Gratitude
Gratitude is not appreciation. Appreciation is the polite registering of value; gratitude is the body acknowledging that what has been given was not owed. The chest opens slightly; the gaze lifts toward the source; the self briefly admits its dependence. Vela reads gratitude apart from the gratitude-journal industry — not as a daily practice in self-management, but as the somatic register of having recognized a gift.
Working definition · Warm acknowledgment of having been given to—a specific other, a moment, a life.
1639 passages · in 1 cluster
Vela’s read on this emotion
Gratitude has been more thoroughly captured by the wellness register than almost any other emotion. The gratitude journal, the morning list of three things, the daily-practice framing — these have made the word small. The reading works against that capture.
The memoir reads gratitude where it is hardest to perform. Paul Kalanithi's *When Breath Becomes Air* holds gratitude as the operating temperature of a life that is ending — gratitude not as discipline but as the body's honest report on what has been given. Trevor Noah's *Born a Crime* names gratitude toward a mother whose protection had a measurable, often dangerous cost. Tara Westover's *Educated* preserves gratitude that has to be untangled from family loyalty — the long work of recognizing what was a gift and what was a debt the family had no right to impose. Cheryl Strayed's *Wild* tracks gratitude that arrives in the body during the walk: a stranger's kindness, water at the right moment, the surprise of being alive at all.
Gratitude has a long contemplative literature. The Hebrew Psalms hold gratitude — *hodu*, *give thanks* — as the spine of public worship. The eucharistic tradition takes its name from the Greek word for gratitude — *eucharistia*. Meister Eckhart, the fourteenth-century mystic, named gratitude as the only adequate prayer: *if the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.* The Jewish blessing tradition — the *brachot* spoken over food, over wine, over the first crocus of the year — installs gratitude as the small, hourly recognition that the world has been given.
Gratitude is not the same as appreciation, indebtedness, or relief. Appreciation registers value; gratitude registers gift. Indebtedness owes a return; gratitude does not. Relief is the body's response to a threat removed; gratitude is the body's response to a gift received. The four overlap and Vela reads them separately.
Study and magazine
Long-form guide in the magazine
An essay on how this word lives in language, in the tagged corpus, and in figurative art when curators pair passage with image — not a list of stages, not permission to feel.
Read the guidePassages
Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.
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From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)
In that magisterial work Donaldson summarizes the ways in which Jews envisaged Gentile relation to the covenantal Jewish God in four distinct ways: sympathizing with Judaism, being ethical monotheists, participating in eschatological salvation, or converting to Judaism. When I finished my M.T.S. and was accepted to do my Ph.D. with the Religious Studies Department at the University of Toronto, I was very glad to have Terry as the cosupervisor of my doctoral dissertation, alongside Professor John W. Marshall. I could not have asked for a better team to guide and help me in my scholarly journey. Throughout my years of research and development as a young scholar, Terry has always been a firm, gentle, and quiet mentor. His notes on what I needed to do in my work were always clear. The distance between professor and student was appropriately maintained. I was lucky to be an apprentice learning how the craft was done from two great masters. After I successfully defended my dissertation on February 7, 2014, Terry invited me to have lunch with him. I was surprised and glad. I thanked him for being there for me and also for being such a great model of a scholar, mentor, husband, and genuine and caring human being. It is only after I finished my dissertation and started to work as a professor myself that I realized the pressure one is under as an academic. When I submitted my drafts as a doctoral candidate, I had thought I would receive feedback right away. Terry would usually say to me that my chapter was next on his pile to occupy his close attention, and indeed he would get back to me in a reasonable and timely manner. It never really occurred to me to consider the almost insurmountable task and pressure that a university professor working in a large research institution might face. Terry was busy as a professor, active researcher (he always had one day totally devoted to his research projects), administrator, and the myriad other roles one is assigned in a university context. As a student, I lived in a different world. I realize today that my students occupy a different universe. I thought I was busy until I started my own career. It is remarkable that in the busyness of his life Terry has been able to pursue a number of extremely important scholarly questions for more than thirty years. Donaldson’s scholarship in the field of NT broadly conceived is very important, especially as he has pushed scholars to pay closer attention to the complex relations between early Christ-followers—who were mostly non-Jews—and the Jewish matrix from which the narrative of the Christian proclamation comes. In four clearly articulated monographs, 2 Terence L. Davidson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE) (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007). 3
From In the Dream House (2019)
There isn’t a lot of writing about queer domestic abuse and sexual assault. But what I did find, kept me going. I read Conner Habib’s heart-stopping essay “If You Ever Did Write Anything about Me, I’d Want It to Be about Love” in the immediate aftermath of my abuse, and it devastated me and also gave me something to hold on to. A few years later, Jane Eaton Hamilton’s exquisite “Never Say I Didn’t Bring You Flowers” gave me new ways to think about what had happened to me. When I was trying to finish this memoir, Leah Horlick’s lush and devastating poetry collection For Your Own Good slayed me with its beauty. Melissa Febos’s essay “Abandon Me” traced queer relationship trauma with brilliance and candor. A chapter in Sawyer Lovett’s Retrospect: A Tazewell’s Favorite Eccentric Zine Anthology—“Hello …”—came to me just when I needed it. Terry Castle’s The Professor made me laugh out loud more than once, which was a pretty shocking thing to do in the middle of writing this book. Other useful books and resources included Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering, edited by Kerry Lobel (Seal Press, 1986); “Building a Second Closet: Third Party Responses to Victims of Lesbian Partner Abuse,” by Claire M. Renzetti (Family Relations, 1989); “Lavender Bruises: Intra-Lesbian Violence, Law and Lesbian Legal Theory,” by Ruthann Robson (Golden Gate University Law Review, 1990); “Prosecutorial Activism: Confronting Heterosexism in a Lesbian Battering Case,” by Angela West (Harvard Women’s Law Journal, 1992); Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis (Routledge, 1993); Lesbian Choices, by Claudia Card (Columbia University Press, 1995): “Describing without Circumscribing: Questioning the Construction of Gender in the Discourse of Intimate Violence,” by Phyllis Goldfarb (Boston College Law School, 1996); “Toward a Black Lesbian Jurisprudence,” by Theresa Raffaele Jefferson (Boston College Third World Law Journal, 1998); Same-Sex Domestic Violence: Strategies for Change, edited by Beth Leventhal and Sandra E. Lundy (Sage Publications, 1999); Taking Back Our Lives: A Call to Action for the Feminist Movement, by Ann Russo (Routledge, 2001); Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity, by Lisa Duggan (Duke University Press, 2001); No More Secrets: Violence in Lesbian Relationships, by Janice L. Ristock (Routledge, 2002); “The Closet Becomes Darker for the Abused: A Perspective on Lesbian Partner Abuse,” by Marnie J. Franklin (Cardozo Women’s Law Journal, 2003); “Constructing the Battered Woman,” by Michelle VanNatta (Feminist Studies, 2005); and “When Is a Battered Woman Not a Battered Woman? When She Fights Back,” by Leigh Goodmark (Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, 2008). I was also lucky to be able to access an incredible wealth of gay and lesbian and feminist periodicals with decades of writing on this subject, including Sinister Wisdom, Gay Community News, Off Our Backs, Lesbian Connection, Matrix, and the Network News: The Newsletter of the Network for Battered Lesbians.
From In the Dream House (2019)
Afterword In an essay about Joanna Russ’s How to Suppress Women’s Writing, Lee Mandelo calls women’s literary history “written on sand.” I can’t think of a more apt metaphor for the process of writing this book, which relied on finding texts that talked about queer people and domestic abuse; two topics that have, historically, been hidden away, or rarely talked about. At times it didn’t feel like I was writing at all; it felt like I was pinning down fragments of history with well-aimed throws of a knife before they could shift or melt away. A note about language: Throughout this book, I have made a series of linguistic and rhetorical choices regarding labels and identifying terminology. Here, I primarily use lesbian and queer woman, and I do not explicitly talk about gay or queer men, or gender-nonconforming people, though they too experience domestic abuse. I made these choices for a few reasons. First, I am a more-or-less cisgendered queer woman and feel most comfortable writing through that specific lens. Second, much of the historical source material I found and drew from was primarily focused on cisgender lesbians and their communities. Third, while it is cumbersome to make every instance on the page include every potential identifier, what is even more unthinkable is suggesting that the histories, experiences, and struggles of all queer people are somehow interchangeable, when they absolutely are not. If there are failures within these pages, they are mine and mine alone. In the Dream House is by no means meant to be a comprehensive account of contemporary research about same-sex domestic abuse or its history. That book, as far as I can tell, has yet to be written. One day—when it is written, if it is written—I hope this very rough, working attempt at a canon will be useful as a resource, in addition to honoring the work that has gone before. There isn’t a lot of writing about queer domestic abuse and sexual assault. But what I did find, kept me going. I read Conner Habib’s heart-stopping essay “If You Ever Did Write Anything about Me, I’d Want It to Be about Love” in the immediate aftermath of my abuse, and it devastated me and also gave me something to hold on to. A few years later, Jane Eaton Hamilton’s exquisite “Never Say I Didn’t Bring You Flowers” gave me new ways to think about what had happened to me. When I was trying to finish this memoir, Leah Horlick’s lush and devastating poetry collection For Your Own Good slayed me with its beauty. Melissa Febos’s essay “Abandon Me” traced queer relationship trauma with brilliance and candor. A chapter in Sawyer Lovett’s Retrospect: A Tazewell’s Favorite Eccentric Zine Anthology—“Hello ...”—came to me just when I needed it. Terry Castle’s The Professor made me laugh out loud more than once, which was a pretty shocking thing to do in the middle of writing this book.
From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)
This book is better because of the experiences I’ve had working with the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit dedicated to building the field of decision education in K–12. My thanks to executive director Joe Sweeney, his entire staff, the board, the advisory council, the ambassador council, all the guests on the Alliance’s Decision Education Podcast , and everyone who helps support the organization. Thank you to Jenifer Sarver, Maralyn Beck, Luz Stable, Alicia McClung, and Jim Doughan for the constant, desperately needed help they provide in keeping my professional life together. I am so grateful to my family, my husband, my children, my dad, my brother, my sister, and their entire families. These are the people most responsible for making me the happiest I have ever been. They have supported me every plodding step of the way. I’m thankful beyond words for them. One last, final thank-you to the late Lila Gleitman, my mentor and best friend. Right up until the week she passed, Lila would inquire about this project, excited about the topic and eager to be my thought partner. A mentor’s work lives on through their students and I hope she would have been proud of the finished project. I miss her every day. NOTESPrologueMUHAMMAD ALIThe major events of Muhammad Ali’s professional boxing career and post-boxing life are widely reported. Along with many other sources, you can find these established facts in the following books about Ali: Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life (Boston: Mariner, 2017); Dave Hannigan, Drama in the Bahamas: Muhammad Ali’s Last Fight (New York: Sports Publishing, 2016); Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991); David Remnick, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (New York: Random House, 1998); David West, ed., The Mammoth Book of Muhammad Ali (New York: Running Press, 2012). Ali’s ignoble end against Trevor Berbick in the Bahamas in December 1981 is the subject of Hannigan’s entire book. In addition, the following sources provide similar and some additional details about the litany of problems dominating the final showcase of the greatest showman in the history of sports: BoxRec, “Trevor Berbick vs. Muhammad Ali” (including quotes from the contemporaneous reporting on the fight), last modified March 3, 2016, boxrec.com/media/index.php/Trevor_Berbick_vs._Muhammad_Ali ; Mark Heisler, “From the Archives: Ali’s Last Hurrah Turns into Circus with Few Laughs,” Los Angeles Times , August 5, 2015 (original article date, December 12, 1981), latimes.com/sports/la-sp-ali-last-hurrah-19811212-story.html . See also Eig; Hauser; Remnick; West. Muhammad Ali’s subsequent diagnosis with Parkinson’s and the accumulation of all the physical punishment, especially between the Foreman fight and the end of his career, is described in depth in all the books cited above. GRIT VS.
From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)
Tetlock, who also read drafts of the work in progress and offered their invaluable comments. One aspect of the generosity of my friends and colleagues (and those who became my friends during the course of writing this book) has been their willingness to connect me to others they thought would be helpful in this journey. Thank you to Josh Kopelman for introducing me to Stewart Butterfield, Ron Conway, and Andrew Wilkinson; Michael Mauboussin for introducing me to Sasha Cohen and Laurence Gonzales; Richard Thaler for introducing me to Shane Frederick and Maya Shankar; David Epstein for introducing me to Riley Post; Max Bazerman for introducing me to Stuart Baserman; Maya Shankar for introducing me to Jennifer Kurkoski, who in turn introduced me to Barry Staw and Astro Teller; Ted Seides for introducing me to Michael Mervosh; and Mark Moffett for reintroducing me to Ken Kamler. This is my third book with the same pillars of professional support: Jim Levine, Niki Papadopoulos, and Michael Craig. Like the previous two efforts, this book wouldn’t have been possible without these dear friends. Jim Levine has nurtured this project from the very beginning. Apart from his obvious acumen in protecting and advancing my interests as my agent, he has somehow managed to be constantly encouraging and optimistic, while maintaining a hawk’s eye for challenging anything he thought would make the book better as it evolved. Niki Papadopoulos has shaped this book as editor every step of the way. Her attention to detail is amazing, and she has an incredible capacity for understanding and directing a book’s flow and organization. I trust her instincts and judgments completely. Simply put, Niki gets me. I can’t overstate how important that is for getting me through the wrenching process of writing a book, nor can I express how much better this book is because of her. I am grateful to Adrian Zackheim for his enthusiastic cheerleading of this project, as well as everyone in the Portfolio and entire Penguin Random House family, including Kimberly Meilun and Amanda Lang. I am deeply indebted to Michael Craig, who has been essential to producing this book. In addition to being a great friend, he has been incredibly generous with his talents as editor, researcher, test-audience member, contributor of ideas
From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)
Thanks to my superb and fearless agent, Frances Coady (Captain Coady!), for your keen eyes, tireless faith, and patience, for respecting me as an artist first and foremost. For finding and believing in me before it all began. Deep gratitude to my editor, Ann Godoff, for your pristine enthusiasm for this little book, for understanding it so thoroughly, so totally, and with bone-deep care. For standing behind its author’s vision in every way. And to the superb team at Penguin Press: Matt Boyd, Casey Denis, Brian Etling, Juliana Kiyan, Shina Patel, and Sona Vogel. I’m indebted to Dana Prescott and Diego Mencaroni of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, where, during a power outage in an Umbrian thunderstorm, this book was started, by hand. And to Leslie Williamson and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, where this book was finished. Generous support was also provided by the Lannan Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Thank you, Peter, always, for Peter. Ma, cảm ơn. About the Author Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have also been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is his first novel. What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now.
From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)
13 See Gerd Lüdemann, Opposition to Paul in Early Christianity (trans. M. E. Boring; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1989); Patrick Gray, Paul as a Problem in History and in Culture: The Apostle and His Critics through the Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2016). Wayne Meeks, ed., The Writings of Paul (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1972), 176–84, 288–301, excerpts from ancient and modern detractors. 14 Cf. Origen, C. Cels. 2.1; 5.61, 65. 15 E.g., Kenneth Stow, Popes, Church, and Jews in the Middle Ages: Confrontation and Response (London: Routledge, 2007); B. F. Westcott (as Dunelm) in William Knight, The Arch of Titus and the Spoils of the Temple (London: Religious Tract Society, 1896), 9–11. 16 Kohler at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13232-saul-of-tarsus. Cf. Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1926), 64; Hyam Maccoby, The Myth-Maker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987); Geza Vermes, Jesus in His Jewish Context (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 40–52. 17 Faith and Fratricide, The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, NY: The Seabury Press, 1974). Paul without Judaism13 13 Asking historical questions does not mean claiming a chimerical objectivity. Objectivity does not enter into it, even as an aspiration unmet. Hypothetical reconstruction can never acquire the status of fact (a factum, done and dusted); it lives on a different cognitive plane. Especially when we feel confident in speculating about the lost realities behind the scant survivals from antiquity, we must doubt because there is so much we cannot know. There are, however, evidential facts in the data of our meager survivals. These—such as the presence or absence of terms—are the same for everyone who cares to look. In what follows, I shall focus on these facts. Delighted to share in honoring Terry Donaldson, whom I have considered a model of scholarly probity since our graduate-student days, I offer this essay in a constructive historical vein. In a recent volume representing the PWJ approach, Donaldson wrote a typically circumspect review, which highlighted several problems with this perspective. I shall take one of his positive reflections on the volume, however, as my departure point: I also appreciate the attention that is given to terminological matters. Many of the terms and categories used in critical reconstructions of the past are laden with meanings and connotations that have accumulated through centuries of subsequent use, which readily leads to anachronisms, distortions, and false assumptions. 18 This is a basic principle of ancient history. Alas, when it comes to terms and categories we all find it easier to strain out the gnats in others’ work while we swallow whole the camels we find more congenial. 19 I shall push farther in this direction, hoping to be radical enough to get at some ignored ancient roots. 18 Donaldson, “Paul within Judaism: A Critical Evaluation from a ‘New Perspective’ Perspective,” in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 283 (emphasis added).
From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)
in that other story of a savior, Moses and the exodus. In this reading of Matthew against a Second Temple Jewish textual background I hope to pay some small tribute to Professor Terry Donaldson, who opened up the world of Second Temple Jewish literature to me, and whose work has been, from the beginning to the present moment in his long and fruitful scholarly career, so important in just this regard to the study of Matthew and Paul. Women of the Genealogy: Soundings in Scripture and Second Temple Texts. The Wife of Uriah In order to see what Matthew is doing, it is helpful to begin with Matthew’s anomaly, “the wife of Uriah” (1:6). In this phrase we catch a glimpse of the genealogy’s intertextual depth, the extent to which the biblical story underlies and informs it precisely, here, in Matthew’s reference to a woman. Though Matthew names all the other women of the genealogy, in this one case he omits the name. Yet 1 Chr, which Matthew here follows, lists Bathsheba, like Tamar, by name (Bathshua, 1 Chr 3:5). Matthew names Tamar, in keeping with 1 Chr 2:4, but does not name Bathsheba. “Wife of Uriah” is a Matthean insertion. The phrase “wife of Uriah” appears not in 1 Chr but in the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11–12. In that story of David’s adultery and murder, Bathsheba is called “the wife of Uriah” four times. When David first sees her she is called Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:3), but from the time David “takes” her (2 Sam 11:4; cf. 2 Sam 12:9, 10), through his killing of Uriah (2 Sam 12:9), and the death of the child David has conceived with Uriah’s wife (2 Sam 12:15) she is always, pointedly, “the wife of Uriah.” By substituting “the wife of Uriah” for Bathsheba in 1 Chr, Matthew gains an echo of 2 Samuel’s story.16 It is an echo that raises here, in the genealogy of the son of David (Matt 1:1), the question of David’s sin. 17 Indeed (as I have shown elsewhere), the echo offers a logic for the genealogy’s decline in the wake of David’s sin and subsequent exile.18 In “the wife of Uriah” Matthew thus deliberately uses a phrase 16 Cf. Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 15: Bathsheba comes from 1 Chr 3:5 (“Bathshua”) but Matthew “switches from the Chronicler’s descriptive phrase … to ‘the [wife of] Uriah’ (so 2 Sam 11:26; 12:10, 15).”
From In the Dream House (2019)
Afterword In an essay about Joanna Russ’s How to Suppress Women’s Writing , Lee Mandelo calls women’s literary history “written on sand.” I can’t think of a more apt metaphor for the process of writing this book, which relied on finding texts that talked about queer people and domestic abuse; two topics that have, historically, been hidden away, or rarely talked about. At times it didn’t feel like I was writing at all; it felt like I was pinning down fragments of history with well-aimed throws of a knife before they could shift or melt away. A note about language: Throughout this book, I have made a series of linguistic and rhetorical choices regarding labels and identifying terminology. Here, I primarily use lesbian and queer woman , and I do not explicitly talk about gay or queer men, or gender-nonconforming people, though they too experience domestic abuse. I made these choices for a few reasons. First, I am a more-or-less cisgendered queer woman and feel most comfortable writing through that specific lens. Second, much of the historical source material I found and drew from was primarily focused on cisgender lesbians and their communities. Third, while it is cumbersome to make every instance on the page include every potential identifier, what is even more unthinkable is suggesting that the histories, experiences, and struggles of all queer people are somehow interchangeable, when they absolutely are not. If there are failures within these pages, they are mine and mine alone. In the Dream House is by no means meant to be a comprehensive account of contemporary research about same-sex domestic abuse or its history. That book, as far as I can tell, has yet to be written. One day—when it is written, if it is written—I hope this very rough, working attempt at a canon will be useful as a resource, in addition to honoring the work that has gone before. There isn’t a lot of writing about queer domestic abuse and sexual assault. But what I did find, kept me going. I read Conner Habib’s heart-stopping essay “If You Ever Did Write Anything about Me, I’d Want It to Be about Love” in the immediate aftermath of my abuse, and it devastated me and also gave me something to hold on to. A few years later, Jane Eaton Hamilton’s exquisite “Never Say I Didn’t Bring You Flowers” gave me new ways to think about what had happened to me. When I was trying to finish this memoir, Leah Horlick’s lush and devastating poetry collection For Your Own Good slayed me with its beauty. Melissa Febos’s essay “Abandon Me” traced queer relationship trauma with brilliance and candor. A chapter in Sawyer Lovett’s Retrospect: A Tazewell’s Favorite Eccentric Zine Anthology —“Hello …”—came to me just when I needed it. Terry Castle’s The Professor made me laugh out loud more than once, which was a pretty shocking thing to do in the middle of writing this book.
From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)
There’s no way to overstate the contribution of my patients. I’m honored by your trust in me. Thank you for letting me into your souls, and for allowing me to take your stories to enrich the life of others. Friends, too, please join the list. I can’t name everyone who sat at my dinner table parsing out the complexities of desire, but you know who you are, and I can’t thank you enough. Jack Saul, we have been together nearly a quarter of a century. I know you appreciate my choice of topic! I wouldn’t have been able to complete this project without your enduring support and enthusiasm. You stepped in whenever I stepped out. Adam, my older son, you are my computer whiz. It’s meant so much to me that you’ve taken such an interest in my work even when my work has taken me elsewhere. Noam, my younger son, I promise you that when you come of age I’ll be delighted to have you read my book. About the AuthorEsther Perel is a couples and family therapist with a private practice in New York City. She is on the faculty of the International Trauma Studies program at Columbia University, is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy, and has appeared on many television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Day New York, CBS This Morning, and HBO’s Women Aloud. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com CreditsCover image © Jerzyworks/Masterfile Books by Esther Perel The State of Affairs Mating in Captivity Copyright“Wild Things in Captivity,” from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence by D. H. Lawrence, edited by V. de Sola Pinto & F. W. Roberts, copyright © 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All names and identifying details of the individuals in this book have been changed to protect their privacy. MATING IN CAPTIVITY. Copyright © 2006 by Esther Perel. 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 e-book 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 e-books. EPub Edition © AUGUST 2006 ISBN: 9780061835223 Epub Version 2 Version 06052017 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perel, Esther Mating in captivity: reconciling the erotic and the domestic / Esther Perel.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10: 0-06-075363-3 ISBN-13: 987-0-06-075363-4 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 About the PublisherAustralia HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada 2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada www.harpercollins.ca 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 Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)
Instead of thinking that Gentile law observance was constitutive of gospel faith, Paul concluded that it signaled its rejection, a cutting oneself off from Christ, a falling away from grace (Gal 5:4). However anomalous or unique Paul purportedly was, it was not with regard to his supposed universalism or inclusiveness—itself a rather odd notion, given the particularistic nature of a gospel that requires one to believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead and initiated the eschaton, even though it is barely visible, if at all. 35 What makes Paul’s thinking different from many other Jews of his day was that he was convinced that God was addressing the Gentile condition in the person of Jesus. Conclusion Returning to Tomoko Masuzawa’s work on nineteenth-century European discourses on religion, I wonder how much progress biblical scholarship has made as a subdiscipline of religious studies. How much of this talk of exclusivity and inclusivity, particularism and universalism, is really just coded theological apologetics? F. C. Baur valued inclusivity and universalism in a Germany that was moving away from provincialism and a fragmented German state, to a unified Germany. Wright and Dunn valued inclusivity and universalism in the United Kingdom at a time when the evils of colonialism were becoming apparent to the Western conscience. Today, we too are influenced by discourses of inclusion and universalism. To my mind, there is 34 On this issue, see Douglas A. Campbell, “Galatians 5.11: Evidence of an Early Law-observant Mission by Paul?” NTS 57 (2011): 325–47; Justin K. Hardin, “‘If I Still Proclaim Circumcision’ (Galatians 5:11a): Paul, the Law, and Gentile Circumcision,” JSPL 3 (2013): 145–64; and Joshua Garroway, The Beginning of the Gospel: Paul, Philippi, and the Origins of Christianity (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). 35 As Jonathan Z. Smith puts it, “ ‘Unique’ becomes an ontological rather than a taxonomic category; an assertion of a radical difference so absolute that it becomes ‘Wholly Other,’ and the act of comparison is perceived as both an impossibility and an impiety”: Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (CSHJ; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 38. Paul and Matthew among Jews and Gentiles96 96 much that is praiseworthy in these modern discourses. But to allow them to influence our historical work on ancient Judaism is to give theology, apologetics, or modern ideologies the driver’s seat where it is unlicensed to drive. More than that, it is to bear false witness against others who cannot defend themselves. Such discourses of exclusivity and inclusivity are barely masked apologetics for Christianity over Judaism that claim inclusivity for Christianity at the very moment that they are guilty of, in the name of Christianity and via poor historical work, excluding, judging, and condemning the other. When such ideologies masquerade as history, it is our job to unmask them as such. Throughout his scholarship, Terry Donaldson has done just this, and I, for one, am both deeply indebted and grateful to him.
From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)
Don’t just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don’t reach the goal. Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’re willing to bear. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one “unless” and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal. In general, when we quit, we fear two things: that we’ve failed and that we’ve wasted our time, effort, or money. Waste is a forward-looking problem, not a backward-looking one. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI am so grateful for the help of so many scientists, authors, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who engaged with me in discussions about quitting and were incredibly generous with their insights and time: Stuart Baserman, Max Bazerman, Colin Camerer, Keith Chen, Ron Conway, David Epstein, Shane Frederick, Laurence Gonzales, Tom Griffiths, Alex Imas, Daniel Kahneman, Ken Kamler, Jennifer Kurkoski, Libby Leahy, Cade Massey, Michael Mauboussin, William McRaven, Michael Mervosh, Katy Milkman, Mark Moffett, Don Moore, Scott Page, Riley Post, Dan Raff, Eric Ries, Maurice Schweitzer, Ted Seides, Maya Shankar, Barry Staw, Hal Stern, Cass Sunstein, Joe Sweeney, Astro Teller, Phillip Tetlock, Richard Thaler, Tony Thomas, Richard Zeckhauser, and Kevin Zollman. Thank you to the people who were willing to share their stories with me, stories that helped me develop and refine my ideas with their hard-earned insights: Stewart Butterfield, Sasha Cohen, Mike Neighbors, Sarah Olstyn Martinez, Maya Shankar, and Andrew Wilkinson. Thanks also to Barry Staw, who, in addition to his other contributions to this book, spent hours with me stitching together the narrative about his larger-than-life father, Harold. I want to single out the collaboration of Katy Milkman, Ted Seides, and Richard Thaler. Katy and Ted read drafts of every chapter as I went along, offering insightful feedback and encouragement along the way. Richard also read many versions of the manuscript and spent hours with me on Zoom, helping me to clarify the concepts laid out in the book, so many of which relied so heavily on his body of work. Quit is so much better for that thought partnership, for which I am deeply grateful. I am also indebted to Alex Imas, Daniel Kahneman, Barb Mellers, Don Moore, Dave Nussbaum, Ogi Ogas, Brian Portnoy, Barry Staw, and Phillip Tetlock, who also read drafts of the work in progress and offered their invaluable comments.
From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)
Reply to Objection 1: The passages quoted refer to the mischievous lie, as a gloss explains the words of Ps. 5:7, “Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie.” Reply to Objection 2: Since all the precepts of the decalogue are directed to the love of God and our neighbor, as stated above (Q[44], A[1], ad 3; [3211]FS, Q[100], A[5], ad 1), a lie is contrary to a precept of the decalogue, in so far as it is contrary to the love of God and our neighbor. Hence it is expressly forbidden to bear false witness against our neighbor. Reply to Objection 3: Even a venial sin can be called “iniquity” in a broad sense, in so far as it is beside the equity of justice; wherefore it is written (1 Jn. 3:4): “Every sin is iniquity [*Vulg.: ‘And sin is iniquity.’].” It is in this sense that Augustine is speaking. Reply to Objection 4: The lie of the midwives may be considered in two ways. First as regards their feeling of kindliness towards the Jews, and their reverence and fear of God, for which their virtuous disposition is commended. For this an eternal reward is due. Wherefore Jerome (in his exposition of Is. 65:21, ‘And they shall build houses’) explains that God “built them spiritual houses.” Secondly, it may be considered with regard to the external act of lying. For thereby they could merit, not indeed eternal reward, but perhaps some temporal meed, the deserving of which was not inconsistent with the deformity of their lie, though this was inconsistent with their meriting an eternal reward. It is in this sense that we must understand the words of Gregory, and not that they merited by that lie to lose the eternal reward as though they had already merited it by their preceding kindliness, as the objection understands the words to mean.
From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)
Seven in the morning to seven at night, sometimes eight. And two hours earlier, at five in the morning, I had to walk my father to his newspaper stand next to the subway and help him unpack the papers. My brothers never helped. Simon went to accountancy school. Hymie drived a cab—never came home, never sent money. And then I married Daddy and moved to Washington, and until I was old, I worked side by side with him in the store twelve hours a day and cleaned the house and cooked too. And then I had Jean, who never gave me one minute trouble. And then I had you. And you were not easy. And I never stopped working. You saw me! You know! You heard me running up and down the stairs. Am I lying?” “I know, Momma.” “And all those years, as long as they lived, I supported Bubba and Zeyda. They had nothing—the few pennies my father made from the paper stand. Later we opened a candy store for him, but he couldn’t work—the men had to pray. You remember Zeyda?” I nod. “Faint memories, Momma.” I must have been four or five . . . a sour-smelling tenement building in the Bronx . . . throwing scraps of bread and balls of tinfoil down five stories to the chickens in the courtyard . . . my grandfather, all in black, tall black yarmulke, white wild beard stained with gravy, his arms and forehead wrapped in black cords, mumbling prayers. We couldn’t converse—he spoke only Yiddish—but he pinched my cheek hard. Everyone else—Bubba, Momma, Aunt Lena—working, running up and down the stairs all day to the store, unpacking and packing, cooking, cleaning feathers from chickens, scales from fish, dusting. But Zeyda didn’t lift a finger. Just sat and read. Like a king. “Every month,” Momma keeps on, “I took the train to New York and brought them food and money. And later, when Bubba was in the nursing home, I paid for the home and visited her every two weeks—you remember, sometimes I took you on the train. Who else in the family helped? Nobody! Your Uncle Simon would come every few months and bring her a bottle of 7 Up, and my next visit all I would hear about was your Uncle Simon’s wonderful 7 Up. Even when she was blind, she’d lie there just holding the empty 7 Up bottle. And not only Bubba I helped, but everyone else in the family—my brothers, Simon and Hymie, my sister, Lena, Tante Hannah, your Uncle Abe, the greenhorn, who I brought from Russia—everybody, the whole family, was supported by that schmutzig, dirty, little grocery store. Nobody helped me—ever! And no one ever thanked me.” Taking a deep, deep breath, I utter the words: “I thank you, Momma. I thank you.” That isn’t too hard. Why has it taken me fifty years?
From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)
One of my most formative personal experiences underlying this book may seem circuitous, but I must reveal it to you, as it sheds a light on the deeper motivations that fuel my passion. My parents were survivors of Nazi concentration camps. For a number of years, they stood face-to-face with death every day. My mother and father were the sole survivors of their respective families. They came out of this experience wanting to charge at life with a vengeance and to make the most of each day. They both felt that they had been granted a unique gift: living life again. My parents were unusual, I think. They didn’t just want to survive; they wanted to revive. They possessed a thirst for life, thrived on exuberant experiences, and loved to have a good time. They cultivated pleasure. I know absolutely nothing about their sexual life except that they had two children, my brother and me. But by the way they lived, I sensed that they had a deep understanding of eroticism. Though I doubt that they ever used this word, they embodied its mystical meaning as a quality of aliveness, a pathway to freedom—not just the narrow definition of sex that modernity has assigned to it. It is this expanded understanding that I bring to bear on my discussion of eroticism in this book. There is yet another powerful influence that has helped shape this project. My husband is the director of the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University. His work is devoted to assisting refugees, children of war, and victims of torture as they seek to overcome the massive trauma they’ve experienced. By restoring their sense of creativity and their capacity for play and pleasure, these survivors are ultimately helped to reconnect with life and the hope that fuels it. My husband deals with pain; I deal with pleasure. They are intimately acquainted. The individuals I write about do not appear in the acknowledgments, though I owe them a great deal. Their stories are authentic and almost verbatim, but their identities are masked. Throughout this project, I’ve shared excerpts with them in the spirit of collaboration. Many of my ideas were developed through my work, and not the other way around. My ideas also draw on the wealth of careful considerations made by many professionals and authors who have previously tackled the ambiguities of love and desire.
From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)
and examples, compiler, and organizer of this material. I am confident that this book would not exist without him. I’m also grateful to my research assistant, Antonio Grumser, as well as for the work of Meghna Sreenivas at the start of this project. This book benefited tremendously from the input and feedback I received from all the companies, conferences, professional groups, and executives who have hired me, giving me an opportunity to workshop my ideas through consulting, coaching, keynotes, and retreats over the years. A special thank-you to the people at mParticle, who made possible a great illustration of kill criteria in action and gave their permission to mention the company by name. This book is better because of the experiences I’ve had working with the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit dedicated to building the field of decision education in K–12. My thanks to executive director Joe Sweeney, his entire staff, the board, the advisory council, the ambassador council, all the guests on the Alliance’s Decision Education Podcast, and everyone who helps support the organization. Thank you to Jenifer Sarver, Maralyn Beck, Luz Stable, Alicia McClung, and Jim Doughan for the constant, desperately needed help they provide in keeping my professional life together. I am so grateful to my family, my husband, my children, my dad, my brother, my sister, and their entire families. These are the people most responsible for making me the happiest I have ever been. They have supported me every plodding step of the way. I’m thankful beyond words for them. One last, final thank-you to the late Lila Gleitman, my mentor and best friend. Right up until the week she passed, Lila would inquire about this project, excited about the topic and eager to be my thought partner. A mentor’s work lives on through their students and I hope she would have been proud of the finished project. I miss her every day. NOTES
From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)
Chapter 9 Summary Optimism makes you less likely to walk away while not actually increasing your chances of success. That means that being overly optimistic will make you stick to things longer that aren’t worthwhile. Better to be well calibrated. Life’s too short to spend your time on opportunities that are no longer worthwhile. When someone is on the outside looking in, they can usually see your situation more rationally than you can. The best quitting coach is a person who loves you enough to look out for your long-term well-being. They are willing to tell you the hard truth even if it means risking hurt feelings in the short term. Decisions about when to quit improve when the people who make the decisions to start things are different from the people who make the decisions to stop those things. Getting the most out of a quitting coach requires permission to speak the truth. I INTERLUDE III The Ants Go Marching . . . Mostly f you’ve ever watched a nature show or, really, any cartoon with ants in it, the classic image that probably comes to mind is of the ants walking in a single line toward a common destination. The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah! That’s how we imagine them. And forager ants really do march that way. Mostly. When you look closer, what you’ll see is that while most of the ants are marching in line to and from a food source, there is always a certain percentage of the foragers that seem to be wandering around aimlessly. They aren’t following the program. They look suspiciously like freeloaders, shirking their responsibility to bring food back to the nest. Are they ants with an attitude? Are they rebels? Lazy malingerers? Ant anarchists? Anti- establishment ants? It turns out that these ants serve a crucial purpose and that purpose has a lot to do with quitting. To figure out what’s going on, it helps to understand how ants get in that line in the first place. When ants enter a new territory, all the foragers are wandering around, scattered across the area, the opposite of that classic marching-in-line that we expect to see. That’s because there is no established food source yet and the ants are searching for one. When an ant finds food, it brings it back to the nest. Along the way, it lays down a chemical scent called a pheromone trail, which is faint when it comes from just one ant. Any other ants that pick up that scent will follow the same trail. And if the food source is high enough in quality, they too will find food and lay down a pheromone trail of their own along the same path back to the nest.
From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)
Zoë and Doug and Naomi, fidelity and AcknowledgmentsI NEVER WROTE A BOOK before. I thought I couldn’t stand the solitude. To my surprise, I found I could bring my love of collaboration and midnight chats to the writing table. I tend to think in conversation—it’s in speaking that my ideas emerge and take on clarity. Some people helped me talk, and others, write. I owe them so much, far beyond this modest tribute. Since we have been musing about love and sex for two years, let me simply say that every word sends a kiss of gratitude. Sarah Manges, editor extraordinaire, you have been my compass. You have kept me on course when squalls of ideas threatened to knock me way off. Laura Blum, you levitated my prose. Not being a native English-speaker, I miss certain nuances of the language that your poetic flair always captures. Michele Scheinkman, I never know that an idea makes sense until you give it your seal of approval. Gail Winston, my editor at HarperCollins, you believed in me like a mother. You made me pick up my strewn thoughts and kept me jargon-free. Mary Wylie, when you edited the original article from which this book is drawn, “In Search of Erotic Intelligence: Reconciling Sensuality and Domesticity,” did you know how far we would go? You often understood what I wanted to say before I did. Miriam Horn, you were the first person who gave some shape to the original article. Rich Simon, you set this whole thing in motion. A simple question in the spring of 2002, “What have you been thinking about lately?” prompted me to send you some loose ideas which, eleven versions later, ended in the pages of an on-the-cusp magazine, The Psychotherapy Networker. Things could have ended there, with an interesting article. But Tracy Brown, you were rummaging through the newsstands as only an enterprising agent knows how to do. You spotted the cover of the Utne Reader, which had reproduced my article from the Networker article. We instantly bonded, and began this amazing journey. I’m recommending you right and left. Ilana Berger, you introduced me to the world of sex therapy. You’ve been a mentor and a friend. Peter Fraenkel, since before day one you believed in this project. Michael Shernoff, by offering a gay perspective, you kept me from falling into heterosexual clichés. Patti Cohen and David Bornstein, I’m honored that you’ve welcomed me into your circle of writers. Deborah Gieringer, Sandy Petrey, and Katherine Frank, thank you for being such discerning readers and thinkers. Phillis Levin, you are my poetic muse. Shelly Kellner, you bring a wealth of organization to my chaos. Your research support was impeccable. Anya Strzemien, you spent hours listening to me on tape and then transcribing. Can we work together again? Miriam Baker, thank you for the wonderful metaphor of captivity.
From In the Dream House (2019)
Acknowledgments This book would have been impossible without the resources and support of the University of Pennsylvania, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Oregon, Yaddo, Playa, the Wurlitzer Foundation, and Bard College. Many thanks to Tracy Fontil, for her impeccable and thorough research, and the Bassini Foundation for sponsoring her apprenticeship. Thank you to Dorothy Allison for her wisdom; Elliott Battzekek and Sawyer Lovett at Big Blue Marble Bookstore for their insight; Jane Marie at the Hairpin for publishing my first writing on this subject; Jen Wang and Jess Row for their musical expertise; Kendra Albert for leading me to resources on archival silence; Kevin Brockmeier for reading and being encouraging about an early draft of this memoir; David Korzenik for his legal advice; Mark Mayer for his sharp line edits and tender encouragement; Michelle Huneven for her thoughtful edits on “A Girl’s Guide to Sexual Purity” when it was published in the Los Angeles Review of Books; Nikki Gloudeman for editing “Gaslight” for Medium and Matt Higginson for commissioning it; Sam Chang for her all-around excellence and also for directing me to Terry Castle’s The Professor; Sofia Samatar for our many conversations about the radical possibilities of nonfiction; Ted Chiang for teaching me about time travel; Yuka Igarashi at Catapult for editing and publishing “The Moon Over the River Lethe”; and the vultures who sat in a tree over my head as I finished this book, for clearing away the rot. I am, as always, in debt to my editors Ethan Nosowsky and Yana Makuwa (this book is infinitely better for their insight); my brilliant and scarily capable agent, Kent Wolf; and the entire team at Graywolf, for their tireless efforts, boundless faith, and endless good cheer. I am deeply grateful to Amy, Ben, Bennett, Carleen, E.J., Evan, John, Laura, Rebecca, Rebekah, and Tony for their love, friendship, and stabilizing presence during those days; Chris, Emma, Julia, Karen, Lara, and Sam for listening when my pain was fresh and inarticulate; Audrey, R.K., and all the other members of the weirdest, gayest First Wives’ Club ever, for trusting me with their stories; and Margaret, for putting the pieces together. And of course, the biggest thanks go to my wife, Val—my plot twist, my fate, my fairy-tale ending—who challenges me and comforts me and allows me to splash details of our lives all over the place. I’d do it all again, baby. It brought me you.
From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am so grateful for the help of so many scientists, authors, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who engaged with me in discussions about quitting and were incredibly generous with their insights and time: Stuart Baserman, Max Bazerman, Colin Camerer, Keith Chen, Ron Conway, David Epstein, Shane Frederick, Laurence Gonzales, Tom Griffiths, Alex Imas, Daniel Kahneman, Ken Kamler, Jennifer Kurkoski, Libby Leahy, Cade Massey, Michael Mauboussin, William McRaven, Michael Mervosh, Katy Milkman, Mark Moffett, Don Moore, Scott Page, Riley Post, Dan Raff, Eric Ries, Maurice Schweitzer, Ted Seides, Maya Shankar, Barry Staw, Hal Stern, Cass Sunstein, Joe Sweeney, Astro Teller, Phillip Tetlock, Richard Thaler, Tony Thomas, Richard Zeckhauser, and Kevin Zollman. Thank you to the people who were willing to share their stories with me, stories that helped me develop and refine my ideas with their hard-earned insights: Stewart Butterfield, Sasha Cohen, Mike Neighbors, Sarah Olstyn Martinez, Maya Shankar, and Andrew Wilkinson. Thanks also to Barry Staw, who, in addition to his other contributions to this book, spent hours with me stitching together the narrative about his larger-than-life father, Harold. I want to single out the collaboration of Katy Milkman, Ted Seides, and Richard Thaler. Katy and Ted read drafts of every chapter as I went along, offering insightful feedback and encouragement along the way. Richard also read many versions of the manuscript and spent hours with me on Zoom, helping me to clarify the concepts laid out in the book, so many of which relied so heavily on his body of work. Quit is so much better for that thought partnership, for which I am deeply grateful. I am also indebted to Alex Imas, Daniel Kahneman, Barb Mellers, Don Moore, Dave Nussbaum, Ogi Ogas, Brian Portnoy, Barry Staw, and Phillip