Gratitude

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  Other people who struggle to make ends meet, who have to choose between eating and paying the bills, might not have the luxury of making lifestyle changes. But please do what you can. The science is crystal clear on healthful food, regular exercise, and sleep as prerequisites for a balanced body budget and a healthy emotional life. A chronically taxed body budget increases your chances of developing a host of different illnesses, as we’ll see in the next chapter. A next line of attack is to modify your physical comfort if you can. Try a massage from a lover, a close friend, or a paid massage therapist (if you can afford it). Human touch is good for your health—it improves your body budget by way of your interoceptive network. Massage is especially helpful after vigorous exercise. It limits inflammation and promotes faster healing of the tiny tears in muscle tissue that result from exercise, which you might otherwise experience as unpleasant. 5 Yet another budget-balancing activity is yoga. People who practice yoga long-term are able to calm down more quickly and effectively, probably due to some combination of physical activity and the slow-paced breathing. Yoga also reduces levels of certain proteins, called proinflammatory cytokines, that over the long term promote harmful inflammation in your body. (We’ll learn more about these proteins in the next chapter.) Regular exercise also increases the levels of other proteins, called anti-inflammatory cytokines, that reduce your chances of developing heart disease, depression, and other illnesses. 6 Your physical surroundings also affect your body budget, so if possible, try to spend time in spaces with less noise and crowding, and more greenery and natural light. Not many of us can afford to sculpt our environment by moving into a new house or redecorating, but it is amazing what a simple houseplant will do. Environmental factors like these are so important to your body budget that they even appear to help psychiatric patients recover more quickly. 7 Diving into a compelling novel is also healthful for your body budget. This is more than mere escapism; when you get involved in someone else’s story, you aren’t as involved in your own. Such mental excursions engage part of your interoceptive network, known as the default mode network, and keep you from ruminating (which would be bad for the budget). If you are not a reader, see a compelling film. If the story is sad, have a good cry, which is also beneficial to the budget. 8 Here’s another simple budget-booster: set up regular lunch dates with a friend and take turns treating each other. Research shows that giving and gratitude have mutual benefits for the body budgets involved, so when you take turns, you reap the benefits. (And over the long run, it costs the same as splitting the checks.) 9 There are many more things you can try that I haven’t mentioned yet.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Often people will stop me on the street, on airplanes, in trains and tell me where they were when they first read “that book” and how it impacted their lives. “I remember I was in Greece, wondering whether to go to bed with a beautiful young man—and I did (or I didn’t), so thank you so much for changing my life.” One man I met at a New York dinner party exclaimed: “Whenever I saw that book on a woman’s night table, I knew I was gonna get lucky.” Isadora and I have been embraced (or denounced) as liberators, corrupters, teachers, friends. We have been banned and burned, but we have been read. And reread and underlined and passed along. For a writer, those are the ultimate compliments. I am more grateful than I can easily express. I used to worry that Fear of Flying was so much more famous than my twenty or so other books that it dwarfed my life’s work. I used to worry that they would put zipless fuck on my tombstone. Such worries are behind me. It is rare for an object of paper and ink to become an event in people’s lives. This book has had that extraordinary luck. As its maker, I am humbled by a miracle. —ERICA JONG New York City 11 December 2002 C Henry Miller on Fear of Flying ertainly anyone whose book is on the bestseller list (even if at the bottom) needs no review, no boosting. These few words, therefore, are gratuitous, or, if you like, homage from one writer to another. Above all, a warm, heartfelt tribute to a woman writer, the likes of which I have never known. In some ways, this book—Fear of Flying—is the feminine counterpart to my own Tropic of Cancer. Fortunately, it is not as bitter and much funnier. The author has quite a gripe about shrinks, which most of us share with her. I say the author, but in my head I cannot separate the author from her chief protagonist, Isadora Zelda. In the case of Tropic of Cancer, on the other hand, critics and readers alike were inclined to think I had invented Henry Miller. To this day many people refer to it as a novel, despite the fact that I have said again and again that it is not. Erica Jong, the author, said to me in a letter that she thought it silly to make distinctions regarding the genre or category of a book. A book is a book is a book, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein. However, people do seem to concern themselves unnecessarily over this question of identity.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Of course not everyone was happy about this. Male authors resented their incipient loss of entitlement. I suspect that when Paul Theroux called my heroine a “mammoth pudenda” in the New Statesman, he was reacting to his fear of lost privilege rather than to my novel. And there were many like him. But other male authors recognized the women’s revolution as important. Louis Untermeyer, John Updike and Henry Miller—who were to become the earliest champions of my work—understood that women’s voices would change the nature of literature forever. In fact, it could be argued that without the Second Wave of the feminist movement, not only would the blossoming of women writers of the last three decades never have occurred, but neither would the experiments with female consciousness of John Irving, John Updike, Jeffrey Eugenides and so many other gifted writers. Happily, women’s writing has profoundly changed all our literature. Back to that miniskirted young poet who taught poetry at the 92nd Street Y, read her work at colleges, high schools and coffee shops and was still wondering whether to finish her Ph.D. so as to have “something to fall back on.” Her publisher wanted a novel from her, but she was so fearful of showing her fiction that she submitted a second book of poems. And just to show you how different publishing was then, her publisher accepted it. (The book became Half-Lives, 1973, published just six months before Fear of Flying.) But now her publisher started to get impatient. “Where’s that novel you’re working on?” he kept asking. “You’ll see it soon,” I kept saying. Yet I was nervous about showing The Man Who Murdered Poets because I knew in my heart it was an evasion of the book I had to write. Eventually I gathered the courage to reveal that partial manuscript to Aaron Asher. He read it quickly and pronounced: “It’s publishable, but I won’t publish it and someday you’ll thank me. Why don’t you go home and write a novel in the female voice of your poems?” Talk about the right words at the right time. I had just received permission to write Fear of Flying. (Why I needed male permission is another story.) Aaron had edited gods of my literary pantheon, like Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, so his judgment seemed beyond dispute. I will always be grateful to him for rejecting my first novel and giving me the kick in the pants I needed to start Fear of Flying. I wrote with a combination of exuberance and panic. As I scrawled the scenes on yellow legal pads, I promised myself I would never show the manuscript to anyone. That self-deception was the only way I could continue. It’s a stratagem I still recommend to young writers.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Early reviews were mixed. Reviews were either wildly enthusiastic or horrified that a woman would “talk like that.” There were never enough copies in the pipeline. Whenever word of mouth took hold—for the novel was hotly debated from the time it appeared in galley proofs—it would go out of stock and be unavailable. There was a period of months when it clung to the lower reaches of the bestseller list and went out of stock again and again. Then John Updike praised it in the New Yorker and things began to shift. But unbeknownst to me, my publisher was preparing to leave the company. For several months his job as editor in chief and publisher was vacant while Fear of Flying became the book everyone had heard of but no one could obtain. At some point during that agonizing period, Henry Miller discovered Fear of Flying and wrote an enthusiastic essay about it in the New York Times. He called the novel the female version of Tropic of Cancer and predicted that it would change American writing. As a result of his generosity, he and I began a voluminous correspondence about writing. I discovered in Miller a literary soul mate whose friendship nurtured me in a chaotic time. When the paperback of Fear of Flying came out in November 1974, millions of copies were sold in the first few months. Eventually, Fear of Flying sold seven million copies in the U.S. alone and went on to become a bestseller all over the world. In the thirty years that have zoomed by, I have been struck by how similar the responses to the novel have been in vastly different cultures. Japanese, Chinese and Korean readers have been as enthusiastic about the book as French, Spanish, German, Italian and Yugoslavian readers. With the fall of communism, the novel became available in Poland, Czechoslovakia and the former Soviet Union. It has fascinated me to see how alike are the issues of sexual politics all over the world. Fear of Flying has been read by people who rarely read novels. For many aficionados, it is more than a book—it is a part of their lives. Often people will stop me on the street, on airplanes, in trains and tell me where they were when they first read “that book” and how it impacted their lives. “I remember I was in Greece, wondering whether to go to bed with a beautiful young man—and I did (or I didn’t), so thank you so much for changing my life.” One man I met at a New York dinner party exclaimed: “Whenever I saw that book on a woman’s night table, I knew I was gonna get lucky.” Isadora and I have been embraced (or denounced) as liberators, corrupters, teachers, friends. We have been banned and burned, but we have been read. And reread and underlined and passed along. For a writer, those are the ultimate compliments. I am more grateful than I can easily express.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  clearly robust finances. For Monty, though, Carlene wanted to get something ‘really nice’, and so they decided to brave three blocks of snow-walking in order to reach a fancier, smaller, specialist boutique that might have the cane with the carved handle which that Carlene had in mind. ‘What will you do at Christmas?’ asked Kiki, as they pressed through the crowds on Newbury Street. ‘Will you go somewhere – back to England?’ ‘Usually we have Christmas in the countryside. We have a beautiful cottage in a place called Iden. It’s near Winchelsea Beach. Do you know it?’ Kiki confessed ignorance. ‘It’s the most beautiful spot I know. But this year, we must stay in America. Michael’s already over, and he’ll stay till January third. I can’t wait to see him! Our friends have a house we’re to borrow in Amherst – just nearby where Miss Dickinson lived. You’d like it a lot. I’ve visited it – it’s lovely. It’s very big, though I think not as pretty as Iden. But the really wonderful thing is their collection. They have three Edward Hoppers, two Singer Sargents and a Miro´!’ Kiki gasped and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, my God – I love Edward Hopper. I can’t believe that! He floors me. Imagine having things like that in your own private home. Sister, I envy you that, I really do. I’d love to see that. That’s wonderful .’ ‘They dropped around the key today. I wish we were all already there. But I should really wait for Monty and the children to come home.’ This last word, said broodingly, brought other things to the  the anatomy lesson forefront of her mind. ‘How are things at home now, Kiki? I’ve thought of you a lot. Worried for you.’ Kiki passed an arm around her friend. ‘Carlene, honestly now, please don’t worry. It’s all fine. Everything’s settling down. Although Christmas is not the easiest time in the Belsey household,’ trilled Kiki, niftily turning the subject. ‘Howard can’t stand Christmas.’ ‘Howard . . . my word . He seems to hate such a lot of things. Paintings, my husband – ’ Kiki opened her mouth to counter this with she knew not what. Carlene patted her hand. ‘I’m mischievous – I was only being mischievous. So he hates Christmas too. Because he is not a Christian.’ ‘Well, none of us is that,’ replied Kiki firmly, not wishing to mislead. ‘But Howard’s just pretty determined about it. He won’t have it in the house. It used to upset the kids, but they’re used to it now, and we make up for it in other ways. But, no, not an eggnog, not a bauble shall cross our threshold!’ ‘But you make him sound like Scrooge!’ ‘No . . . He’s not at all stingy . Actually he’s incredibly generous.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  All the members (past and present) can be found at affective- science.org/people.shtml. Those whose valuable contributions are specifically cited in this book include Kristen Lindquist, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Maria Gendron, Alexandra Touroutoglou, Christy Wilson-Mendenhall, Ajay Satpute, Erika Siegel, Elizabeth Clark-Polner, Jennifer Fugate, Kevin Bickart, Mariann Weierich, Suzanne Oosterwijk, Yoshiya Moriguchi, Lorena Chanes, Eric Anderson, Jiahe Zhang, and Myeong-Gu Seo. In addition to their important scientific contributions, I am grateful to the lab members for their endless patience and encouragement. They never once complained about my periodic absences (at least when I was in earshot) and occasionally endured long delays in their own progress as I raced to complete this book. I am especially grateful to my collaborators for their friendship, commitment, and rompingly insightful discussions as we pursued some of the research you’ve just read about. First and foremost, my deepest thanks to Larry Barsalou for his foundational work on concepts; Larry is one of the most creative, rigorous thinkers of his generation, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to work with him. Nothing can convey the gratitude that I feel toward Jim Russell, who, when I was a young assistant professor, took my ideas seriously when many of our colleagues thought I was nuts. His seminal work on the affective circumplex is so well-accepted in the field that people rarely cite him for it anymore! Larry and Jim maximize discovery and explanation in their scientific pursuits, rather than fame and fortune, and I find this particularly inspiring (because sometimes in science, the latter interferes with the former). In this way, they remind me of my dissertation advisors, Mike Ross and Eric Woody, to whom I will be forever grateful. I also owe a very big thank-you to Brad Dickerson for helping me to chip away at the false boundaries between emotion and cognition, to Moshe Bar for our work on how affect influences vision (and many other projects), to Tor Wager for our meta-analysis collaboration, and to Paula Pietromonaco for our longstanding collaboration on emotion in relationships. I am particularly grateful to Debi Roberson for making it possible, by our collaboration, for my lab to study the Himba of Namibia, and Alyssa Crittenden for likewise making it possible to study emotion perception in the Hadza of Tanzania.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Finally, two years later, after many more attempts, I drafted a disgustingly submissive, meek, and apologetic letter to the editor in question, tore it up ten times before mailing, retyped it eleven times, retyped my poems fifteen times (they had to be letter perfect, one typo and I threw away the page—and I had never learned to type) and sent the damned manila envelope off to New York. By return mail, I received a really warm letter (which even my paranoia couldn’t misinterpret), a notice of acceptance, and a check. How long do you suppose it would have taken me to get the next letter out if I had received a rejection slip? This was the dazzlingly self-confident creature who began treatment with Dr. Happe in Heidelberg. Gradually I learned how to sit still at my desk long enough to work. Gradually I learned how to send off manuscripts and write letters. I felt like a stroke victim learning penmanship all over again, and Dr. Happe was my guide. He was mild and patient and funny. He taught me to stop hating myself. He was as rare a psychoanalyst as he was a German. It was I who kept saying dumb things like: “Oh well, I might as well give up this nonsense of writing and just have a baby.” And it was he who was always pointing out the falseness of such a “solution.” I hadn’t seen him for two and a half years, but I had sent him my first book of poems and he had written me about it. “Zo,” he said, like the comic-book German he wasn’t, “I see you no longer have trouble writing letters….” “No, but I certainly have lots of other trouble…” and I spilled out my whole confused story of what had happened since we arrived in Vienna. He wasn’t going to interpret it for me, he said. He was only going to remind me of what he’d said many times before: “You’re not a secretary; you’re a poet. What makes you think your life is going to be uncomplicated? What makes you think you can avoid all conflict? What makes you think you can avoid pain? Or passion? There’s something to be said for passion. Can’t you ever allow yourself and forgive yourself?” “Apparently not. The trouble is I’m really a puritan at heart. All pornographers are puritans.” “You are certainly not a pornographer,” he said. “No, but it sounded good. I liked those two p’s. The alliteration.” Dr. Happe smiled. Did he know the word “alliteration"? I wondered. I remembered how I always used to ask him if he understood my English. Perhaps for two and a half years he’d understood nothing.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  Scott enthusiastically gave me the opportunity to learn brain imaging, although I had no clue what I was doing at the time. I am also indebted to Chris Wright, who helped me conduct my first brain-imaging study, and with whom I secured my first large imaging grant from the National Institute on Aging. And my heartfelt thanks go out to the generous and thoughtful colleagues who spent time answering my questions, including Howard Fields, who was always available for enticing and enlightening discussions about the relation between nociception, reward, and interoceptive processing; Vijay Balasubramanian, who provided extremely useful explanations in response to my extensive questioning about the visual system; Thom Cleland, who enthusiastically shared his insights on the olfactory system; Moran Cerf, who gave me the inside scoop on intracranial electrical recording in live humans; and Karl Friston, who rewarded my out-of-the-blue email on predictive coding with an insightful email discussion wrapped in encouragement. Several others provided helpful answers to my questions via email or Skype, including Dayu Lin, who provided a detailed discussion of her research using optogenetics; Mark Bouton, who taught me the basics of contextual learning in mammals; Earl Miller for explaining the implications of his single-cell recording research on category learning in macaques; and Matthew Rushworth, who offered additional details about his mapping of the anterior cingulate cortex. I also offer my enduring thanks to some of my neuroanatomy colleagues who responded quickly, and in good cheer, to my incessant questions, no matter how arcane: Barb Finlay for knowing everything about everything, off the top of her head, and sharing generously; Helen Barbas for her model of information flow in the cortex, which is the cornerstone of my approach to the predictive brain; Miguel Ángel García Cabezas for his detailed explanations of neuroanatomy at the cellular level; Bud Craig, who knows more about the insula than perhaps anyone else on the planet; Larry Swanson for his rapid and informative answers and for connecting me with other neuroscientists, such as Murray Sherman, who answered my questions about the thalamus; and Georg Striedter for his expertise on brain evolution. For sharing their expertise in developmental psychology, I offer warm thanks to Linda Camras and Harriet Oster, who were my guides to the emotional capacities of infants and young children. I am also indebted to Fei Xu, Susan Gelman, and Sandy Waxman for reviewing chapter 5, and for their willingness to trample the traditional scientific boundary between cognitive and emotional development, to help me explore the idea that words scaffold the development of emotion concepts in infancy. I am also grateful to Susan Carey for discussions of innate concepts.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  know him again, he shewed me a certain sign, to wit, how the heel of his left foot was somewhat maimed, which caused him a little to halt. After that I did manifestly thus know the will of the gods, and all shadow of doubtfulness was taken away, when matins was ended I went diligently from one to another to find if there were any of the priests which had the halting mark of his foot, according as I learned by my vision. At length I found it true; for I perceived one of the company of the Pastophores who had not only the token of his foot but the stature and habit of his body resembling in every point as he appeared in the night, and he was called Asinius! Marcellus, a name not much disagreeing from my transformation. By and by I went to him, which knew well enough all the matter, as being admonished by like precept to give me the orders: for it seemed to him the night before, as he dressed the flowers and garlands about the head of the great god Osiris, he understood by the mouth of his image, which told the predestinations of all men, how he did send to him a certain poor man of Madaura, to whom he should straightway minister his sacraments, whereby through his divine providence the one should receive glory for his virtuous studies, and the other, being the priest himself, a great reward. When I saw myself thus deputed and promised unto religion, my desire was stopped by reason of poverty ; for I had spent a great part of my patrimony, which was not very large, in travel and pere- grinations, but most of all my charges in the city of Rome were by far greater than in the provinces. Thereby my low estate withdrew me a great while, 1 Adlington's note: ^Asinius by taking away the letter zis made Asinus." ; 589 LUCIUS APULEIUS tatis intercedente, quod ait vetus proverbium, inter sacrum et saxum positus cruciabar, nec setius tamen identidem numinis premebar instantia. Iamque saepi- cule non sine magna turbatione stimulatus, postremo iussus, veste ipsa mea quamvis parvula distracta, sufficientem corrasi summulam Et id ipsum prae- ceptum fuerat specialiter: “An tu" inquit “Si quam rem voluptati struendae moliris, laciniis tuis nequa- quam parceres, nunc tantas caerimonias aditurus impaenitendae te pauperiei cunctaris committere ? Ergo igitur cunctis affatim praeparatis, decem rursus diebus inanimis contentus cibis, insuper etiam deraso capite, principalis dei nocturnis orgiis illustratus, plena iam fiducia germanae religionis obsequium divinum frequentabam. Quae res summum pere- grinationi meae tribuebat solacium, nec minus etiam victum uberiorem subministrabat : quidni? Spiritu faventis eventus quaesticulo forensi nutrito per patrocinia sermonis Romani. 29 Et ecce post pauculum tempus inopinatis et usque- quaque mirificis imperiis deum rursus interpellor, et cogor tertiam quoque teletam susceptare. | Nec levi cura sollicitus sed oppido suspensus animi mecum 590 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK XI

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  After this sort, the divine majesty perswaded me in my sleepe, whereupon by and by I went towards the Priest, and declared all that which I had seene, then I fasted ten dayes according to the custome, and of mine owne proper will I abstained longer then I was commanded: and verely I did nothing repent of the paine which I had taken, and of the charges which I was at, considering that the divine providence had given me such an order, that I gained much money in pleading of causes: Finally after a few dayes, the great god Osiris appeared to me in the night, not disguised in any other forme, but in his owne essence, commanding me that I should be an Advocate in the court, and not feare the slander and envie of ill persons, which beare me stomacke and grudge by reason of my doctrine, which I had gotten by much labour: moreover, he would not that I should be any longer of the number of his Priests, but he allotted me to be one of the Decurions and Senatours: and after he appointed me a place within the ancient pallace, which was erected in the time of Silla, where I executed my office in great joy with a shaven Crowne. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN ASSE *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. START: FULL LICENSE THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  When morning came, and that the solemnities were finished, I came forth sanctified with xii. Stoles and in a religious habit, whereof I am not forbidden to speake, considering that many persons saw me at that time: there I was commanded to stand upon a seate of wood, which stood in the middle of the temple, before the figure and remembrance of the goddesse; my vestiment was of fine linnen, covered and embroidered with flowers. I had a pretious Cope upon my shoulders hanging downe to the ground, whereon were beasts wrought of divers colours as Indian dragons, and Hiperborian Griphons, whom in forme of birds, the other world doth ingender; the Priests commonly call such a habit, a celestiall Stole: in my right hand I carried a light torch, and a garland of flowers upon my head, with Palme leaves sprouting out on every side: I was adorned like unto the Sun, and made in fashion of an Image, in such sort that all the people compassed about to behold me: then they began to solemnize the feast of the nativitie, and the new procession with sumptuous bankets and delicate meates: the third day was likewise celebrated with like ceremonies with a religious dinner, and with all the consummation of the order: when I had continued there a good space, I conceived a marvailous great pleasure and consolation in beholding ordinarily the Image of the goddesse, who at length admonished me to depart homeward, not without rendring of thanks, which although it were not sufficient, yet they were according to my power. Howbeit I could unneth be perswaded to depart, before I had fallen prostrate before the face of the goddesse, and wiped her steps with my face, whereby I began so greatly to weepe and sigh that my words were interrupted, and as devouring my prayer, I began to say in this sort: O holy and blessed dame, the perpetuall comfort of humane kind, who by thy bounty and grace nourishest all the world, and hearest a great affection to the adversities of the miserable, as a loving mother thou takest no rest, neither art thou idle at any time in giving thy benefits, and succoring all men, as well on land as sea; thou art she that puttest away all stormes and dangers from mans life by thy right hand, whereby likewise thou restrainest the fatall dispositions, appeasest the great tempests of fortune and keepest backe the course of the stars: the gods supernall doe honour thee: the gods infernall have thee in reverence: thou environest all the world, thou givest light to the Sunne, thou governest the world, thou treadest downe the power of hell: By thy meane the times returne, the Planets rejoyce, the Elements serve: at thy commandment the winds do blow, the clouds increase, the seeds prosper, and the fruits prevaile, the birds of the aire, the beasts of the hill, the serpents of the den, and the fishes of the sea, do tremble at thy majesty, but my spirit is not able to give thee sufficient praise, my patrimonie is unable to satisfie thy sacrifice, my voice hath no power to utter that which I thinke, no if I had a thousand mouths and so many tongues: Howbeit as a good religious person, and according to my estate, I will alwaies keepe thee in remembrance and close thee within my breast. When I had ended mine orison, I went to embrace the great Priest Mythra my spirituall father, and to demand his pardon, considering I was unable to recompence the good which he had done to me: after great greeting and thanks I departed from him to visit my parents and friends; and within a while after by the exhortation of the goddesse, I made up my packet, and tooke shipping toward the Citie of Rome, where with a prosperous winde I arrived about the xii. day of December. And the greatest desire that I had there, was daily to make my praiers to the soveraigne goddesse Isis, who by reason of the place where her temple was builded, was called Campensis, and continually adored of the people of Rome. Her minister and worshipper was I, howbeit I was a stranger to her Church, and unknowne to her religion there.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  Chapter 11 on emotion and the legal system would not have been possible without my dear friends Judy Edersheim and Amanda Pustilnik and their insights and encouragement during our long discussions about psychology, neuroscience, and the law; that chapter is best viewed as a collaboration between the three of us. I am grateful to former U.S. federal judge Nancy Gertner for inviting me to contribute to her course on the law and neuroscience at Harvard Law School. I’d also like to thank the many others from the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital for inviting me into their village. Thanks also to Nita Farahany for the DNA example in chapter 11. This book was made possible by many generous colleagues across diverse fields who offered me their insights. On primate cognition: Eliza Bliss- Moreau, Herb Terrace, and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. On topics related to culture: Aneta Pavlenko, Batja Mesquita, Jeanne Tsai, Michele Gelfand, and Rick Shweder. On the history of smiling: Colin Jones and Mary Beard. On autism: Jillian Sullivan, Matthew Goodwin, and Oliver Wilde-Smith. On essentialism: Susan Gelman, John Coley, and Marjorie Rhodes. On affective realism and economics: Marshall Sonenshine. On contemplative philosophy and practice: Christy Wilson Mendenhall, John Dunne, Larry Barsalou, Paul Condon, Wendy Hasenkamp, Arthur Zajonc, and Tony Back. More generally, an enthusiastic thank-you goes to Jerry Clore for being consistently thoughtful, curious, and supportive; to Helen Mayberg for our multi-year conversation about the puzzle of depression; and to Joe LeDoux, whom I greatly admire for many reasons, not least for his incredible open-mindedness. My discussions with other insightful colleagues also shaped this book, including Amitai Shenhav, Dagmar Sternad, Dave DeSteno, David Borsook, Derek Isaacowitz, Elissa Epel, Emre Demiralp, Iris Berent, Jo-Anne Bachorowski, the late Michael Owren, Jordan Smoller, Philippe Schyns, Rachael Jack, José-Miguel Fernández-Dols, Kevin Ochsner, Kurt Gray, Linda Bartoshuk, Matt Lieberman, Maya Tamir, Naomi Eisenberger, Paul Bloom, Paul Whalen, Margaret Clark, Peter Salovey, Phil Rubin, Steve Cole, Tania Singer, Wendy Mendes, Will Cunningham, Beatrice de Gelder, Leah Summerville, and Joshua Buckholtz. I benefited greatly from valuable comments and criticisms offered by early readers: Aaron Scott (who is also the extraordinary graphic designer who created most of the figures), Ann Kring (my most faithful reader, who provided valuable insights on every draft), Ajay Satpute, Aleza Wallace, Amanda Pustilnik, Anita Nevyas-Wallace, Anna Neumann, Christy Wilson-Mendenhall, Dana Brooks, Daniel Renfro, Deborah Barrett, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Emil Moldovan, Eric Anderson, Erika Siegel, Fei Xu, Florin Luca, Gibb Backlund, Herbert Terrace, Ian Kleckner, Jiahe Zhang, Jolie Wormwood, Judy Edersheim, Karen Quigley, Kristen Lindquist, Larry Barsalou, Lorena Chanes, Nicole Betz, Paul Condon, Paul Gade, Sandy Waxman, Shir Atzil, Stephen Barrett, Susan Gelman, Tonya LeBel, Victor Danilchenko, and Zac Rodrigo. I am also especially grateful to Joanne Miller, chair of the psychology department at Northeastern University, and to the rest of my colleagues in the department, for their support and patience as I completed this book.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  My neuroscience education began with the incomparable Michael Numan, who was encouraging and constantly available for questions, and Richard Lane, who encouraged me when I was first interested in the brain basis of emotion and introduced me to Scott Rauch at Massachusetts General Hospital. Scott enthusiastically gave me the opportunity to learn brain imaging, although I had no clue what I was doing at the time. I am also indebted to Chris Wright, who helped me conduct my first brain-imaging study, and with whom I secured my first large imaging grant from the National Institute on Aging. And my heartfelt thanks go out to the generous and thoughtful colleagues who spent time answering my questions, including Howard Fields, who was always available for enticing and enlightening discussions about the relation between nociception, reward, and interoceptive processing; Vijay Balasubramanian, who provided extremely useful explanations in response to my extensive questioning about the visual system; Thom Cleland, who enthusiastically shared his insights on the olfactory system; Moran Cerf, who gave me the inside scoop on intracranial electrical recording in live humans; and Karl Friston, who rewarded my out-of-the-blue email on predictive coding with an insightful email discussion wrapped in encouragement. Several others provided helpful answers to my questions via email or Skype, including Dayu Lin, who provided a detailed discussion of her research using optogenetics; Mark Bouton, who taught me the basics of contextual learning in mammals; Earl Miller for explaining the implications of his single-cell recording research on category learning in macaques; and Matthew Rushworth, who offered additional details about his mapping of the anterior cingulate cortex. I also offer my enduring thanks to some of my neuroanatomy colleagues who responded quickly, and in good cheer, to my incessant questions, no matter how arcane: Barb Finlay for knowing everything about everything, off the top of her head, and sharing generously; Helen Barbas for her model of information flow in the cortex, which is the cornerstone of my approach to the predictive brain; Miguel Ángel García Cabezas for his detailed explanations of neuroanatomy at the cellular level; Bud Craig, who knows more about the insula than perhaps anyone else on the planet; Larry Swanson for his rapid and informative answers and for connecting me with other neuroscientists, such as Murray Sherman, who answered my questions about the thalamus; and Georg Striedter for his expertise on brain evolution. For sharing their expertise in developmental psychology, I offer warm thanks to Linda Camras and Harriet Oster, who were my guides to the emotional capacities of infants and young children. I am also indebted to Fei Xu, Susan Gelman, and Sandy Waxman for reviewing chapter 5 , and for their willingness to trample the traditional scientific boundary between cognitive and emotional development, to help me explore the idea that words scaffold the development of emotion concepts in infancy.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  The influence of my newer collaborations can also be seen in this book, and so I send enthusiastic thanks to Kyle Simmons, who works with me on the architecture and function of the predictive brain; Martijn van den Heuvel for listening to my far-out ideas about network connectivity and brain hubs that often turn out to be not so crazy; Wim Vanduffel and Dante Mantini for our work on brain networks in macaques; Talma Hendler for our collaboration on network dynamics while watching emotional films; Wei Gao for allowing me to join the adventure of studying the developing newborn brain; Tim Johnson for his partnership in showing that pattern classification does not provide evidence for neural fingerprints; Stacy Marcella for opening my eyes to the possibilities for studying simulation and prediction with computational models in virtual reality; and Dana Brooks, Deniz Erdogmus, Jennifer Dy, Sarah Brown, Jaume Coll-Font, and the rest of the B/SPIRAL group at Northeastern University for their patience and interest in immigrating to my village, and for crafting a computational framework to test the theory of constructed emotion. This book would not have been possible without the support of the larger village of colleagues who generously shared their expertise on my journey from the land of clinical psychology to the land of neuroscience, with stops in social psychology, psychophysiology, and cognitive science along the way. My friends Jim Blascovich and Karen Quigley mentored me in the basics of the peripheral nervous system, and Karen taught me facial EMG. My neuroscience education began with the incomparable Michael Numan, who was encouraging and constantly available for questions, and Richard Lane, who encouraged me when I was first interested in the brain basis of emotion and introduced me to Scott Rauch at Massachusetts General Hospital.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  16 Ad istum modum vaticinatus sacerdos egregius fatigatos anhelitus trahens conticuit. Exin per- mixtus agmini religioso procedens comitabar sacra- rium totae civitati notus ac conspicuus, digitis hominum nutibusque notabilis. | Omnes in me populi fabulabantur: * Hune omnipotentis hodie deae numen augustum reformavit ad homines: felix Hercule et ter beatus qui vitae scilicet praecedentis innocentia fideque meruerit tam praeclarum de caelo patrocinium, ut renatus quodam modo statim sacrorum obsequio desponderetur. Inter haec et festorum votorum tumultum paulatim progressi iam ripam maris proximamus atque ad ipsum illum locum, quo pridie meus stabulaverat asinus, pervenimus. Ibidem simulacris rite dispositis navem faberrime factam, picturis miris Aegyptiorum | cireumsecus variegatam, summus sacerdos taeda lucida et ovo et sulphure sollemnissimas preces de casto praefatus ore, quam purissime purificatam deae nuneupavit 564 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK XI of this devout and honourable procession ; let such, which be not devout to the goddess, see and acknow- ledge their error: * Behold, here is Lucius that is delivered from his former so great miseries by the providence of the goddess Isis, and rejoiceth there- fore and triumpheth of victory over his fortune.’ And to the end thou mayest live more safe and sure, make thyself one of this holy order, to which thou wast but a short time since pledged by oath, dedicate thy mind to the obeying of our religion, and take upon thee a voluntary yoke of ministry : for when thou beginnest to serve and honour the goddess, then shalt thou feel the more the fruit of thy liberty." After that the great priest had prophesied in this manner with often breathings, he made a conclusion of his words. Then I went amongst the company of the rest and followed the procession: every one of the people knew me, and pointing at me with their fingers, or nodding with their heads, they said in this sort: ** Behold him who is this day transformed ~ into a man by the puissance of the sovereign goddess; verily he is blessed and most blessed that by the innocency of his former life hath merited so great grace from heaven, and as it were by a new generation is reserved straightway to the obsequy of religion." In the mean season, amid all these loud cries and prayers, by little and little we approached nigh unto the sea-coast, even to that place where I lay the night before being an ass. There, after the images and relies were orderly disposed, was a boat cunningly wrought and compassed about with divers pictures according to the fashion of the Egyptians, which the great priest did dedicate and consecrate with certain prayers from his holy lips and purified the same with a torch, an egg, and sulphur, dedicating 565 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Some had relatives, especially grandparents, who loved them and provided close-up role models for what was possible. Some had childhood memories from before the divorce that gave them hope and self-confidence when they felt like giving up. Only a few had mentors, but when they came along they were greatly appreciated. One young man told me, “My boss has been like a father to me, the father that I always wanted and never had.” Men and women alike were especially grateful to lovers who stood by them and insisted that they stick around for the long haul. Karen’s husband undoubtedly played a major part in her recovery. Finally, a third of the men and women in our study sought professional help from therapists and found, in individual sessions, that they could establish a trusting relationship with another person and use it to get at the roots of their difficulties. It helped that they were young because it meant they had the energy and determination to really change their lives. Clearly people enter adulthood “unfinished,” which means the decade of the twenties lends itself to personal development and change. EIGHT Our Failure to Intervene L arry entered adolescence like a hungry tiger. He became involved in every drug known to teenagers and went to school every day stoned. He stayed out late and came home sick from drinking booze. With a vengeance, he violated every rule that his mother or the school laid down. Finally, in despair, his mother called her ex-husband and asked if he would take the boy because she could not control him. She reminded Larry’s father that he had offered many times to take his son into his life and that this was the time to follow through on his promises. The next day, Larry was in his room packing his clothes when the phone rang. It was his dad who hemmed and hawed and finally said, “This is not a good time for you to come live with me.” Instantly Larry understood the deeper message: there will never be a good time. Feeling totally betrayed, he turned on his mother and began beating her with his fists. She managed to escape into her bedroom and, terrified by her son’s behavior, called 911.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  It was senseless to say, eight years, ten years ago-it was longer ago than time can reckon. Martin and I had never got to know each other well, circumstances, if not temperament, made that impossible, but I had much respect and affection for him, and I think Martin liked me, too. I told him what I was doing in Hollywood, and both he and Andrew, looking perhaps a trifle dubious, wished me well. I don't remember whether it was on this evening that we arranged to appear together a few weeks later at Carnegie Hall, or if this had already been ar ranged. Presently, Marlon, very serious, and even being, as I remember, a little harsh with the assembled company- want ing to make certain that they understood the utter gravity of NO NAME IN THE STREE T our situation, and the speed with which the time for peaceful change was running out-took the floor, and introduced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As our situation had become more complex, Martin's speeches had become simpler and more concrete. As I remem ber, he spoke very simply that evening on the work of the Southern Christian Leadership Conf erence, what had been done, what was being done, and the enormity of the tasks that lay ahead. But I remember his tone more than his words. He spoke very humbly, as one of many workers, speaking to his co-workers. I think he made everyone in that room feel that whatever they were doing, whatever they could do, was important, was of the utmost importance. He did not flatter them- very subtly, he challenged them, challenged them to live up to their moral obligations. The room was quite re markable when he finished-still, thoughtful, grateful: per haps, in the most serious sense of that weary phrase, profoundly honored. And yet-how striking to compare his tone that night with what it had been not many years before! Not many years be fore, we had all marched on Wash ington. Something like two hundred and fifty thousand people had come to the nation's capital to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  1ir Negro on the city desk, in the window. My career at PM was very nearly as devastating as my career as a civilian employee of the US Army, except that PM never (as tar as I know) placed me on a blacklist. If the black news papers had considered me absolutely beyond redemption, PM was determined to save me: I cannot tell which attitude caused me the more bitter anguish. Thcrcf(>re, though it may have cost Saul Levitas nothing to hurl a book at a black boy to sec if he could read it and be articulate concerning what he had read, I took it as a vote of confidence and swore that I would give him my very best shot. And I loved him-the old man, as I sometimes called him (to THE PRICE OF THE TI CKET his face) and I think-! know-that he was proud of mc, and that he loved me, too. It was a very great apprenticeship. Saul required a book review a week, which meant that I had to read and write all the time. He paid me ten or twenty dollars a shot: Mary Greene would sometimes coerce him into giving me a bonus. Then he would stare at her, as though he could not believe that she, his helper, could be capable of such base treachery and look at me more tragically than Juliu s Caesar looked at Brutus and sigh-and give me another five or ten dollars. As for the books I rcvicwcd- wcll, no one, I suppose, will ever read them again. It was after the war, and the Americans were on one of their monotonous conscience "trips": be kind to niggcrs, for Christ's sake, be kind to Jews! A high, or turn ing point of some kind was reached when I reviewed Ross Lockridge's sunlit and fabulously succcssfi.tl Raint ree County. The review was turned in and the author committed suicide before the review was printed. I was very disagreeably shaken by this, and Saul asked me to write a postscript-wh ich I did. That same week I met the late Dwight MacDonald, whom I admired very much because of his magazine, Politics, who looked at me with wonder and said that I was "very smart." This pleased me, certainly, but it frightened me more.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  The petty-larceny man went around asking if he could do anything in the world outside fo r those he was leaving behind. When he came to me I, at first, responded, "No, nothing"-for I suppose I had by now retreated into the attitude, the earliest I remember, that of my father, which was simply (since I had lost his God) that noth ing could help me. And I suppose I will remember with grat itude until I die the fact that the man now insisted: aMais, etes-vous sur?)) Then it swept over me that he was going out side and he instantly became my first contact since the Lord alone knew how long with the outside world. At the same time, I remember, I did not really believe that he would help me. There was no reason why he should. But I gave him the phone number of my attorney friend and my own name. So, in the middle of the next day, Christmas Eve, I shuffied downstairs again, to meet my visitor. He looked extremely well fed and sane and clean. He told me I had nothing to worry about any more. Only not even he could do anything to make the mill of justice grind any faster. He would, how ever, send me a lawyer of his acquaintance who would defend me on the 2 7 th, and he would himself, along with several other people, appear as a character witness. He gave me a package of Lucky Strikes (which the turnkey took fr om me on the way upstairs) and said that, though it was doubtful that there would be any celebration in the prison, he would see to it that I got a fine Christmas dinner when I got out. And this, somehow, seemed very funny. I remember being astonished at the discovery that I was actually laughing. I was, too, I imagine, also rather disappointed that my hair had not turned white, that my face was clearly not going to bear any marks of tragedy, disappointed at bottom, no doubt, to re alize, facing him in that room, that far worse things had hap pened to most people and that, indeed, to paraphrase my mother, if this was the worst thing that ever happened to me I could consider myself among the luckiest people ever to be born. He injected-my visitor-into my solitary nightmare common sense, the world, and the hint of blacker things to come.

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

  Reply to Objection 4: He that is unaware of a favor conferred on him is not ungrateful, if he fails to repay it, provided he be prepared to do so if he knew. It is nevertheless commendable at times that the object of a favor should remain in ignorance of it, both in order to avoid vainglory, as when Blessed Nicolas threw gold into a house secretly, wishing to avoid popularity: and because the kindness is all the greater through the benefactor wishing not to shame the person on whom he is conferring the favor. Whether favors should be withheld from the ungrateful?Objection 1: It seems that favors should withheld from the ungrateful. For it is written (Wis. 16:29): “The hope of the unthankful shall melt away as the winter’s ice.” But this hope would not melt away unless favors were withheld from him. Therefore favors should be withheld from the ungrateful. Objection 2: Further, no one should afford another an occasion of committing sin. But the ungrateful in receiving a favor is given an occasion of ingratitude. Therefore favors should not be bestowed on the ungrateful. Objection 3: Further, “By what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented” (Wis. 11:17). Now he that is ungrateful when he receives a favor sins against the favor. Therefore he should be deprived of the favor. On the contrary, It is written (Lk. 6:35) that “the Highest . . . is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil.” Now we should prove ourselves His children by imitating Him (Lk. 6:36). Therefore we should not withhold favors from the ungrateful. I answer that, There are two points to be considered with regard to an ungrateful person. The first is what he deserves to suffer and thus it is certain that he deserves to be deprived of our favor. The second is, what ought his benefactor to do? For in the first place he should not easily judge him to be ungrateful, since, as Seneca remarks (De Benef. iii), “a man is often grateful although he repays not,” because perhaps he has not the means or the opportunity of repaying. Secondly, he should be inclined to turn his ungratefulness into gratitude, and if he does not achieve this by being kind to him once, he may by being so a second time. If, however, the more he repeats his favors, the more ungrateful and evil the other becomes, he should cease from bestowing his favors upon him. Reply to Objection 1: The passage quoted speaks of what the ungrateful man deserves to suffer. Reply to Objection 2: He that bestows a favor on an ungrateful person affords him an occasion not of sin but of gratitude and love. And if the recipient takes therefrom an occasion of ingratitude, this is not to be imputed to the bestower.