Excitement

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 History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  162The History of Christianity II A NEW APPROACH TO REVIVAL õIn North America, Methodists were innovative, and this was the key to their success in the Second Great Awakening. Asbury was a bishop, but not like any bishop Anglicans had ever known. He rode thousands of miles each year on horseback, even when he was sick or in pain. õHe believed that Methodist preachers should not marry and settle down to pastor a single church, but should rather travel year-round from meeting to meeting along a particular circuit. He had such a mania for tight organization that he systematically assigned every man a role and a set of duties. õOne example of a circuit rider was a Methodist preacher named Lorenzo Dow. Dow had dreams and visions as a boy in Connecticut, and when he got older he started out as a circuit rider for the Methodists in New England. Then he went out on his own. He rode all over the country, including the Mississippi and Louisiana territories, where few ventured at this time, and he spoke to crowds of over 10,000.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  The price was rising, but what rises can surely fall, and so he cashed out, doubling his initial investment. Soon rumors began to circulate that the company was about to initiate trade in South America, where all kinds of riches lay buried in the mountains. This only added fuel to the fire, and people from all classes began to converge on London to buy up shares in the South Sea Company. Blunt, it was reported, was a financial alchemist who had found the secret of transforming debt into wealth. In the countryside farmers pulled up from under their beds their life savings in coins and sent their sons and nephews to buy as many shares as possible. The fever spread to women of all classes, who normally did not dabble in such things. Now actresses were rubbing elbows with duchesses in Exchange Alley. All the while, the price kept rising, over £300 and soon £400. Like France before it, the country was now experiencing a spectacular boom. On May 28 the king celebrated his sixtieth birthday, and for someone who had been known for his frugality, it was the most lavish party anyone had ever seen, with enormous tubs full of claret and champagne. One woman at the party flaunted her new wealth by encrusting her dress with jewels worth over £5,000. Everywhere in London the wealthy were tearing down mansions and replacing them with houses that were even larger and grander. Porters and footmen were now quitting their jobs and buying expensive coaches and hiring porters and footmen of their own. One young actress made such a fortune, she decided to retire; she rented out an entire theater to say good-bye to her adoring fans. An aristocratic lady was astonished one evening at the opera to see that her former maid now occupied a more expensive box in the theater than her own. Jonathan Swift wrote in a letter to a friend, “I have enquired of some that have come from London, what is the religion there? They tell me it is South Sea stock. What is the policy of England? The answer is the same. What is the trade? South Sea still. And what is the business? Nothing but South Sea.” In this midst of this feverish buying and selling spree, there stood John Blunt at the pump, doing whatever he possibly could to stimulate the interest in South Sea shares and keep the price rising. He sold the stock in various subscriptions, offering generous terms of payment, sometimes requiring only a 20 percent advance to get in. For every £400 invested, Blunt would lend £300. He wanted to keep up the demand and make people feel that they might be missing out on their one chance for wealth. Soon the price had passed £500 and kept on rising.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  group identification and to stir the emotions even further. The movement around the leader begins to crystallize around hatred of these scapegoats, who begin to stand for every bit of pain and injustice each person in the crowd has ever experienced. The leader’s promise to bring these invented enemies down increases the leader’s power exponentially. What you will find here is that they are creating a cult more than leading a political movement or a business. You will see that their name, image, and slogans must be reproduced in large numbers and assume a godlike ubiquity. Certain colors, symbols, and perhaps music are used to bind the group identity and appeal to the basest human instincts. People who now believe in the cult are doubly mesmerized and ready to excuse any kind of action. At such a point nothing will dissuade true believers, but you must maintain your internal distance and analytic powers. I rewrite the rules. A secret wish of humans is to do without the usual rules and conventions in place in any field—to gain power just by following our own inner light. When grandiose leaders claim to have such powers, we are secretly excited and wish to believe them. Michael Cimino was the director of the Academy Award–winning film The Deer Hunter (1978). To those who worked with and for him, however, he was not simply a film director but rather a special genius on a mission to disrupt the rigid, corporate Hollywood system. For his next film, Heaven’s Gate (1980), he negotiated a contract that was completely unique in Hollywood history, one that allowed him to increase the budget as he saw fit and to create precisely the film he had envisioned, with no strings attached. On the set, Cimino spent weeks rehearsing the actors in the right kind of roller-skating he needed for one scene. One day he waited hours before rolling cameras, just so the perfect kind of cloud could pass into frame. The costs soared and the film he initially turned in was over five hours long. In the end, Heaven’s Gate was one of the greatest disasters in Hollywood history, and it virtually destroyed Cimino’s career. It seemed that the traditional contract had actually served a purpose— to rein in the natural grandiosity of any film director and make him or her work within limits. Most rules do have common sense and rationality behind them. As a variation on this, grandiose leaders will often rely on their intuitions, disregarding the need for focus groups or any form of scientific feedback. They have a special inside connection to the truth. They like to create the myth that their hunches have led to fantastic successes, but close scrutiny will reveal that their hunches miss as often as they hit. When you hear leaders present themselves as the consummate maverick, able to do away with rules and science, you must see this only as a sign of madness, not divine inspiration.

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  He got about forty swats with the wooden paddle from the principal.” I repeat for her in great detail the words I heard him saying while I was jammed into the doghouse. It was an altogether stunning display of swearing, and we can’t help but be impressed. Stuart and Danny have suddenly put themselves on the map. “Those guys will say any thing,” Elizabeth remarks. She’s having a bowl of cereal, using milk that is thin and watery with a faint blue cast. “How’s that breast milk taste?” I ask her. She stares into the bowl for a second and then shrugs, takes another spoonful. “What would you’ve done if they caught you?” Renee asks. In some ways Renee is the perfect friend, she’s genuinely nice and asks you just exactly the questions you are prepared to answer. She is also pretty, with thin shiny hair and round brown eyes and a mouth that smiles even when she’s just reading or listening to a teacher. The boys love her, too, and cluster around her, which works out well for her friends, who are neither nice nor friendly. “I would’ve just started screaming,” Elizabeth answers. And it’s true, we all know it. I make a slow-motion kicking gesture with my foot. “Right in the old codpiece,” I say. Elizabeth makes a snorting noise and then has a nose attack right in Renee’s kitchen. It’s when she can’t breathe through her mouth — she’s still eating cereal — and her nostrils slam shut. She has to reach up and pry them open manually so she can get air. I try to help her and we wake the babies up accidentally. “Shit-fuck,” Renee says wearily. The babies wander out to the kitchen, blinking their eyes in the brightness and whimpering. They both try to climb on Renee, who stares patiently at the ceiling for a second and then helps them up on her lap. They look at Elizabeth and me with blank, defensive eyes, Amy with her thumb jammed in her mouth, Stacy with her hand down her diaper. “Do you have to go on the big-girl potty?” Renee asks her. She shakes her head no and closes her eyes. Suddenly we’re all tired, even Elizabeth and me. We take the kids and Renee leads the way upstairs. She pokes her head in all the bedrooms: B.J. is asleep on Renee’s bed, Alex is asleep on the rug beside his bed, Cindy is sleeping in B.J.’s bed. I have Amy, who’s as heavy as a sandbag and smells like sour milk and baby shampoo. We finally put them on the king-size bed in the parents’ room. There’s no sheet so we cover them with the funky, crumpled-up bedspread and tiptoe out. B.J. is seven and weighs a ton so I take his feet and Elizabeth takes his arms and we carry him like a hammock between us and dump him into Cindy’s bed so Renee can sleep alone.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  actions have greater power behind them because they are guided by a central idea and purpose. The many sides to your character are channeled into this purpose, giving you more sustained energy. Your focus and your ability to bounce back from adversity give you ineluctable momentum. You can ask more of yourself. And in a world where so many people are meandering, you will spring past them with ease and attract attention for this. People will want to be around you to imbibe your spirit. Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you must become aware of the primary role that a sense of purpose plays in human life. By our nature, the need for purpose has a gravitational pull to it that no one can resist. Look at the people around you and gauge what is guiding their behavior, seeing patterns in their choices. Is the freedom to do what they please their primary motivation? Are they mostly after pleasure, money, attention, power for its own sake, or a cause to join? These are what we shall call false purposes , and they lead to obsessive behavior and various dead ends. (For more on false purposes , see the last section of this chapter.) Once you identify people as motivated by a false purpose, you should avoid hiring or working with them, as they will tend to draw you downward with their unproductive energy. You will also notice some people who are struggling to find their purpose in the form of their calling in life. Perhaps you can help them or you can help each other. And finally, you may recognize a few people who have a relatively high sense of purpose. This could be someone young who seems destined for greatness. You will want to befriend them and become infected with their enthusiasm. Others will be older, with a string of accomplishments to their name. You will want to associate with them in any way possible. They will draw you upward. Your second task is to find your sense of purpose and elevate it by making the connection to it as deep as possible. (See the next section for more on this.) If you are young, use what you find to give an overall framework to your restless energy. Explore the world freely, accumulate adventures, but all within a certain framework. Most important, accumulate skills. If you are older and have gone astray, take the skills you have acquired and find ways to gently channel them in the direction that will eventually mesh with your inclinations and spirit. Avoid sudden and drastic career changes that are impractical. Keep in mind that your contribution to the culture can come in many forms. You don’t have to become an entrepreneur or figure largely on the world’s stage. You can do just as well operating as one person in a group or organization, as long as you retain a strong

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

  Yes, so true! This is a dangerous, subversive, explicit, foul, honest, strange, contradictory, paradoxical, ruthlessly hopeful book that makes a number of rather stunning claims about pretty much everything. (Do you like that phrase ruthlessly hopeful? I’m quite keen on it.) But isn’t the Bible ultimately about Jesus and how there’s a narrow way and a few people will find it and everyone else is going to burn in hell? No, it’s not. It’s bigger and more expansive and inclusive and embracing and enlightened than that because the Jesus story is bigger and more expansive and inclusive and challenging and dangerous and enlightened than that. But isn’t it, honestly, quite boring? If you’re bored reading the Bible, then you aren’t reading the Bible. Well, then, how do you read the Bible? That’s what this book is about. Because it’s easy to read the Bible and miss an entire world of weirdness and joy and hope and innuendo and implication just below the surface. This book is about that world. Let’s start, then, in the beginning. If you like what you've read so far, buy the book: What Is the Bible. [image file=image_rsrc24Z.jpg] Credits Art direction: Michele Wetherbee Cover design: FaceOut Design and Laura Beers Design Books by Rob Bell Love Wins What We Talk About When We Talk About God The Zimzum of Love Velvet Elvis Jesus Wants to Save Christians Sex God Drops Like Stars Love Wins Companion Love Wins: For Teens Copyright All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: Today’s New International Version™. TNIV®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. SEX GOD: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality. Copyright © 2007 by Rob Bell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks. FIRST PUBLISHED BY ZONDERVAN IN 2007 FIRST HARPERCOLLINS EDITION PUBLISHED IN 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Bell, Rob. Sex God : exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality / Rob Bell. p. cm. Originally published: Grand Rapids, Mich. : Zondervan, c2007. ISBN 978–0–06–219723–8 (pbk.) Epub Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780062197245 Version 11282018 1. Sex — Religious aspects — Christianity. I. Title. BT708.B45 2012 261.8’357 — dc23 2012010031 12 13 14 15 16 RRD(H) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Australia HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Publishers Ltd Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower 22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor Toronto, ON M5H 4E3, Canada www.harpercollins.ca India HarperCollins India A 75, Sector 57 Noida Uttar Pradesh 201 301 www.harpercollins.co.in New Zealand HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive Rosedale 0632 Auckland, New Zealand www.harpercollins.co.nz United Kingdom HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF, UK www.harpercollins.co.uk United States HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 195 Broadway New York, NY 10007 www.harpercollins.com

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  The coyote darts, bites, and opens the belly with one efficient fang. He drags it around in a gleeful circle, then thrusts one shoulder at a time into the cooling wetness. It is night and feelings are rising up, like blood to a scrape. The desert is lunar. Every so often a night bird courses low over the sand and the mice shudder, the lizards peer lidlessly around, unroll their tongues and reel them in again. The moon lowers itself, sitting for a few moments on the shoulders of a western butte, considering the lake of shadows. In its distant, porous memory, the moon can conjure up how it pulled the ice back like a bedsheet, exposing the tender ground beneath. The face on the butte is ice blue and furious, slumping beneath its shoulders infinitesimally, down and down, until it is gone and the stars are livid and blinking. The insects teem, the rodents scrabble, the night-blooming flowers push themselves open and await their guests. We have two things going for us: a spectacular white rental car and a bag of red-hot cinnamon Fireranchers. We discuss for a fair amount of time while sucking on the Fireranchers whether it is right to “beat” a rental car more than you would beat your own car. We decide it isn’t right, although we immediately follow that up by seeing how fast it can go on a stretch of gummy blacktop. It goes to one hundred and thirty miles an hour before it starts shivering. The rental car has air conditioning but we’re not using it. Instead we’re keeping a spray bottle full of water in the cooler and spritzing ourselves with it every few miles. Now there is a contest to see who can put a new Firerancher in his or her mouth and not bite it for however long it takes it to disintegrate. I will lose this game and we both know it. We’re playing it because we’re stupendously bored but still in high spirits. Every so often I put my foot on the dashboard for a leg inspection. My shinbone is a gentle, peeled blue. This is from when I fell down the mountain into the den of rattlesnakes. “It wasn’t a mountain, it was a path,” Eric says. “And there weren’t any rattlesnakes.” I spray cold water on my shin and then put my leg back down where it belongs. My whole body feels swampy. The air is a blast furnace and the windshield is a magnifying glass trained on our forearms. We are one moment from ignition. I turn the water bottle around and squirt myself flat in the face and then offer to do Eric. “I’ll do myself,” he says threateningly. I hand the bottle over. It’s not my style to squirt him with ice water while he’s driving but predictably he falls apart for an instant and turns the bottle on me.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  “I know this is new to you, but I’ve dated a lot of women. This is just par for the course. This is the risk you’re taking.” The drive home is wild, almost tweaked. You cover half the country—North Carolina to Chicago—in one day like fucking maniacs. You could, you think, drive forever and ever with her at your side.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  A few hours later, she knocks on your door. In your bedroom, she kisses you and explains: Val is going to leave New York and come live with her in Indiana. But she wants you to come and visit, to continue dating. “Val says we can try it,” she says. “I just—I think I’ve always been polyamorous, and it makes so much sense. I want to be with both of you. I want to make this work. Is that crazy?” “No,” you say, wiping the tears from your glasses. “I can’t wait to try.” Dream House as DaydreamShe and Val need to go house hunting in Bloomington, and they want you to come along. A few days before you leave Iowa, you find a vintage photograph for sale, black-and-white with three women laughing, one of them holding a baby. From the forties, maybe, but you’re just guessing. You buy a frame at a thrift store and take the picture with you. In Indiana you go from house to house together. You drive; your girlfriend is in the passenger seat; Val is in the back. The loose explanation is that they are the couple and you are the friend with wheels, but in every place you are all thinking about bedrooms. Do you need two, one for you and her, one for her and Val? What about a futon in the office? You all laugh, crowd into rooms. If the landlords have questions, they don’t verbalize them. You think, They can’t even imagine it, the perfection and lushness of this arrangement. One house is magical—tucked into a deep pocket of trees, all wood and rustic, with more rooms than you could fill if you tried. You remember a puzzling set of indoor windows, as if the house had swallowed a second, tiny house. Another is hilariously dilapidated, and every surface of the kitchen is covered in clean, drying shot glasses; a party house with at least one curiously conscientious resident. It smells like teenage boys: sweat and scented sprays and Doritos. During a long interval between appointments, you visit a pet store and see a tiny pile of ferrets, nestled together in their enclosure. You give them all funny voices; tell a story about the boss you had at a summer job who asked if she could show you a photo of her kids and then showed you a picture of her ferrets. By the time you’re back outside in the sunlight, you’re all laughing.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  challenge and a fresh approach. You might very well fail. You need the same level of focus as you had on the last project. Never rest on your laurels or let up in your intensity. Seek out calibrated challenges. The problem with fantastical grandiosity is that you imagine some great new goal you will achieve —that brilliant novel you will write, that lucrative start-up you will create. The challenge is so great that you may start, but you will soon peter out as you realize you are not up to it. Or if you are the ambitious, assertive type, you might try to go all the way, but you will end up in the Euro Disney syndrome, overwhelmed, failing in a large fashion, blaming others for the fiasco, and never learning from the experience. Your goal with practical grandiosity is to continually look for challenges just above your skill level. If the projects you attempt are below or at your skill level, you will become easily bored and less focused. If they are too ambitious, you will feel crushed by your failure. However, if they are calibrated to be more challenging than the last project, but to a moderate degree, you will find yourself excited and energized. You must be up to this challenge so your focus levels will rise as well. This is the optimum path toward learning. If you fail, you will not feel overwhelmed and you will learn even more. If you succeed, your confidence increases, but it is tied to your work and to having met the challenge. Your sense of accomplishment will satisfy your need for greatness. Let loose your grandiose energy. Once you have tamed this energy, made it serve your ambitions and goals, you should feel safe to let it loose upon occasion. Think of it as a wild animal that needs to roam free now and then or it will go mad from restlessness. What this means is that you occasionally allow yourself to entertain ideas or projects that represent greater challenges than you have considered in the past. You feel increasingly confident and you want to test yourself. Consider developing a new skill in an unrelated field, or writing that novel you once considered a distraction from the real work. Or simply give freer rein to your imagination when in the planning process. If you are in the public eye and must perform before others, let go of the restraint you have developed and let your grandiose energy fill you with high levels of self-belief. This will animate your gestures and give you greater charisma. If you are a leader and your group is facing difficulties or a crisis, let yourself feel unusually grandiose and confident in the success of your mission, to lift up and inspire the troops. That was the kind of grandiosity that made Winston Churchill such an effective leader during World War II. In any event, you can allow yourself to feel ever so godlike

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  A bridal wreath bush stands laden with tiny white bouquets, the sky is velvety beyond the branches of a sycamore, the stars are tiny pinpricks of light. We have six half-rolls of toilet paper borrowed from various gas stations and public toilets. We are on a mission. “Let’s go,” I whisper and we move out silently, going from house to house, staying in the black shadows of the flowering bushes. Four blocks from her house we find ourselves trapped up against a garage while a man and a woman have an argument in the driveway. They’ve just pulled in and gotten out of the car, a station wagon with wood on the sides. The concrete driveway is ghostly blue in the moonlight, their faces are doughy. “Why her?” the woman says over and over again. “Why her?” The man tries to pet her head like she’s a dog. “Honey, don’t,” he says each time she asks why her. Honey, don’t, honey, don’t, honey, don’t . And then they kiss, staggering sideways. We seem to be standing in some unflowering rose bushes, absolutely still in the darkness, like a black and white photograph of two girls who have done this before. Something hits my arm and buzzes, I look down and see a June bug flapping around. Another one hits my cheek. I take Elizabeth’s elbow and try to pull her away. She resists and glares at me, points one finger toward the people standing in a blue pool of moonlight twenty feet away. I grab her arm and yank her onto the driveway and run through the next yard and the next, her panting fast and loud behind me. We’re laughing silently and hysterically. A ravine appears on the right and we run for it, diving down the hill, where we lay, gasping. “You queeb,” Elizabeth whispers. She punches me in the arm. “Why did you do that?” I pause. “There were June bugs smacking into me,” I tell her gently. She immediately stops laughing and squeezes her eyes shut. A moan escapes from her lips. “I can’t,” she says without opening her eyes. “I can’t keep going if there are June bugs.” “There aren’t,” I say. “It’s not even June — those two are the only ones.” She still has her eyes closed. “No sir,” she says in a small voice. I try to think for a minute. Finally I say, “Don’t wreck everything because of two June bugs.” She opens one eye and looks at me with it. “What about if there were worms , you wouldn’t even walk in case one might touch you.” I consider this a low blow and remain silent. “And you know it,” she finishes. A minute goes by, both of us staring through the ravine trees at the black sky. “You know it,” she says once more.

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

  By deferring to Ray in all matters sexual, by looking to him for expertise and ignoring her own, Joni had fulfilled the age-old feminine mission of preserving her man’s ego and shoring up his masculinity. Or so she thought. But her assumptions proved wrong—because Ray gets turned on by her appetite, and even by her demands. For him, having a woman meet him as a sexual equal takes away the burden of guesswork and the persistent insecurity of never being sure he’s doing it right. When she is more forthcoming, he doesn’t have to worry about her, and he no longer feels diminished by her placating, lukewarm response. Her exuberance gives him permission to make some demands of his own, and to experience unrestrained abandon with the woman he loves. Joni never did tell Ray the specific content of her fantasies, but unearthing their meaning nonetheless brought about significant changes in their sexual and emotional relationship. Once Joni knew what she was seeking in sex, and once she understood the personal and social barriers that stood in the way of her pleasure, she was able to approach and respond to Ray very differently. To me she said, “Now that I’m clearer about what sex means to me, and how I want to feel in sex, I can talk to Ray about it without having to spell out the fantasy. Although even doing that doesn’t seem as scary to me now—there’s nothing in there I’m ashamed of or afraid to face.” To Tell or Not to Tell Some couples get an erotic charge from sharing their fantasies in words or in enactments. Catherine and her husband scheme in naughty complicity when they plan out the details of their lascivious one-acts. This is fun, it’s novel, and it allows them to be (and be with) someone new without having to go somewhere else. It creates multiplicity out of monogamy. But not everyone wants a ticket to this theater of seduction. Disclosure is not a necessary part of working with fantasy. I don’t advocate a tell-all approach; not everyone would choose to live in an atmosphere of True Confessions. We may like to keep our imaginings to ourselves, not out of shame but out of an inchoate awareness that exposure to bright light will cause them to wither on the vine. Alternatively, we may be wise to dream alone, for we may not be on the same erotic wavelength as our beloved.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A Personal PilgrimageWhen I first encountered the ideas of Yakovlev, I registered the truth of his hypothesis viscerally. My gut rumbled in recognition; my emotions soared in excitement. And intellectually, I yearned to digest and savor the exquisite essence of this man’s genius.† I wanted to devour him alive—that is, if he was still alive. It took several days of persistent phone calls to locate him. He was indeed alive and well. This coming-of-age odyssey mutated to locating and meeting with some of my other key intellectual heroes. After finally receiving my doctorate from University of California–Berkeley in 1977, I sent copies of my thesis on stress to several scientists who were my intellectual mentors. This list included Nikolaas Tinbergen, Raymond Dart, Carl Richter, Hans Selye, Ernst Gellhorn, Paul MacLean and Yakovlev himself. I was on my way … Yakovlev’s lab was in the basement of a dark cavernous building belonging (I believe) to the National Institutes of Health. I proceeded toward the door described to me by the receptionist. It was ever so slightly ajar. As I poked my head in, I was startled by the panoramic vision of shelf after shelf filled with bottles of pickled brains. An impish figure called out, motioning me to his desk. This octogenarian of small stature had a quiet and gentle presence belying his truly expansive character. With twinkling blue eyes and genuine enthusiasm, Yakovlev warmly invited me to sit down. He proceeded to ask me about my interests and was curious why I might have chosen to come so far to visit him. When I told him about my interest in instincts and about my ideas concerning mind-body healing, stress and self-regulation, he jumped up, grabbed my arm excitedly and took me from jar to jar sharing with me his vast variety of specimens, demonstrating the basic anatomical building blocks of the brain. From there he led me back to his desk and microscope; together we looked at slides of minutely thin slices of brain tissue. He narrated this viewing, waxing lyrical in his elaborate reasoning, as I imagined Darwin might have done in his laboratory a mere hundred or so years earlier. For me, the thrill was so intense that I felt as though I could not contain my pressing urge to jump up and shout, “Yes!” I knew that I was on the right track, that we truly are, to the last of our neurons, just a bunch of animals—and that’s really not so bad. At one o’clock, after sharing an egg salad sandwich, Yakovlev drew me an intricate map to guide me to my next appointment, which was about forty miles into the Maryland countryside. He did this task in anatomical detail, meticulously employing a set of brightly colored pencils and dissecting, with exacting precision, the best route and its distinguishing landmarks. He offered that if I had time at the end of the day, I was welcome to return by the same route.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  because Danton did not earn enough, he accepted the position on the council, despite his fears that he was joining a sinking ship. Two days later he married Gabrielle. Danton did his job well but found himself increasingly absorbed by the turmoil in Paris. He joined a club called the Cordeliers. Its members were an odd mix of bohemian artists and political agitators. It was located near his apartment, so he began to spend a great part of his day there, and soon he was participating in the raucous debates about the future of France that took place at the club. He felt a strange new spirit in the air, a boldness that made people suddenly say things they could never have said a few years before about the monarchy. He found it exciting and irresistible. He began to give his own fiery speeches, focusing on the brutality of the upper classes, and he basked in the attention he received. In 1788 he was offered a higher position on the King’s Council, and he turned it down. He told the king’s minister who presented the offer that the monarchy was doomed: “This is no longer about modest reforms,” he said. “We are more than ever on the brink of revolution. . . . Can’t you see the avalanche coming?” In the spring of 1789, Louis was forced to call a national assembly to deal with the looming bankruptcy. The assembly was known as the Estates General. It was an institution meant to deal with a national crisis, but always as a measure of last resort, the previous one having been held in 1614, after the death of King Henry IV. It brought together representatives of the three estates of France—the nobility, the clergy, and the tax-paying commoners. Although the vast majority of French people were to be represented by members of the Third Estate, the power of the assembly was heavily tilted in favor of the nobility and clergy. Nevertheless, the French people held great hopes for the Estates General, and Louis had been extremely reluctant to call for it. Only a month before the convening of the Estates General, riots in Paris had broken out over the price of bread, and royal troops had shot into the crowds, killing dozens. Danton had witnessed the bloodshed and he felt a turning point in the mood of the people, particularly the lower classes, and in himself. He shared their desperation and anger; they could no longer be placated with the usual rhetoric. He began to address the angry crowds on street corners, attracting followers and making a name for himself. To a friend who was surprised at this new direction in his life, he responded that it was like seeing a strong tide in the river, jumping in, and letting it carry him where it might. — As he prepared for the convening of the Estates General, King Louis could barely contain his resentment and anger. In the years since he

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

  Our erotic imagination is an exuberant expression of our aliveness, and one of the most powerful tools we have for keeping desire alive. Giving voice to our fantasies can liberate us from the many personal and social obstacles that stand in the way of pleasure. Understanding what our fantasies do for us will help us understand what it is we’re seeking, sexually and emotionally. In our erotic daydreams, we find the energy that keeps us passionately awake to our own sexuality. 10 The Shadow of the ThirdRethinking Fidelity Q: Are there any secrets to long-lasting relationships? A: Infidelity. Not the act itself, but the threat of it. For Proust, an injection of jealousy is the only thing capable of rescuing a relationship ruined by habit. —Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life The bonds of wedlock are so heavy that it takes two to carry them, sometimes three. —Alexandre Dumas THE TALMUD, THE GREAT COMPILATION of rabbinic tradition, tells the following parable. Every night, Rabbi Bar Ashi would prostrate himself before the merciful God and beg to be saved from the evil urge. His wife, overhearing him, would think, “It’s been a number of years since he has withdrawn from me. What makes him say that?” So one day, as he is studying in the garden, she dresses herself up as Haruta and meets him there. (Haruta was the name of the quintessential prostitute in ancient Babylon. The word also means “freedom” in Hebrew.) “Who are you?” he asks. “I am Haruta,” she answers. “I want you,” he commands. “Bring me the pomegranate on the uppermost branch,” she demands in turn. He brings her the pomegranate, and takes her. When he returns home his wife is tending the fire. He rises, and tries to throw himself in. She asks, “Why are you doing so?” “Because thus and thus happened,” he confesses. “But it was I,” she responds. “I, however, intended the forbidden.” Monolithic Monogamy

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  You want to get into the habit of focusing deeply and completely on a single project or problem. You want the goal to be relatively simple to reach, and within a time frame of months and not years. You will want to break this down into mini steps and goals along the way. Your objective here is to enter a state of flow, in which your mind becomes increasingly absorbed in the work, to the point at which ideas come to you at odd hours. This feeling of flow should be pleasurable and addicting. You don’t allow yourself to engage in fantasies about other projects on the horizon. You want to absorb yourself in the work as deeply as possible. If you do not enter this state of flow, you are inevitably multitasking and stopping the focus. Work on overcoming this. This could be a project you work on outside your job. It is not the number of hours you put in but the intensity and consistent effort you bring to it. Related to this, you want this project to involve skills you already have or are in the process of developing. Your goal is to see continual improvement in your skill level, which will certainly come from the depth of your focus. Your confidence will rise. That should be enough to keep you advancing. Maintain a dialogue with reality. Your project begins with an idea, and as you try to hone this idea, you let your imagination take flight, being open to various possibilities. At some point you move from the planning phase to execution. Now you must actively search for feedback and criticism from people you respect or from your natural audience. You want to hear about the flaws and inadequacies in your plan, for that is the only way to improve your skills. If the project fails to have the results you imagined, or the problem is not solved, embrace this as the best way to learn. Analyze what you did wrong in depth, being as brutal as possible. Once you have feedback and have analyzed the results, you then return to this project or start a new one, letting your imagination loose again but incorporating what you have learned from the experience. You keep cycling endlessly through this process, noticing with excitement how you are improving by doing so. If you stay too long in the imagination phase, what you create will tend to be grandiose and detached from reality. If you only listen to feedback and try to make the work a complete reflection of what others tell you or want, the work will be conventional and flat. By maintaining a continual dialogue between reality (feedback) and your imagination, you will create something practical and powerful. If you have any success with your projects, that is when you must step back from the attention you are receiving.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Children may not state verbally whether they want to continue, so take cues from their behavior and responses. Respect their wishes in whatever way they choose to communicate them. Children should never be rushed to move through an episode too fast or forced to do more than they are willing and able to do. Just like with Sammy, it is important to slow down the process if you notice signs of fear, constricted breathing, stiffening or a dazed (dissociated) demeanor. These reactions will dissipate if you simply wait, quietly and patiently, while reassuring the child that you are still by his side and on his side. Usually, the youngster’s eyes and breathing pattern will indicate when it’s time to continue. 2. Distinguish between fear, terror and excitement. Experiencing fear or terror for more than a brief moment during traumatic play will not help the child move through the trauma. Most children will take action to avoid it. Let them! At the same time, try and discern whether it is avoidance or escape. The following is a clear- cut example to help in developing the skill of “reading” when a break is needed and when it’s time to guide the momentum forward. When Sammy ran down to the creek, he was demonstrating avoidance behavior. In order to resolve his traumatic reaction, Sammy had to feel that he was in control of his actions rather than driven to act by his emotions. Avoidance behavior occurs when fear and terror threaten to overwhelm both children and adults. With kids this behavior is usually accompanied by some sign of emotional distress (crying, frightened eyes, screaming). Active escape, on the other hand, is exhilarating. Children become excited by their small triumphs and often show pleasure by glowing with smiles, clapping their hands or laughing heartily. Overall, the response is much different from avoidance behavior. Excitement is evidence of the child’s successful discharge of emotions that accompanied the original experience. This is positive, desirable and necessary. Trauma is transformed by changing intolerable feelings and sensations into desirable ones. This can only happen at a level of activation that is similar to the activation that led to the traumatic reaction in the first place. If the child appears excited, it is OK to offer encouragement and continue as we did when we clapped and danced with Sammy. However, if the child appears frightened or cowed, give reassurance, but don’t encourage any further movement. Instead, be present with your full attention and support, waiting patiently until a substantial amount of the fear subsides. If the child shows signs of fatigue, take a rest break. 3. Take one small step at a time. You can never move too slowly in renegotiating a traumatic event with anyone; this is especially true with a young child. Traumatic play is repetitious almost by definition.

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  Once I find a caterpillar and hold it up to show Hal. He can’t see too good upside down. The caterpillar won’t get off my finger so I scrape it onto the sand and use my scoop to throw it out on the ground, along with a considerable amount of sand. I have on blue sunglasses with wiener dogs on the frames. I can pull up my shirt and fill my belly button with sand except if I do she’ll dig it out with the washcloth tonight. I’m starting to learn cause and effect. Hal in the bathtub means Hal up in the air. He still doesn’t have his clothes on. I climb out of the sandbox and sit down on the ground to take my sandals off. I put my sunglasses on top of them and stand back up. After I push my shorts and underwear down I have to sit again in order to pull them off my feet. The shirt gets stuck on my head and I can’t see. After a frantic second I get it off but it yanks my nose. The barrettes slid out of my hair while the shirt was going past; I put one inside each sandal. I get up and sit on the edge of the sandbox to rest. A bee is on the hollyhock by the fence. It steps into the flower and walks around, then steps out again, flies to the sandbox, and hangs in the air in front of my face, buzzing. I shake my head at it and it hovers for another instant and then takes off again, flies to Hal, and lights on his hanging hand. Injury laid right over top of insult. I start screaming. When she comes out we look at each other for a long moment, then she sighs, reaches up, releases the clothespins, lets him drop, then catches him before he hits the ground. She hands him over and stoops to collect my clothes while I put my sunglasses back on. I follow her to the back door, carrying Hal by the feet. His shoes are warm from the sun and he smiles as I drag his face along through the grass and then — bump, bump — up the two steps and into the house. Hal’s body has become lumpy, with protrusions of wadded stuffing in some spots and absolutely nothing in others. My mother tries to fix him each morning by squeezing him like a tube of toothpaste, forcing the stuffing from his lower body into his upper body. A gritty, sandlike substance is coming through his pores. He’s still smiling. Hal and I are the only ones who don’t care about personal appearances. “She tried to give him a bath,” my mother tells my aunt, who is holding Hal and looking at him through the bottoms of her bifocals. They’re trying to figure out if he can be given a torso transplant.

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  It’s Elizabeth’s red convertible, prone to running out of gas and getting stuck in places that cars don’t belong. As soon as we leave the city streets and hit the back roads, everyone except Elizabeth gets up and sits on the edge of the car instead of on the seats. When we go around curves there is a long moment where it feels like we might fall out and be run over by the back tires. We like this feeling. Because we’re too young to die, we assume we won’t. Also, alcohol is involved. It’s the year of Look Ma, No Bra, and extremely long blue jeans that drag on the ground and get caked with mud. Shoes are unheard of; hair is everything. We comb ours frantically as soon as the car stops. My own is long and lank, reaching just above my waist; it’s useless to even try and restore order. “Here.” Renee takes my comb and starts working out the tangles gently, starting at the bottom. She raps me on the head with her knuckles when I tip my head back to finish my beer. “Stay still,” she commands, in the voice she uses on the babies. “Ouch,” I say mildly. Elizabeth assesses herself in the sideview mirror. She’s trying to see if her rear end is sticking out. “Why do I have an egg-butt?” she asks. This is rhetorical. Renee finishes my hair and asks if she should braid it. A vote is taken: two for the braid, two for leaving it down. I throw my vote in with leaving it, we do some last-minute adjustments, and then, making Janet go first because she has confidence, we step through the front door and into the farmhouse. The living room walls are painted black and the furniture consists of a sprung couch with no cushions, an old dentist’s chair, a black-light pole lamp, and a giant stereo system. Right now a guy named Dave is changing the album. Like a priest performing the sacrament, he kneels before the altar and removes the record from its sleeve. Holding the edges and blowing softly on it, he sets it on the turntable, moves the needle into place, and gently drops it. Deafening sound ensues. Except for one guy named Bob, all the guys who live here are named either Steve or Dave, all have ponytails of varying lengths, and all worship Ted Nugent. They refer to him as Ted and speculate on his whereabouts constantly. They’re a year or so older than us, high school graduates who are busy amounting to nothing. We all have crushes on one or another of them. Mine is in the kitchen right now, mixing up a concoction of lemonade and Everclear. He’s a sweet-faced Steve with a charming personality and a massive drinking problem. He hardly ever notices me, but when he does I think I’m going to die. “Here,” he says, handing me a plastic cup of potion.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  alive to the moment. Try to see people as they interact with others besides you—people are often very different depending on the person they are involved with. Try to focus not on categories but on the feeling tone and mood that people evoke in you, which is continually shifting. As you get better at this, you will discover more and more cues that people give as to their psychology. You will notice more. Continually mix the visceral with the analytic. Seeing improvement in your skill level will excite you greatly and motivate you to go deeper. In general you will notice a smoother ride through life, as you avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings. The deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated. —Wil iam James Four Examples of Narcissistic Types 1. The Complete Control Narcissist. When most people first met Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) in the early part of his reign as premier of the Soviet Union, they found him surprisingly charming. Although older than most of his lieutenants, he encouraged them all to address him with the familiar “you” form in Russian. He made himself completely accessible even to junior officials. When he listened to you, it was with such intensity and interest, his eyes boring into you. He seemed to pick up your deepest thoughts and doubts. But his greatest trait was to make you feel important and part of the inner circle of revolutionaries. He would put his arm around you as he accompanied you out of his office, always ending the meeting on an intimate note. As one young man later wrote, people who saw him were “anxious to see him again,” because “he created a sense that there was now a bond that linked them forever.” Sometimes he would turn slightly aloof, and it would drive his courtiers crazy. Then the mood would pass, and they would bask again in his affection. Part of his charm lay in the fact that he epitomized the revolution. He was a man of the people, rough and a bit rude but someone an average Russian could identify with. And more than anything, Joseph Stalin could be quite entertaining. He loved to sing and to tell earthy jokes. With these qualities it was no wonder that he slowly amassed power and assumed complete control of the Soviet machinery. But as the years wore on and his power grew, another side to his character slowly leaked out. The apparent friendliness was not as simple as it had seemed. Perhaps the first significant sign of this among his inner circle was the fate of Sergey Kirov, a powerful member of the Politburo and, since the suicide of Stalin’s wife in 1932, his closest friend and confidant. Kirov was an enthusiastic, somewhat simple man who made friends easily and had a way of comforting Stalin. But Kirov was starting to become a little too popular. In 1934, several regional leaders approached him with an offer: they were tired of Stalin’s