarrassed me, too, because that’s what kids used to call me when I was a little girl.” Ruth looked me in the eye and then went back to stirring the pot. “It’s almost ready,” she said. “Sit down. Would you like decaf so you can still sleep? You work nights, don’t you?” I smiled and nodded. She had directed at least a little attention toward her neighbor, just as I had. “Some regular coffee would be great. ’'m trying to stay up and clean on the weekends, but all I get is one layer deeper into the crud.” Ruth’s immaculate home inspired me. “Where are you from?” she asked me. “Buffalo.” She smiled. “We ate neighbors. You know where Canandaigua Lake is?” I nodded. It was about two hours outside of Buffalo. “I’m from Vine Valley.” I frowned. “I never heard of Vine Valley. Is it farm country?” Ruth nodded. “Oh, yes—vineyards.” As she poured the coffee I could smell cinnamon in it. Stone Butch Blues 213 “I miss Buffalo,” I sighed. “Well, at least I miss the way it used to be. It was such a blue-collar town when I grew up. I never could have imagined that the plants would close and the people from the suburbs would move in and buy our houses dirt-cheap.” Ruth nodded and stirred her coffee. “I know.

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

  I was on the spear crew, where the shorter workers were. Our task was to pick up the fallen crop, their leaves already shriveled in the sun. We split into teams of three harvesters each, two pickers and one piercer. As a piercer, all you had to do was stand by the spearing horse (a cart with a removable spear attached to it) and run the plants through the spear until the plank filled up. Then you’d remove the spear tip, and one of the pickers would carry the full plank to an idling tractor, where a loader would rack the plank. The piercer would then take another plank from a holster, attach the steel spear tip, and continue filling the new rack. When the tractor was at capacity, it would be driven back to the barns, where dozens of men, usually the tallest ones, would pass the racks, one by one, to each other up the rafters to dry. Since you could fall from as high as forty feet, the barn was the most dangerous place to work. There were stories the men told, from other farms, how the sound won’t leave their ears, the thud of a body—someone humming or talking of the weather or complaining of a woman, the price of gas in Modesto, then the abrupt silence, the leaves shifting where the voice had been. That first day, I stupidly refused the pair of gloves offered by Manny. They were too big and ran nearly to my elbows. By five o’clock, my hands were so thick and black with sap, dirt, pebbles, and splinters, they resembled the bottom of a pan of burned rice. The crows floated over the field’s wrinkled air as we worked the hours bare, their shadows swooping over the land like things falling from the sky. The jackrabbits dipped in and out of the rows, and once in a while a machete would come down on one and you could hear, even through the clink of blades, the shrill yelp of a thing leaving the earth we stood on. But the work somehow sutured a fracture inside me. A work of unbreakable links and collaboration, each plant cut, picked, lifted, and carried from one container to another in such timely harmony that no stalk of tobacco, once taken from the soil, ever touches ground again. A work of myriad communications, I learned to speak to the men not with my tongue, which was useless there, but with smiles, hand gestures, even silences, hesitations. I made out people, verbs, abstractions, ideas with my fingers, my arms, and by drawing in the dirt. Manny, brow furrowed, his mustache almost grey from dried sweat, nodded as I cupped my hands into a blossom to indicate your name, Rose. —

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Transforming yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more amusing as you open your mind to their mind but will also provide the most invaluable lessons about human psychology. Once you are motivated to listen, the rest is relatively simple. You cannot make the strategic purpose behind your listening too obvious. The other person has to feel it is a lively exchange, even though in the end they may do 80 percent of the talking. For this purpose, you must not barrage them with questions that make it feel like a job interview. Instead, pay attention to their nonverbal cues. You will see their eyes light up when certain topics are mentioned—you must guide the conversation in that direction. People will become chatty without realizing it. Almost everyone likes to talk about their childhood, their family, the ins and outs of their work, or some cause that is dear to them. An occasional question or comment plays off something they have said. You are deeply absorbed in what they say, but you must feel and appear relaxed in being so. You convey that you are listening by maintaining relatively consistent eye contact and nodding as they talk. The best way to signal how deeply you are listening is to occasionally say something that mirrors what they have said, but in your own words and filtered through your own experience. In the end, the more they talk, the more they will reveal about their insecurities and unmet desires. Your goal is to make them come away from the encounter feeling better about themselves. You have let them be the star of the show. You have drawn out of them the wittier, more fun-loving side of their personality. They will love you for this and will look forward to the next encounter. As they become increasingly relaxed in your presence, you will have great latitude for planting ideas and influencing their behavior. 2. Infect people with the proper mood. As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them. If you are relaxed and anticipating a pleasurable experience, this will communicate itself and have a mirror-like effect on the other person. One of the best attitudes to adapt for this purpose is one of complete indulgence. You do not judge other people; you accept them as they are. In the novel The Ambassadors , the writer Henry James paints the portrait of this ideal in the form of Marie de Vionnet, an older French woman of impeccable manners who surreptitiously uses an American named Lambert Strether to help her in a love affair. From the very moment he meets her, Strether is captivated.