Joy

Passages

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

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• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  But the symbol will often give us the emotional effect of the perception. Such expressions as the abysmal vault of heaven, the endless expanse of ocean, etc., summarize many computations to the imagination, and give the sense of an enormous horizon. So it seems with the blind. They multiply mentally the amount of a distinctly felt freedom to move, anti gain the immediate sense of a vaster freedom still. Thus it is that blind men are never without the consciousness of their horizon. They all enjoy travelling, especially with a companion. On the prairies the feel the great openness; in valleys they feel closed in; and one has told me that he thought few seeing people could enjoy the view from a mountain-top more than he. A blind person on entering a house or room immediately receives, from the reverberations of his voice and steps, an impression of its dimensions, and to a certain extent of its arrangement. The tympanic sense noticed on p. 140, supra, comes in to help here, and possibly other forms of tactile sensibility not yet understood. Mr. Hank Levy, the blind author of 'Blindness and the Blind' (London), gives the following account of his powers of perception:

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Just so with space beyond the body's limits. Continuing the joint-feeling beyond the toe, the baby hits another object which he can still think of when he brings his back to its blister again. That object at the end of that joint feeling means a new place for him, and the more such objects multiply in his experience the wider does the space of his conception grow. If, wandering through the woods to-day by a new path, I find myself suddenly in a glad which affects my senses exactly as did another I reached last week at the end of different walk, I believe the two identical affection to present the same persisting glade, and infer that I have attained it by two differing roads. The case in whit differs when shorter movements are concerned. If, moving first one arm and then another, the blind child gets the same kind of sensation upon the hand, and gets it again as often as he repeats either process, he judges that he has touched the same object by both motions, and concludes that the motions terminate in a common place. From place to place marked in this way he moves, and adding the places moved through, one to another, he builds up his notion of the extent of the outer world. The seeing man's process is identical; only his units, which may be successive bird's-eye view, are much larger than in the case of the blind. FEELINGS IN JOINTS AND FEELINGS IN MUSCLES 1. Feelings of Movement in Joints. I have been led to speak of feelings which arise in joints. As these feeling have too much neglecting Psychology hitherto, in entering now somewhat minutely in the interest of the reader, which under the rather dry abstractions of the previous pages may presumably have flagged.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  of the past that remained to her was the faculty of pronouncing a few words, and this seems to have been as purely instinctive as the wailings of an infant; for at first the words which she uttered were connected with no ideas in her mind.' Until she was taught their significance they were unmeaning sounds. "'Her eyes were virtually for the first time opened upon the world. Old things had passed away; all things had become new.' Her parents, brothers, sisters, friends, were not recognized or acknowledged as such by her. She had never seen them before,—never known them,—was not aware that such persons had been. Now for the first time she was introduced to their company and acquaintance. To the scenes by which she was surrounded she was a perfect stranger. The house, the fields, the forest, the hills, the vales, the streams,—all were novelties. The beauties of the landscape were all unexplored. "She had not the slightest consciousness that she had ever existed previous to the moment in which she awoke from that mysterious slumber. 'In a word, she was an infant, just born, yet born in a state of maturity, with a capacity for relishing the rich, sublime, luxuriant wonders of created nature.' "The first lesson in her education was to teach her by what ties she was bound to those by whom she was surrounded, and the duties devolving upon her accordingly. This she was very slow to learn, and, 'indeed, never did learn, or, at least, never would acknowledge the ties of consanguinity, or scarcely those of friendship. She considered those she had once known as for the most part strangers and enemies, among whom she was, by some remarkable and unaccountable means, transplanted, though from what region or state of existence was a problem unsolved.' "The next lesson was to re-teach her the arts of reading and writing. She was apt enough, and made such rapid progress in both that in a few weeks she had readily re-learned to read and write. In copying her name which her brother had written for her as a first lesson, she took her pen in a very awkward manner and began to copy from right to left in the Hebrew mode, as though she had been transplanted from an Eastern soil. . . . "The next thing that is noteworthy is the change which took place in her disposition. Instead of being melancholy she was now cheerful to extremity. Instead of being reserved she was buoyant and social. Formerly taciturn and retiring, she was now merry and jocose. Her disposition was totally and absolutely changed. While she was, in this second state, extravagantly found of company, she was much more enamoured of nature's works, as exhibited in the forests, hills, vales, and water-courses. She used to start in the morning, either on foot or horseback, and ramble until nightfall over the whole country; nor was she at all particular whether she were on a path or

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  delusions of[128] V. Kandinsky: Kritische u. Klinische Betrachtungen im Gebiete d. de Sinnestäuschungen (1885), p. 42.[129] See Proceedings of Sec. for Psych. Research, Dec. 1859, pp. 7, 183. a International Congress for Experimental Psychology has now charge the Census, and the present writer is its agent for America.[130] "This case is of the class which Mr. Myers terms 'veridical.' In a subsequent letter the writer informs me that his vision occurred some five hours before the child was born.[131] Classics editor's note: James' insertion.[132] Le Sommeil et les et Rêves (1863), chaps, iii, iv.[133] This theory of incomplete rectification of the inner images by their usual reductives is most brilliantly stated by M. Taine in his work Intelligence, book ii. chap. i.[134] Not, of course, in all cases, because the cells remaining active are the: selves on the way to be overpowered by the general (unknown) condition which sleep is due.[135] For a full account of Jackson's theories, see his 'Croonian Lectures' published in the Brit. Med. Journ. for 1884. Cf. also his remarks in the Discussion of Dr. Mercier's paper on Inhibition in 'Brain,' xi. 381.The loss of vivacity in the images in the process of waking, as well as the gain of it in falling asleep, are both well described by M. Taine, who writes (on Intelligence, i. 50, 58) that often in the daytime, when fatigued and seated in a chair; it is sufficient for him to close one eye with a handkerchief when, "by degrees, the sight of the other eye becomes vague, and it closes. All external sensations are gradually effaced, or cease, at all events, to be remarked; the internal images, on the other hand, feeble and rapid during the state of complete wakefulness, become intense, distinct, colored, steady, and lasting : there is a sort of ecstasy, accompanied by a feeling of expansion and of comfort. Warned by frequent experience, I know that sleep is coming on, and that I must not disturb the rising vision; I remain passive, and in a few minutes it is complete. Architecture, landscapes, moving figures, pass slowly by, and sometimes remain, with incomparable clearness of form and fulness of being; sleep comes on, and I know no more of the real world I am in. Many times, like M. Maury, I have caused myself to be gently roused at different moments of this state, and have thus been able to mark its characters.—The intense image which seems an external object is hut a more forcible continuation of the feeble image which an instant before I recognized as internal some scrap of a forest, some house, some person which I vaguely imagined on closing my eyes, has in a minute become present to me with full bodily details, seas to change into a complete hallucination. Then, waking up on a hand touching me, I feel the figure decay, lose color and evaporate; what had appeared a substance is reduced toe shadow. ... In such a case, I have

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  to be right without receiving an iota of the emotion. For purposes of emotion they are to me like geometrical demonstrations or like acts of integrity performed in Peru." The Beethoven-rightness of which Gurney then goes on to speak, as something different from the Clementi-rightness (even when the respective pieces are only heard in idea), is probably a purely auditory-sensational thing. The Clementi-rightness also; only, for reasons impossible to assign, the Clementi form does not give the same sort of purely auditory satisfaction as the Beethoven form, and might better be described perhaps negatively as non-wrong, i.e., free from positively unpleasant acoustic quality. In organizations as musical as Mr. Gurney's, purely acoustic form gives so intense a degree of sensible pleasure that the lower bodily reverberation is of no account. But I repeat that I see nothing in the facts which Mr. Gurney cites, to lead one to believe in an emotion divorced from sensational processes of any kind.[434] In his chapter on 'Ideal Emotion,' to which the reader is referred for farther details on this subject.[435] Those feelings which Prof. Bain calls 'emotions of relativity,' excitement of novelty, wonder, rapture of freedom, sense of power, hardly survive any repetition of the experience. But as the text goes on to explain, and as Goethe as quoted by Prof. Höffding says, this is because "the soul is inwardly grown larger without knowing it, and can no longer be filled by that first sensation. The man thinks that he has lost, but really he has gained. What he has lost in rapture, he has gained in inward growth." "It is," as Prof. Höffding himself adds, in a beautiful figure of speech, "with our virgin feelings, as with the first breath drawn by the new-born child, in which the lung expands itself so that it can never be emptied to the same degree again. No later breath can feel just like that first one." On this whole subject of emotional blunting, compare Höffding's Psychologie, VI. E., and Bain's Emotions and Will. chapter IV. of the first part.[436] M. Fr. Paulhan, in a little work full of accurate observations of detail (Les Phénomènes Affectifs et les Lois de leur Apparition), seems to me rather to turn the truth upside down by his formula that emotions are due to an inhibition of impulsive tendencies. One kind of emotion, namely, uneasiness, annoyance, distress, does occur when any definite impulsive tendency is checked, and all of M. P.'s illustrations are drawn from this sort. The other emotions are themselves primary impulsive tendencies, of a diffusive sort (involving, as M. P. rightly says, a multiplicité des phénomènes); and just in proportion as more and more of these multiple tendencies are checked, and replaced by some few narrow forms of discharge, does the original emotion tend to disappear.[437] A list of the older writings on the subject is given in Mantegazza's work, La Physionomie et 1'Expression, chap, I; others in Darwin's first chapter. Bell's Anatomy of Expression, Mosso's La

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Let us now call the pleasure for the sake of which the act may be done the pursued pleasure. If follows that, even when no pleasure is pursued by an act, the act itself may be the pleasantest line of conduct when once the impulse has begun, on account of the incidental pleasure which then attends its successful achievement and the pain which would come of interruption. A pleasant act and an act pursuing a pleasure are in themselves, however, two perfectly distinct conceptions, though they coalesce in one concrete phenomenon whenever a pleasure is deliberately pursued. I cannot help thinking that it is the confusion of pursued pleasure with mere pleasure of achievement which makes the pleasure-theory of action so plausible to the ordinary mind. We feel an impulse, no matter whence derived; we proceed to act; if hindered, we feel displeasure; and if successful, relief. Action in the line of the present impulse is always for the time being the pleasant course; and the ordinary hedonist expresses this fact by saying that we act for the sake of the pleasantness involved. But who does not see that for this sort of pleasure to be possible, the impulse must be there already as an independent fact? The pleasure of successful performance is the result of the impulse, not its cause. You cannot have your pleasure of achievement unless you have managed to get your impulse under headway beforehand by some previous means. It is true that on special occasions (so complex is the human mind) the pleasure of achievement may itself become a pursued pleasure; and these cases form another point on which the pleasure-theory is apt to rally. Take a foot-ball game or a fox-hunt. Who in cold blood wants the fox for its own sake, or cares whether the ball be at this goal or that? We know, however, by experience, that if we can once rouse a certain impulsive excitement in ourselves, whether to overtake the fox, or to get the ball to one particular goal, the successful venting of it over the counteracting checks will fill us with exceeding joy. We therefore get ourselves deliberately and artificially into the hot impulsive state. It takes the presence of various instinct-arousing conditions to excite it; but little by little, once we are in the field, it reaches its paroxysm; and we reap the reward of our exertions in that pleasure of successful achievement which, far more than the dead fox or the goal-got ball, was the object we originally pursued. So it often is with duties. Lots of actions are done with heaviness all through, and not till they are completed does pleasure emerge, in the joy of being done with them. Like Hamlet we say of each such successive task, "O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!"

• From Story of O (1954)

  Hatless, wearing practically no make-up, her hair completely free, O looked like a well-brought- up little girl, dressed as she was in her twirled stripe or polka dot, navy blue-and-white or gray- and-white pleated sun-skirts and the fitted bolero buttoned at the neck, or in her more conservative dresses of black nylon. Everywhere Sir Stephen escorted her she was taken for his daughter, or his niece, and this mistake was abetted by the fact that he, in addressing her, employed the tu form, wheras she employed the vous. Alone together in Paris, strolling through the streets to window shop, or walking along the quays, where the paving stones were dusty because the weather had been so dry, they evinced no surprise at seeing the passers-by smile at them, the way people smile at people who are happy. Once in a while Sir Stephen would push her into the recess of a porte-cochere, or beneath the archway of a building, which was always slightly dark and from which there rose the musty odor of ancient cellars, and he would kiss her and tell her he loved her. O would hook her heels over the sill of the porte-cochere out of which the regular pedestrian door had been cut. They caught a glimpse of a courtyard in the rear, with lines of laundry drying in the windows. Leaning on one of the balconies, a blonde girl would be staring fixedly at them. A cat would slip between their legs. Thus did they stroll through the Gobeline district, by Saint-Marcel, along the rue Mouffetard, to the area known as the Temple, and to the Bastille. Once Sir Stephen suddenly steered O into a wretched brothel-like hotel, where the desk clerk first wanted them to fill out the forms, but then said not to bother if it was only for an hour. The wallpaper in the room was blue, with enormous golden peonies, the window looked out onto a pit whence rose the odor of garbage cans. However weak the light bulb at the head of the bed, you could still see streaks of face powder and forgotten hairpins on the mantelpiece. On the ceiling above the bed was a large mirror. Once, but only once, Sir Stephen invited O to lunch with two of his compatriots who were passing through Paris. He came for her an hour before she was ready, and instead of having her driven to his place, he came to the quai de Bethune.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  This section introduces the Remote Association Test (RAT), which explores how mood influences creativity and intuitive cognitive processing. Mednick's RAT demonstrates that individuals can sometimes discern connections between seemingly unrelated words quicker than they can retrieve the associated terms. Kahneman discusses recent experiments showing that participants in a happier state exhibited significantly better intuitive performance compared to those who were unhappy. This suggests a robust relationship between cognitive ease associated with positive mood and intuitive judgment accuracy. The findings illustrate the dual nature of mood: while positive emotions can enhance creativity, they may also reduce critical scrutiny, which can lead to logical errors in decision-making. In this section, Kahneman emphasizes the implications of cognitive ease on perception and decision-making. He argues that cognitive ease can lead to an inclination towards believing familiar or repeated information. The connection between presentation factors, such as font clarity and emotional states, can profoundly impact judgments and perceptions of truth. Kahneman illustrates this phenomenon through examples showing how cognitive ease may compel individuals to overlook logical inconsistencies when in a positive mood. This underscores the necessity for professionals to remain vigilant, especially in creative or critical thinking contexts, where cognitive biases could lead to poor decision outcomes. This chapter explores how our judgments and decisions are heavily influenced by the limited information we process through a cohesive but often incomplete narrative we construct, rooted in the principle of WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). In this chapter, Kahneman introduces the principle of WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) to explain how our judgments often arise from pieces of information we have at hand, regardless of whether they provide a comprehensive picture. By presenting a case involving a false arrest, he illustrates how participants’ confidence in their judgments was bolstered by one-sided information, as they were more likely to perceive coherence in a singular narrative than appreciate the complexities of a dual-sided argument. The chapter asserts that this tendency to favor coherence over completeness shapes not only our individual beliefs but also broader societal judgments. This section introduces the principle of WYSIATI, or "What You See Is All There Is," using a case study to illustrate how narratives influence judgment. Participants exposed to one-sided arguments exhibited higher confidence in their decisions than those who heard both sides, revealing a fundamental truth about human cognition: coherence is prioritized over completeness. Kahneman elaborates on how this reliance on coherent stories can lead to biases such as overconfidence, framing effects, and base-rate neglect. He asserts that although quick judgments can often support reasonable actions, they are frequently based on incomplete information, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the limitations posed by WYSIATI in decision-making processes.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  We find a collaborative goal-setting process like this can also build team spirit. As Adam Goodman, director of the Center for Leadership at Northwestern University, writes, “Working toward something together, that you’re committed to, forms strong bonds and fosters collaboration.” Open, mutual discussions like Lewin observed with team members help create a sense of shared vision; and according to our research, employees are much less likely to burn out when they can easily see the connection between their work and their team’s or organization’s larger mission and vision in a way that makes them feel that their job is vital and that the work they are doing is making a real difference. Method 2: Balance LoadsAs part of the collaborative roadmap process we just described, it’s essential to ensure that workloads are well-balanced among team members to avoid certain members becoming overwhelmed. In many teams we visit, we find a handful of stressed-out workhorses putting in seventy-hour weeks while other employees appear happy-go-lucky, heading home at five every day. How can a manager ensure everyone on the team has the right amount of work? DeNooyer of Keurig Dr Pepper adds that she monitors her team’s workload regularly and tries to create an environment where team members help each other during peak times to ensure no one gets overloaded too often. “I have weekly touchpoints with my team, and when I can tell that it’s getting too much, I’ll say, ‘Okay, what’s the list of things? And which ones do you have to do? Which ones can be shared with somebody else? Which ones can wait?’” By balancing in this way, she is methodical about setting priorities for the coming week, and is transparent about what trade-offs must be made, projects that can be delayed, and who else they might need to get involved. With this, we know some anxious employees are driven intrinsically to impress and take on more and more, and managers can tend to over-rely on these people because they are so willing. These folks end up doing disproportionately heavy lifting until it becomes too much. Yet it’s dangerous to conflate hours worked with productivity, as that can create more anxiety in the team. Hours and results are not the same thing. Some employees can get an incredible amount done in a typical workday and head out at five, and there’s nothing wrong with that. “It’s important to make sure your employees understand you don’t equate hours with productivity,” says Liane Davey, cofounder of 3COze Inc. The best way to do this, she says, is to openly praise strong performance, irrespective of hours worked. “If José put up great numbers last week—even if he leaves at 4:30 every day—you need to celebrate him in a public forum.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  We worked together, relatively productively, for another ten years, for which I give a good measure of credit to what we discovered about ourselves that day.” Method 3: Foster Connections and FriendshipsAs we often see with high-powered, high-salary sports teams, not everyone has to like the people they work with to be successful. But, since we spend more time at work than anywhere else, it certainly makes things a lot more pleasant when we do all get along. We have to understand, however, that not everyone may feel comfortable in social settings—especially people with anxiety. Traditional activities intended to bring teams together were typically designed by extroverts, for extroverts. Even the idea of open-space offices was most definitely not discussed with any introverts before launch. Yet we’ve found there’s much leaders can do to encourage the quiet and shy to join in on a little socializing without going to extremes. For instance, instead of having people work by themselves on every project, we’ve seen team leaders create more opportunities for assignments to be completed in groups of two or more—even if people are remote. Encouraging the group to get together outside of work to do charity work, do something active, or attend a conference is another good way to encourage inclusion that’s less anxiety-inducing than just looking at each other across a table at a restaurant—since people are focused on an activity. Derek Lundsten and Stephan Vincent lead an online network, LifeGuides, that gives people peer-to-peer connections like this. Peers help peers through life’s challenges, from anxiety at work to dealing with COVID-19 to social justice. Companies like Salesforce.com and The Motley Fool offer the platform to their employees. Said Vincent, “In life, we get overloaded with information from various sources and the world is very polarizing. I’ve experienced it with family members. When you get into a topic—COVID-19, the economy, whatever—suddenly it becomes political, polarizing, and you don’t get the support you were looking for. Therapists and other professionals may be helpful but see things through a medical lens. When you create a connection with someone who’s been in your shoes, they can understand and empathize and provide guidance. Then you build human relationships that can help.” Emma Seppälä and Marissa King of Yale University note that “people who have a ‘best friend at work’ are not only more likely to be happier and healthier, they are also seven times as likely to be engaged in their job. What’s more, employees who report having friends at work have higher levels of productivity, retention, and job satisfaction than those who don’t.”

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  This section emphasizes the role of situational influences over general mood, asserting that daily emotional well-being fluctuates based on immediate circumstances rather than overall life satisfaction. Specific environmental factors such as socializing opportunities, exposure to noise, and time pressure significantly influence workplace mood more than traditional job satisfaction indicators like benefits or status. Kahneman also discusses the importance of attentiveness; the emotional joy derived from activities, like eating, can diminish significantly when multitasking detracts focus. This segment powerfully argues for the necessity of organizing time to prioritize enjoyable, engaging experiences, thereby improving personal satisfaction amid everyday life pressures. In this part, Kahneman discusses the correlation between social connections and emotional well-being, utilizing the Gallup World Poll as a key resource for understanding life evaluation. The analysis reveals that higher social contact significantly enhances daily well-being, contrasting with how life evaluation metrics, like educational attainment, might not align with moment-to-moment happiness. He points out that living with significant life stressors, such as illness or financial strain, often exacerbates daily emotional struggles, particularly for the poor. This section reinforces the notion that while social connections elevate happiness, fundamental issues like health status can heavily impact one's overall emotional resilience and quality of life. Here, Kahneman presents a thorough exploration of how income relates to emotional well-being. Through significant survey data, he finds that while increased wealth can enhance life satisfaction, it does not considerably alter experienced emotional states beyond a household income threshold of approximately $75,000. Severe poverty, however, dramatically impacts emotional and psychological wellness, amplifying distress linked to other life misfortunes. Kahneman emphasizes the complexities of income's effects, noting that the pursuit of wealth can lead to diminished enjoyment of life's smaller pleasures, demonstrating a nuanced relationship between financial status and happiness. This section underscores the significant influence that personal goals have on emotional satisfaction and life outcomes. Drawing on a longitudinal study of higher education participants, Kahneman illustrates that the aspirations individuals set in their youth markedly affect their financial success and life satisfaction in adulthood. The connection between goal orientation and eventual happiness emphasizes that meeting one's aspirations can lead to higher fulfillment, while unattainable expectations might breed discontent. This analysis supports the broader assertion that life's evaluations and moment-to-moment happiness must be viewed as interconnected yet distinct aspects of well-being. In the final section, Kahneman introduces the focusing illusion, a cognitive bias affecting how individuals evaluate their life satisfaction. He explores how momentary thoughts can disproportionately influence one’s sense of happiness, illustrating this with anecdotal and empirical evidence. Study participants demonstrate that transient, salient events can skew their overall perceptions of well-being—leading to an overemphasis on specific experiences while ignoring broader aspects of life. Kahneman's insights reveal that understanding this bias is paramount for meaningful self-assessment and highlights the complexities involved in accurately measuring emotional states and life evaluations.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  What happens next is significant. Feigning reluctance, the men drag themselves from their hammocks and head off into the jungle, but before splitting up to hunt independently, they agree on a time and place outside the village to meet later, where they’ll redistribute whatever they’ve bagged, thus ensuring that every man returns to the village with meat, guaranteeing extra-pair sex for one and all. Yet another nail in the coffin of the standard narrative. Pollock’s description of the hunters’ triumphal return is beyond improvement: At the end of the day the men return in a group to the village, where the adult women form a large semicircle and sing erotically provocative songs to the men, asking for their ‘meat.’ The men drop their catch in a large pile in the middle of the semicircle, often hurling it down with dramatic gestures and smug smiles…. After cooking the meat and eating, each woman retires with the man whom she selected as her partner for the sexual tryst. Kulina engage in this ritual with great humor and perform it regularly. 3 We’ll bet they do. Pollock kindly confirmed our hunch that the Kulina word for “meat” (bani) refers both to food and to what you’re thinking it does, dear reader. Maybe marriage isn’t a human universal, but the capacity for sexual double entendre just might be. Love, Lust, and Liberty at Lugu Lake There is not now, and never has been, a society in which confidence in paternity is so low that men are typically more closely related genetically to their sisters’ than to their wives’ offspring. Happily promiscuous, nonpossessive, Rousseauian chimpanzees turned out not to exist; I am not convinced by the available evidence that such human beings exist either. D ONALD S YMONS, The Evolution of Human Sexuality Symons’s bold declaration was an expression of faith in parental investment theory and the central importance of paternity certainty in human evolution. But Symons was dead wrong on both points. As he wrote those ill-fated words in the late 1970s, primatologists in jungles along the Congo River were learning that bonobos are precisely the happily promiscuous and nonpossessive apes whose existence Symons declared impossible. And the Mosuo (pronounced MWO-swo—also referred to as Na or Nari), an ancient society in southwest China, are a society where paternity certainty is so low and inconsequential that men do indeed raise their sisters’ children as their own. Women and men should not marry, for love is like the seasons—it comes and goes. Y ANG E RCHE N AMU (Mosuo woman) In the mountains around Lugu Lake, near the border between China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, live about 56,000 people who enjoy a family system that has perplexed and fascinated travelers and scholars for centuries. The Mosuo revere Lugu Lake as the Mother Goddess, while the mountain towering over it, Ganmo, is respected as the Goddess of Love. Their language is not written, being rendered in Dongba, the sole pictographic language still used in the world today.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  The Joy of S.E.Ex. Understanding is a lot like sex; it’s got a practical purpose, but that’s not why people do it normally. F RANK O PPENHEIMER Desmond Morris spent months observing a British pro soccer team in the late 1970s and early 1980s, later publishing his thoughts in a book called The Soccer Tribe. As his title suggests, Morris found the behavior of the teammates to be strikingly similar to what he’d encountered among tribal groups in previous research. He noted two behaviors particularly salient in both contexts: group leveling and nonpossessiveness. “The first thing you notice when footballers talk among themselves,” Morris wrote, “is the speed of their wit. Their humour is often cruel and is used to deflate any team-mate who shows the slightest signs of egotism.” But echoes of prehistoric egalitarianism reverberate beyond ego deflation in the locker room, extending to sexuality as well. “If one of them scores (sexually), he is not possessive, but is only too happy to see his team-mates succeed with the same girl.” While this may strike some as unfeeling, Morris assured his readers that this lack of jealousy was “simply a measure of the extent to which selfishness is suppressed between team-mates, both on the field and off it.” 7 For professional athletes, musicians, and their most enthusiastic female fans, as well as both male and female members of many foraging societies, overlapping, intersecting sexual relationships strengthen group cohesion and can offer a measure of security in an uncertain world. Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, human sex isn’t just about pleasure or reproduction. A casual approach to sexual relationships in a community of adults can have important social functions, extending far beyond mere physical gratification. Let’s try putting this liquid libido into dry, academic terms: we hypothesize that Socio-Erotic Exchanges (S.E.Ex. for short) strengthen the bonds among individuals in small-scale nomadic societies (and, apparently, other highly interdependent groups), forming a crucial, durable web of affection, affiliation, and mutual obligation. In evolutionary terms, it would be hard to overstate the importance of such networks. After all, it was primarily such flexible, adaptive social groups (and the feedback loop of brain growth and language capacities that both allowed and resulted from them) that enabled our slow, weak, generally unimpressive species to survive and eventually dominate the entire planet. Without frequent S.E.Ex., it’s doubtful that foraging bands could have maintained social equilibrium and fecundity over the millennia. S.E.Ex. were crucial in binding adults into groups that cared communally for children of obscure or shared paternity, each child likely related to most or all of the men in the group (if not a father, certainly an uncle, cousin …). * Because these interlocking relationships are so crucial to social cohesion, opting out can cause problems.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Why such a conquering hero?' he thought. He did not know that Levin was feeling as though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his words and that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the only thing that interested him. Not in that room only, but in the whole world, there existed for him only himself, with enormously increased importance and dignity in his own eyes, and she. He felt himself on a pinnacle that made him giddy, and far away down below were all those nice excellent Karenins, Oblonskys, and all the world. Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as though there were no other places left, Stepan Arkadyevitch put Levin and Kitty side by side. 'Oh, you may as well sit there,' he said to Levin. The dinner was as choice as the china, in which Stepan Arkadyevitch was a connoisseur. The soupe Marie-Louise was a splendid success; the tiny pies eaten with it melted in the mouth and were irreproachable. The two footmen and Matvey, in white cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines unobtrusively, quietly, and swiftly. On the material side the dinner was a success; it was no less so on the immaterial. The conversation, at times general and at times between individuals, never paused, and towards the end the company was so lively that the men rose from table, without stopping speaking, and even Alexey Alexandrovitch thawed. X P ESTSOV liked thrashing ah argument out to the end, and was not satisfied with Sergey Ivanovitch's words, especially as he felt the injustice of his view. 'I did not mean,' he said over the soup, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch, 'mere density of population alone, but in conjunction with fundamental ideas, and not by means of principles.' 'It seems to me,' Alexey Alexandrovitch said languidly, and with no haste, 'that that's the same thing. In my opinion, influence over another people is only possible to the people which has the higher development, which . . .' 'But that's just the question,' Pestsov broke in in his bass. He was always in a hurry to speak, and seemed always to put his whole soul into what he was saying: 'In what are we to make higher development consist? The English, the French, the Germans, which is at the highest stage of development? Which of them will nationalise the other? We see the Rhine provinces have been turned French, but the Germans are not at a lower stage!' he shouted. 'There is another law at work there.' 'I fancy that the greater influence is always on the side of true civilisation,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch, slightly lifting his eyebrows. 'But what are we to lay down as the outward signs of true civilisation?' said Pestsov. 'I imagine such signs are generally very well known,' said Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'But are they fully known?' Sergey Ivanovitch put in with a subtle smile.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  We've no need to think about that, it's all ready. But we want to invent something of our own, and new. So we thought of putting raspberries in a cup, and cooking them over a candle, and squirting milk straight into each other's mouths. That's fun, and something new, and not a bit worse than drinking out of cups.' 'Isn't it just the same that we do, that I did, searching by the aid of reason for the significance of the forces of nature and the meaning of the life of man?' he thought. 'And don't all the theories of philosophy do the same, trying by the path of thought, which is strange and not natural to man, to bring him to a knowledge of what he has known long ago, and knows so certainly that he could not live at all without it? Isn't it distinctly to be seen in the development of each philosopher's theory, that he knows what is the chief significance of life beforehand, just as positively as the peasant Fyodor, and not a bit more clearly than he, and is simply trying by a dubious intellectual path to come back to what everyone knows ? 'Now then, leave the children to themselves to get things alone and make their crockery, get the milk from the cows, and so on. Would they be naughty then? Why, they'd die of hunger! Well, then, leave us without passions and thoughts, without any idea of the one God, of the Creator, or without any idea of what is right, without any idea of moral evil. 'Just try and build up anything without those ideas! 'We only try and destroy them, because we're spiritually provided for. Exactly like the children! 'Whence have I that joyful knowledge, shared with the peasant, that alone gives peace to my soul? Whence did I get it? 'Brought up with an idea of God, a Christian, my whole life filled with the spiritual blessings Christianity has given me, full of them, and living on these blessings, like the children I did not understand them, and destroy, that is try to destroy, what I live by. And as soon as an important moment of life comes, like the children when they are cold and hungry, I turn to Him, and even less than the children when their mother scolds them for their childish mischief, do I feel that my childish efforts at wanton madness are reckoned against me. 'Yes, what I know, I know not by reason, but it has been given to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, by my faith in the chief thing taught by the church. 'The church! the church!'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin did the same as Stepan Arkadyevitch and took the glass. Stepan Arkadyevitch's anecdote too was very amusing. Levin told his story, and that too was successful. Then they talked of horses, of the races, of what they had been doing that day, and of how smartly Vronsky's Atlas had won the first prize. Levin did not notice how the time passed at dinner. 'Ah! and here they are!' Stepan Arkadyevitch said towards the end of dinner, leaning over the back of his chair and holding out his hand to Vronsky, who came up with a tall officer of the Guards. Vronsky's face too beamed with the look of good-humoured enjoyment that was general in the club. He propped his elbow playfully on Stepan Arkadyevitch's shoulder, whispering something to him, and he held out his hand to Levin with the same good-humoured smile. 'Very glad to meet you,' he said. 'I looked out for you at the election, but I was told you had gone away.' 'Yes, I left the same day. We've just been talking of your horse. I congratulate you,' said Levin. 'It was very rapidly run.' 'Yes; you've race-horses too, haven't you?' No, my father had; but I remember and know something about it.' 'Where have you dined?' asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'We were at the second table, behind the columns.' 'We've been celebrating his success,' said the tall colonel. 'It's his second Imperial prize. I wish I might have the luck at cards he has with horses. Well, why waste the precious time? I'm going to the "infernal regions",' added the colonel, and he walked away. 'That's Yashvin,' Vronsky said in answer to Turovtsin, and he sat down in the vacated seat beside them. He drank the glass offered him, and ordered a bottle of wine. Under the influence of the club atmosphere or the wine he had drunk, Levin chatted away to Vronsky of the best breeds of cattle, and was very glad not to feel the slightest hostility to this man. He even told him, among other things, that he had heard from his wife that she had met him at Princess Marya Borissovna's. 'Ah, Princess Marya Borissovna, she's exquisite!' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and he told an anecdote about her which set them all laughing. Vronsky particularly laughed with such simple-hearted amusement that Levin felt quite reconciled to him. 'Well, have we finished?' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up with a smile. 'Let us go.' VIII G ETTING up from the table, Levin walked with Gagin through the lofty room to the billiard-room, feeling his arms swing as he walked with a peculiar lightness and ease. As he crossed the big room, he came upon his father-in-law. 'Well, how do you like our Temple of Indolence?' said the prince, taking his arm. 'Come along, come along!' 'Yes, I wanted to walk about and look at everything. It's interesting.' 'Yes, it's interesting for you. But its interest for me is quite different.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  It seemed to him sweet, but strange, and he thought it would have been better without this. He did not know how great a sense of change she was experiencing: she, who at home had sometimes wanted some favourite dish, or sweets, without the possibility of getting either, now could order what she liked, buy pounds of sweets, spend as much money as she liked, and order any puddings she pleased. She was dreaming with delight now of Dolly's coming to them with her children, especially because she would order for the children their favourite puddings, and Dolly would appreciate all her new housekeeping. She did not know herself why and wherefore, but the arranging of her house had an irresistible attraction for her. Instinctively feeling the approach of spring, and knowing that there would be days of rough weather too, she built her nest as best she could, and was in haste at the same time to build it and to learn how to do it. This care for domestic details in Kitty, so opposed to Levin's ideal of exalted happiness, was at first one of the disappointments; and this sweet care of her household, the aim of which he did not understand, but could not help loving, was one of the new happy surprises. Another disappointment and happy surprise came in their quarrels. Levin could never have conceived that between him and his wife any relations could arise other than tender, respectful, and loving, and all at once in the very early days they quarrelled, so that she said he did not care for her, that he cared for no one but himself, burst into tears, and wrung her hands. This first quarrel arose from Levin's having gone out to a new farmhouse and having been away half an hour too long, because he had tried to get home by a short cut and had lost his way. He drove home thinking of nothing but her, of her love, of his own happiness, and the nearer he drew to home, the warmer was his tenderness for her. He ran into the room with the same feeling, with an even stronger feeling, than he had had when he reached the Shtcherbatskys' house to make his offer. And suddenly he was met by a lowering expression he had never seen in her. He would have kissed her; she pushed him away. 'What is it?' 'You've been enjoying yourself,' she began, trying to be calm and spiteful. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a stream of reproach, of senseless jealousy, of all that had been torturing her during that half-hour which she had spent sitting motionless at the window, burst from her.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Anna's face lighted up at once, as at once she appreciated the thought. She laughed. 'I laugh,' she said, 'as one laughs when one sees a very true portrait. What you said so perfectly hits off French art now, painting and literature too, indeed—Zola, Daudet: But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then—all the combinaisons made—they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures.' 'That's perfectly true,' said Vorkuev. 'So you've been at the club?' she said to her brother. 'Yes, yes, this is a woman!' Levin thought, forgetting himself and staring persistently at her lovely, mobile face, which at that moment was all at once completely transformed. Levin did not hear what she was talking of as she leaned over to her brother, but he was struck by the change of her expression. Her face—so handsome a moment before in its repose—suddenly wore a look of strange curiosity, anger, and pride. But this lasted only an instant. She dropped her eyelids, as though recollecting something. 'Oh, well, but that's of no interest to anyone,' she said, and she turned to the English girl. 'Please order the tea in the drawing-room,' she said in English. The girl got up and went out. 'Well, how did she get through her examination?' asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Splendidly! She's a very gifted child and a sweet character.' 'It will end in your loving her more than your own.' 'There a man speaks. In love there's no more nor less. I love my daughter with one love, and her with another.' 'I was just telling Anna Arkadyevna,' said Vorkuev, 'that if she were to put a hundredth part of the energy she devotes to this English girl to the public question of the education of Russian children, she would be doing a great and useful work.' 'Yes, but I can't help it; I couldn't do it. Count Alexey Kirillovitch urged me very much' (as she uttered the words Count Alexey Kirillo vitch she glanced with appealing timidity at Levin, and he unconsciously responded with a respectful and reassuring look), 'he urged me to take up the school in the village. I visited it several times. The children were very nice, but I could not feel drawn to the work: You speak of energy. Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it. I took to this child—I could not myself say why.' And she glanced again at Levin. And her smile and her glance—all told him that it was to him only she was addressing her words, valuing his good opinion, and at the same time sure beforehand that they understood each other. 'I quite understand that,' Levin answered.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'And n. . . and now?' he asked. 'Well, read this. I'll tell you what I should like—should like so much!' She wrote the initial letters, i, y, c, f , a, f, w, h. This meant, 'If you could forget and forgive what happened.' He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and, breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, 'I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you.' She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver. 'I understand,' she said in a whisper. He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, 'Is it this?' took the chalk and at once answered. For a long while he could not understand what she had written, and often looked into her eyes. He was stupefied with happiness. He could not supply the words she had meant; but in her charming eyes, beaming with happiness, he saw all he needed to know. And he wrote three letters. But he had hardly finished writing when she read them over her arm, and herself finished and wrote the answer, 'Yes.' 'You're playing secretaire?' said the old prince. 'But we must really be getting along if you want to be in time at the theatre.' Levin got up and escorted Kitty to the door. In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning. XIV W HEN Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such uneasiness without her, and such an impatient longing to get as quickly, as quickly as possible, to tomorrow morning, when he would see her again and be plighted to her for ever, that he felt afraid, as though of death, of those fourteen hours that he had to get through without her. It was essential for him to be with someone to talk to, so as not to be left alone, to kill time. Stepan Arkadyevitch would have been the companion most congenial to him, but he was going out, he said, to a soirée, in reality to the ballet. Levin only had time to tell him he was happy, and that he loved him, and would never, never forget what he had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevitch showed Levin that he comprehended that feeling fittingly. 'Oh, so it's not time to die yet?' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing Levin's hand with emotion. 'N-n-no!' said Levin. Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said good-bye to him, gave him a sort of congratulation, saying, 'How glad I am you have met Kitty again! One must value old friends.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And Levin himself in particular they were all extremely fond of that day. That was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the friendly, affectionate way even those he did not know looked at him. 'Well, did you like it?' Sergey Ivanovitch asked him. 'Very well. I never supposed it was so interesting! Capital! Splendid!' Sviazhsky went up to Levin and invited him to come round to tea with him. Levin was utterly at a loss to comprehend or recall what it was he had disliked in Sviazhsky, what he had failed to find in him. He was a clever and wonderfully good-hearted man. 'Most delighted,' he said, and asked after his wife and sister-in-law. And from a queer association of ideas, because in his imagination the idea of Sviazhsky's sister-in-law was connected with marriage, it occurred to him that there was no one to whom he could more suitably speak of his happiness, and he was very glad to go and see them. Sviazhsky questioned him about his improvements on his estate, presupposing, as he always did, that there was no possibility of doing anything not done already in Europe, and now this did not in the least annoy Levin. On the contrary, he felt that Sviazhsky was right, that the whole business was of little value, and he saw the wonderful softness and consideration with which Sviazhsky avoided fully expressing his correct view. The ladies of the Sviazhsky household were particularly delightful. It seemed to Levin that they knew all about it already and sympathised with him, saying nothing merely from delicacy. He stayed with them one hour, two, three, talking of all sorts of subjects but the one thing that filled his heart, and did not observe that he was boring them dreadfully, and that it was long past their bedtime. Sviazhsky went with him into the hall, yawning and wondering at the strange humour his friend was in. It was past one o'clock. Levin went back to his hotel, and was dismayed at the thought that all alone now with his impatience he had ten hours still left to get through. The servant, whose turn it was to be up all night, lighted his candles, and would have gone away, but Levin stopped him. This servant, Yegor, whom Levin had noticed before, struck him as a very intelligent, excellent, and, above all, good-hearted man. 'Well, Yegor, it's hard work not sleeping, isn't it?' 'One's got to put up with it! It's part of our work, you see. In a gentleman's house it's easier; but then here one makes more.' It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a daughter, a sempstress, whom he wanted to marry to a cashier in a saddler's shop.