Pride

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.

Page 73 of 174 · 20 per page

• From Best Erotic Romance

  “Listen. A few days later, Johnny calls Mama fatty again. That time I’d figured out how he beat me, and I walloped him but good. That day on, two times my size and big ol’ Johnny crossed the street when he saw me a-comin’.” “I don’t get you, Dave.” “I got no more points to make. My fightin’ days are over.” She eyed his body language, the way he looked at her in scant periphery. “I bet you were in Vietnam. Bet you weren’t even drafted.” The corner of Dave’s mouth curled up. His accent again softened. “So, tell me, you think we were wrong to go to Germany and Japan in World War II?” “War is wrong.” “So we should have laid down for Hitler and Tojo? Been peaceful and stay out of war?” “Well—” “How about Korea. Okay to let the South fall?” “You don’t know that it would have.” “No, and you don’t know that it wouldn’t have. Let’s say it did.” “It wasn’t our fight.” “Say your brother gets in a fight. Someone starts a fight with him. You see the person who’s fighting him has a gun in the back of his pants, where your brother can’t see. You can reach it real easy. Do you grab it? Do you warn your brother? Do you just leave it be and hope for the best?” “My brother doesn’t fight.” “He’s got no choice this time.” A deep breath. “It’s—it’s not the same thing.” “You ’spose?” “I thought you didn’t give these things too much thought.” “Just makin’ repartee. Answer the question.” “Repartee.” Sarah snorted and looked away. “Answer the question.” “I’d grab the gun, but that’s different.” She kept her eyes away. “Knew it.” He nudged her elbow gently. “Don’t be so smug. Now you answer me something.” She turned back to him. “Shoot.” Dave pointed one finger out toward the desert and made a realistic gun sound complete with long echo. Sarah grabbed her mouth, then dropped her hand and allowed her smile to echo as well. “Okay. Say your house is on fire. You’re in your room on the first floor, your two kids are asleep in their bedrooms on the third floor, while some adult guests are in the basement.” “I got no wife, no kids, Sarah.” “Play along, Dave, there will be a prize at the end.” He snorted. “I like prizes.” “Do you save the guests, or your kids?” “Maybe I save the adults, and they help me save my kids.” “But what if you head for the basement, and the fire spreads beyond control. You manage to get the adult guests out, but at what cost?” “Well, me and the guests line up by the kids’ windows and have them jump into our arms.” “Your kids are twenty-two and nineteen respectively, and owing to your big-boned wife tip the scales at 270 pounds each.”

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

  Then my mom would take that money, buy food in the spaza shops, and feed the kids. She was a child taking care of children. When it was time to pick my name, she chose Trevor, a name with no meaning whatsoever in South Africa, no precedent in my family. It’s not even a Biblical name. It’s just a name. My mother wanted her child beholden to no fate. She wanted me to be free to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. She gave me the tools to do it as well. She taught me English as my first language. She read to me constantly. The first book I learned to read was the book. The Bible. Church was where we got most of our other books, too. My mom would bring home boxes that white people had donated—picture books, chapter books, any book she could get her hands on. Then she signed up for a subscription program where we got books in the mail. It was a series of how-to books. How to Be a Good Friend. How to Be Honest. She bought a set of encyclopedias, too; it was fifteen years old and way out of date, but I would sit and pore through those. My books were my prized possessions. I had a bookshelf where I put them, and I was so proud of it. I loved my books and kept them in pristine condition. I read them over and over, but I did not bend the pages or the spines. I treasured every single one. As I grew older I started buying my own books. I loved fantasy, loved to get lost in worlds that didn’t exist. I remember there was some book about white boys who solved mysteries or some shit. I had no time for that. Give me Roald Dahl. James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. That was my fix. I had to fight to convince my mom to get the Narnia books for me. She didn’t like them. “This lion,” she said, “he is a false God—a false idol! You remember what happened when Moses came down from the mountain after he got the tablets...” “Yes, Mom,” I explained, “but the lion is a Christ figure. Technically, he is Jesus. It’s a story to explain Jesus.” She wasn’t comfortable with that. “No, no. No false idols, my friend.” Eventually I wore her down. That was a big win. If my mother had one goal, it was to free my mind. My mother spoke to me like an adult, which was unusual. In South Africa, kids play with kids and adults talk to adults. The adults supervise you, but they don’t get down on your level and talk to you. My mom did. All the time. I was like her best friend. She was always telling me stories, giving me lessons, Bible lessons especially.

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

  37. Aud he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. The lawyer, when praised by our Saviour for having answered right, breaks forth into pride, thinking that he had no neighbour, as though there was no one to be compared to him in righteousness. Hence it is said, But he willing to justify himself said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? For somehow first one sin and then another takes him captive. From the cunning with which he sought to tempt Christ, ho falls into pride. But here when asking, who is my neighbour, he proves himself to be devoid of love for his neighbour, since he did not consider any one to be his neighbour, and consequently of the love of God; for he who loves not his brother whom he sees, cannot love God whom he does not see. (1 John 4:20.) AMBROSE. He answered that he knew not his neighbour, because he believed not on Christ, and he who knows not Christ knows not the law, for being ignorant of the truth, how can he know the law which makes known the truth? THEOPHYLACT. Now our Saviour defines a neighbour not in respect of actions or honour, but of nature; as if He says, Think not that because thou art righteous thou hast no neighbour, for all who partake of the same nature are thy neighbours. Be thou also their neighbour, not in place, but in affection and solicitude for them. And in addition to this, he brings forward the Samaritan as an example. As it follows, And Jesus answering him said, A certain man went down, &c. GREEK EXPOSITOR. (Severus) He has well used the general term. For He says not, “a certain one went down,” but, a certain man, for his discourse was of the whole human race. AUGUSTINE. (de Ev. l. ii. q. 19.) For that man is taken for Adam himself, representing the race of man; Jerusalem, the city of peace, that heavenly country, from the bliss of which he fell. Jericho is interpreted to be the moon, and signifies our mortality, because it rises, increases, wanes, and sets. PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE. (Hypognos. lib. 3.) Or by Jerusalem, which is by interpretation “the sight of peace,” we mean Paradise, for before man sinned he was in sight of peace, that is, in paradise; whatever he saw was peace, and going thence he descended (as if brought low and made wretched by sin) into Jericho, that is, the world, in which all things that are born die as the moon. THEOPHYLACT. Now he says not “descended,” but “was descending.” For human nature was ever tending downwards, and not for a time only, but throughout busied about a life liable to suffering.

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

  I’m sure my parents would have been caught in their time together if he hadn’t been as private as he is. My mom was wild and impulsive. My father was reserved and rational. She was fire, he was ice. They were opposites that attracted, and I am a mix of them both. One thing I do know about my dad is that he hates racism and homogeneity more than anything, and not because of any feelings of self-righteousness or moral superiority. He just never understood how white people could be racist in South Africa. “Africa is full of black people,” he would say. “So why would you come all the way to Africa if you hate black people? If you hate black people so much, why did you move into their house?” To him it was insane. Because racism never made sense to my father, he never subscribed to any of the rules of apartheid. In the early eighties, before I was born, he opened one of the first integrated restaurants in Johannesburg, a steakhouse. He applied for a special license that allowed businesses to serve both black and white patrons. These licenses existed because hotels and restaurants needed them to serve black travelers and diplomats from other countries, who in theory weren’t subject to the same restrictions as black South Africans; black South Africans with money in turn exploited that loophole to frequent those hotels and restaurants. My dad’s restaurant was an instant, booming success. Black people came because there were few upscale establishments where they could eat, and they wanted to come and sit in a nice restaurant and see what that was like. White people came because they wanted to see what it was like to sit with black people. The white people would sit and watch the black people eat, and the black people would sit and eat and watch the white people watching them eat. The curiosity of being together overwhelmed the animosity keeping people apart. The place had a great vibe. The restaurant closed only because a few people in the neighborhood took it upon themselves to complain. They filed petitions, and the government started looking for ways to shut my dad down. At first the inspectors came and tried to get him on cleanliness and health- code violations. Clearly they had never heard of the Swiss. That failed dismally.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The ball fell with a plop, right into Grant’s glove. It was the third out, so there was no reason to throw the ball to first base—but she did. The ball landed in my glove with a whack. I braced my arms as I extended the ball and the glove towards Boney’s nose, which was rapidly approaching me. There was a little snapping sound as his nose hit the ball. The game was officially over. We’d won. I didn’t have to kiss Jim Boney, who was now bleeding all over first base. I would’ve claimed it was an accident, but no one asked. I caught sight of Jack glaring at me—always the foreman, even at a picnic. His menacing look chilled me. But I let it go because almost all the guys from the other team came over and slapped us on the back and said they were glad we won. I realized these guys had just lost to a team of he-shes—tright in front of their wives and girlfriends—but they didn’t seem sore about it. The butches were happy about winning, but they hung back a bit. I knew they were kind of peeved at me. It was a cocky challenge I had hurled at Jim Boney. It could’ve turned into a defeat for all the butches on the job, and they knew it. It was Jan who broke the ice. “All’s well that ends well, right, kid?” She put her arm around me. “T think P’d have died before I’d let you kiss that guy.” I looked shocked. “You didn’t think I would’ve kissed him if we’d lost, do your” Tommy ran up, out of breath. “Good game,” he extended his hand. My expression was frozen, but I shook his hand. “Look, Pm sorry, OK?” he told me. I shrugged. “You're not a bad guy, Tommy. But in front of the other guys you sink like a stone. I just don’t trust you.” He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Jan and I walked away. “You were pretty hard on him,” she said, “but I’m sure you had a good reason.” “Attention everyone! Can I have your attention!” It was Tommy, on top of a picnic table. We all came closer. He had Jim Boney’s prized baseball mitt in his hands. “On behalf of the losing team, Pd like to award the winning team this first baseman’s mitt. “Well,” he stammered, “first-base mitt’’ He tossed the glove to me. “You all won it fair and square.” Edna waited till Jan walked away from me before she came over. I saw the same deep pain in her eyes as she watched Jan from a distance. I wished a woman loved me that much. As Edna approached me, her Stone Butch Blues 95 mouth twisted into a teasing smile. She held my face lightly in both of her hands. “Good game, butch.” I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Aw, Edna, you know.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  high degree of confidence in his talents, and the series of promotions he received at ABC confirmed this self-opinion. He could afford to be a little cocky, because he had learned a lot on the job and his skills as a programmer had improved immensely. He was on a fast track toward the top, which he reached at the age of thirty-four by being named head of prime-time programming at ABC. As a person of high ambition, he soon felt that the world of television was somewhat constricting. There were limits to the kinds of entertainment he could program. The film world offered something looser, greater, and more glamorous. It was natural, then, for him to accept the position at Paramount. But at Paramount something occurred that began the subtle process of the unbalancing of his mind. Because the stage was bigger and he was the head of the studio, he began to receive attention from the media and the public. He was featured on the cover of magazines as the hottest film executive in Hollywood. This was qualitatively different from the attention and satisfaction that had come from the promotions at ABC. Now he had millions of people admiring him. How could their opinions be wrong? To them he was a genius, a new kind of hero altering the landscape of the studio system. This was intoxicating. It inevitably elevated his estimation of his skills. But it came with a great danger. The success that Eisner had had at Paramount was not completely of his own doing. When he had arrived at the studio, several films were already in preproduction, including Saturday Night Fever , which would spark the turnaround. Barry Diller was the perfect foil to Eisner. He would argue with him endlessly about his ideas, forcing Eisner to sharpen them. But puffed up by the attention he was receiving, Eisner had to imagine that he deserved the accolades he received strictly for his own efforts, and so naturally he subtracted from his success the elements of good timing and the contributions of others. Now his mind was subtly divorcing itself from reality. Instead of rigorously focusing on the audience and how to entertain people, he started to increasingly focus on himself, believing in the myth of his greatness as promulgated by others. He imagined he had the golden touch. At Disney the pattern repeated and grew more intense. He basked in the glow of his amazing success there, quickly forgetting the incredible good luck he had had in inheriting the Disney library at the time of the explosion of home video and family entertainment. He discounted the critical role that Wells had played in balancing him out. With his sense of grandeur growing, he faced a dilemma. He had become addicted to the attention that came from creating a splash, doing something big. He could not content himself with simple success and rising profits. He had to add to the myth to keep

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  an enormous crowd. Soon the whole business quieted down. The nuns were suddenly cleared of demons—all except Jeanne. The demons were not only refusing to leave her but were gaining a stronger hold on her. The Jesuits, hearing of this notorious possession, decided to take charge of the affair and sent father Jean-Joseph Surin to exorcise her once and for all. Surin found her a fascinating subject. She was completely versed in matters concerning demonology and was clearly despondent at her fate. And yet she did not seem to resist strongly enough the demons who inhabited her. Perhaps she had succumbed to their influence. One thing was certain: she had taken an unusual liking to Surin and kept him in the house for hours for spiritual discussions. She started to pray and meditate with more energy. She got rid of all possible luxuries: she slept on the hard floor and had vomit-inducing potions of wormwood poured over her food. She reported to Surin her progress and confessed to him “that she had come so near to God that she had received . . . a kiss from his mouth.” With Surin’s help, one demon after another fled her body. And then came her first miracle: the name Joseph could be read quite clearly in the palm of her left hand. When this faded away after several days, it was replaced by the name of Jesus, and then Mary, and then other names. It was a stigmata, a sign of true grace from God. After this Jeanne fell deeply ill and seemed close to death. She reported being visited by a beautiful young angel with long, flowing blond hair. Then Saint Joseph himself came to her and touched her side, where she felt the greatest pain, and anointed her with a fragrant oil. She recovered, and the oil left a mark on her chemise in the form of five clear drops. The demons were now gone, to Surin’s enormous relief. The story was over, but Jeanne surprised him with a strange request: she wanted to go on a tour of Europe, displaying these miracles to one and all. She felt it was her duty to do so. It seemed oddly contradictory to her modest character and ever so slightly worldly, but Surin agreed to accompany her. In Paris, enormous crowds filled the streets outside her hotel, wanting to catch a glimpse of her. She met Cardinal Richelieu, who seemed quite moved and kissed the fragrant chemise, now a saintly relic. She showed her stigmata to the King and Queen of France. The tour moved on. She met the greatest aristocrats and luminaries of her era. In one town, every day crowds of seven thousand people would enter the convent where she was staying. The demand to hear her story was so intense that she decided to issue a printed booklet in which she described in great detail her possession, her most intimate thoughts, and the miracle that had occurred.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  him. She was the most like him of all his children. As he would have done, she had thought ahead—her plan was to play for time until her remaining allies could come to her defense. She had cleverly fortified Ravaldino in a way that would allow her to keep retreating behind barricades if the walls were breached. In the end, they would have to take the castle from her by force, and she was more than prepared to die in defense of it, sword in hand. As she listened to Borgia address her, it was clear he had come to flatter and flirt—everyone knew his reputation as a devilish seducer, and many in Italy thought Caterina had rather loose morals. She listened and smiled, occasionally reminding him of her past deeds and her reputation as a Sforza—if he wanted her to surrender, he would have to do better. He persisted in his courtship and asked to parley with her personally. She appeared to finally succumb to his charm; she was a woman, after all. She ordered the drawbridge to be lowered and started walking toward him. He continued to press his case, and she gave him certain looks and smiles that indicated she was falling under his spell. Now only inches away, he reached for her arm, and she playfully withdrew it. They should discuss matters in the castle, she said with a coy expression, and began to walk back, inviting him to follow. As he stepped onto the drawbridge to catch up with her, it began to rise, and he leaped back to the other side just in time. Enraged and embarrassed by the trick she had tried to play, he swore revenge. During the next few days he unleashed a torrent of cannon fire at the castle walls, finally opening a breach. Borgia’s troops flooded in, led by the more experienced French. It was now hand-to-hand combat, and at the front of her remaining troops was Caterina. The head of the French troops, Yves d’Allegre, stared at her in amazement as the beautiful countess—her ornamented cuirass over her dress—charged at his men from the front line, handling her sword deftly, without a trace of fear. She and her men were about to withdraw further into the castle, hoping to prolong the battle for days, as she had planned, when one of her own soldiers grabbed her from behind and, his sword at her throat, marched her over to the other side. Borgia had put a price on her head, and the soldier had betrayed her for the reward. The siege was over, and Borgia himself took possession of his great prize. That night he raped her and kept her confined in his rooms, trying to make it seem to the world that the infamous warrior countess had willingly succumbed to his charms. Even under duress she refused to sign away her domain, and so she was brought to Rome and soon thrown into the dreaded prison

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  If you are older and have gone astray, take the skills you have acquired and find ways to gently channel them in the direction that will eventually mesh with your inclinations and spirit. Avoid sudden and drastic career changes that are impractical. Keep in mind that your contribution to the culture can come in many forms. You don’t have to become an entrepreneur or figure largely on the world’s stage. You can do just as well operating as one person in a group or organization, as long as you retain a strong point of view that is your own and use this to gently exert your influence. Your path can involve physical labor and craft—you take pride in the excellence of the work, leaving your particular stamp on the quality. It can be raising a family in the best way possible. No calling is superior to another. What matters is that it be tied to a personal need and inclination, and that your energy move you toward improvement and continual learning from experience. In any event, you will want to go as far as you can in cultivating your uniqueness and the originality that goes with it. In a world full of people who seem largely interchangeable, you cannot be replaced. You are one of a kind. Your combination of skills and experience is not replicable. That represents true freedom and the ultimate power we humans can possess. Strategies for Developing a High Sense of Purpose Once you commit yourself to developing or strengthening your sense of purpose, then the hard work begins. You will face many enemies and obstacles impeding your progress—the distracting voices of others who instill doubts about your calling and your uniqueness; your own boredom and frustrations with the work itself and your slow progress; the lack of trustworthy criticism from people to help you; the levels of anxiety you must manage; and finally, the burnout that often accompanies focused labor over long periods. The following five strategies are designed to help you move past these obstacles. They are in a loose order, the first being the essential starting point. You will want to put them all into practice to ensure continual movement forward. Discover your calling in life. You begin this strategy by looking for signs of primal inclinations in your earliest years, when they were often the clearest. Some people can easily remember such early indications, but for many of us it requires some introspection and some digging. What you are looking for is moments in which you were unusually fascinated by a particular subject, or certain objects, or specific activities and forms of play. The great nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scientist Marie Curie could distinctly recall the moment when she was four years old and entered her father’s office, suddenly mesmerized by the sight of all sorts of tubes and measuring devices for various chemistry experiments placed behind a polished glass case.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  CeCe McDonald wrote from a prison cell on November 16, 2012: “Trans Day of Remembrance: A Proposal” “We need for our mission to promote racial, social, and economic justice for trans youth, with freedom to self- define gender identity and expression. “[T]o have rights and a voice. To be able to walk in this world, not afraid and actually feel like a human being and not a shadow in a corner. “T would have rather been punished for asserting myself than become another victim of hatred. “We need to not only celebrate for Trans Day of Remembrance, but also become self-aware and ready to put an end to our community being the focus of violence. Of course it is more than important to recognize and pay homage to our fallen, but we also need to put our feet down and start being real leaders and making this stand.” CeCe McDonald won her release on January 13, 2014. Photo made together by CeCe McDonald & Leslie Feinberg during a jail visit in South Minneapolis on the evening of April 30, 2012—the first day of McDonald’s trial. Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic No commercial use except for social/media reports Visit www.lesliefeinberg.net for ‘This is what solidarity looks like!’ Slide show documenting breadth of demand to ‘Free CeCe!’ i have been locked by the lawless. Handcuffed by the haters. Gagged by the greedy. And, if 1 know anything at all, iUs that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It ean be broken down. from “t believe in living.” By Assata Shakur aSSA tash ak urorg’ Photo credit: Greg Butterfield ‘Stop Wall Street’s war on women!’ Wall Street New York City March 31, 2012 Photo credit: Gabriel Foster ‘May Day 2012’ Union Square New York City May 1, 2012 I delivered many messages of solidarity to CeCe McDonald during a brief visit with her in jail on the evening of her first day of trial. One message, sent by Reina Gossett (center, holding sign), in- cluded the last lines of Assata Shakur’s poem. I conveyed Reina’s message, omitting the poem. After the visit, | explained to Reina that | had feared the jailers who listen in might errone- ously jump to the conclusion that the message was code for escape. With this epigraph, | complete the task with which I was entrusted by Reina Gossett (thespiritwas.tumblr.com). —Leslie Feinberg, August 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS 001 = Stone Butch Blues CHAPTERS 1-26 333 = Author Notes on the 20th Anniversary E-dition 336 = Author Afterword to the 10th Anniversary Edition, Hxcerpts 339 = Author Preface to the Chinese Edition 343 = Author Note to the Serbo-Croatian Hdition 348 = Publication History 349 = Author: Thanks to the Team! 352 = Author Rights & Requests 358 = Translation Agreement 360 = About Leslie keinberg 363 = ‘Free CeCe!’ Previously translated into: Chinese, Turkish, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Italian, German, Dutch, and Hebrew (author royalties donated to Palestinian ASWAT) Stonewall American Library Association

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  point of view that is your own and use this to gently exert your influence. Your path can involve physical labor and craft—you take pride in the excellence of the work, leaving your particular stamp on the quality. It can be raising a family in the best way possible. No calling is superior to another. What matters is that it be tied to a personal need and inclination, and that your energy move you toward improvement and continual learning from experience. In any event, you will want to go as far as you can in cultivating your uniqueness and the originality that goes with it. In a world full of people who seem largely interchangeable, you cannot be replaced. You are one of a kind. Your combination of skills and experience is not replicable. That represents true freedom and the ultimate power we humans can possess. Strategies for Developing a High Sense of Purpose Once you commit yourself to developing or strengthening your sense of purpose, then the hard work begins. You will face many enemies and obstacles impeding your progress—the distracting voices of others who instill doubts about your calling and your uniqueness; your own boredom and frustrations with the work itself and your slow progress; the lack of trustworthy criticism from people to help you; the levels of anxiety you must manage; and finally, the burnout that often accompanies focused labor over long periods. The following five strategies are designed to help you move past these obstacles. They are in a loose order, the first being the essential starting point. You will want to put them all into practice to ensure continual movement forward. Discover your calling in life. You begin this strategy by looking for signs of primal inclinations in your earliest years, when they were often the clearest. Some people can easily remember such early indications, but for many of us it requires some introspection and some digging. What you are looking for is moments in which you were unusually fascinated by a particular subject, or certain objects, or specific activities and forms of play. The great nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scientist Marie Curie could distinctly recall the moment when she was four years old and entered her father’s office, suddenly mesmerized by the sight of all sorts of tubes and measuring devices for various chemistry experiments placed behind a polished glass case. Her whole life she would feel a similar visceral thrill whenever she entered a laboratory. For Anton Chekhov, it was attending his first play in a theater as a boy in his small town. The whole atmosphere of make-believe thrilled him. For Steve Jobs, it was passing an electronics store as a child and seeing the wondrous gadgets in the window, marveling at their design and complexity. For Tiger Woods, it was, at the age of two, watching his father hit golf balls into a net in the garage and being unable to contain his excitement and desire to imitate him. For the

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  know how to shape them for maximum effect. You can then transform yourself into a superior actor on the stage of life and enjoy your moment in the limelight. The following are some basics in the art of impression management. Master the nonverbal cues. In certain settings, when people want to get a fix on who we are, they pay greater attention to the nonverbal cues we emit. This could be in a job interview, a group meeting, or a public appearance. Aware of this, smart social performers will know how to control these cues to some degree and consciously emit the signs that are suitable and positive. They know how to seem likable, flash genuine smiles, use welcoming body language, and mirror the people they deal with. They know the dominance cues and how to radiate confidence. They know that certain looks are more expressive than words in conveying disdain or attraction. In general, you want to be aware of your nonverbal style so you can consciously alter certain aspects for better effect. Be a method actor. In method acting you train yourself to be able to display the proper emotions on command. You feel sad when your part calls for it by recalling your own experiences that caused such emotions, or if necessary by simply imagining such experiences. The point is that you have control. In real life it is not possible to train ourselves to such a degree, but if you have no control, if you are continually emoting whatever comes to you in the moment, you will subtly signal weakness and an overall lack of self-mastery. Learn how to consciously put yourself in the right emotional mood by imagining how and why you should feel the emotion suitable to the occasion or performance you are about to give. Surrender to the feeling for the moment so that the face and body are naturally animated. Sometimes by actually making yourself smile or frown, you will experience some of the emotions that go with these expressions. Just as important, train yourself to return to a more neutral expression at a natural moment, careful to not go too far with your emoting. Adapt to your audience. Although you conform to certain parameters set by the role you play, you must be flexible. A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and he would do the same for a group of executives. Know your audience and shape your nonverbal cues to their style and taste. Create the proper first impression. It has been demonstrated how much people tend to judge based on first impressions and the difficulties they have in reassessing these judgments. Knowing this, you must give extra attention to your first appearance before an

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  on the Republican ticket, but quickly regretted the choice. Nixon had kept a secret fund from the Republican Party that he had supposedly used for private purposes. In fact he was innocent of the charges, but Eisenhower did not feel comfortable with him, and this was the excuse to get rid of him. Cutting him loose in this way would almost certainly ruin Nixon’s political career. Once again he rose to the challenge, appearing on live television and delivering the speech of his life, defending himself against the charges. It was so effective, the public clamored for Eisenhower to keep him on the ticket. He went on to serve eight years as vice president. And so, the crushing defeats of 1960 and 1962 would again be the means of toughening himself up and resurrecting his career. He was like a cat with nine lives. Nothing could kill him. He laid low for a few years, then came charging back for the 1968 election. He was now the “new Nixon,” more relaxed and affable, a man who liked bowling and corny jokes. And having learned all the lessons from his various defeats, he ran one of the smoothest and savviest campaigns in modern history and made all of his enemies and doubters eat crow when he defeated Humphrey. In becoming president, he had seemingly reached the apex of power. But in his mind there was yet one more challenge to overcome, perhaps the greatest of all. Nixon’s liberal enemies saw him as a political animal, one who would resort to any kind of trickery to win an election. To the East Coast elites who hated him, he was the hick from Whittier, California, too obvious in his ambition. Nixon was determined to prove them all wrong. He was not who they thought he was. He was an idealist at heart, not a ruthless politician. His beloved mother, Hannah, was a devout Quaker who had instilled in him the importance of treating all people equally and promoting peace in the world. He wanted to craft a legacy as one of the greatest presidents in history. For the sake of his mother, who had died earlier that year, he wanted to embody her Quaker ideals and show his detractors how deeply they had misread him. His political icons were men like French president Charles de Gaulle, whom he had met and greatly admired. De Gaulle had crafted a persona that radiated authority and love of country. Nixon would do the same. In his notebooks he began to refer to himself as “RN”—the world leader version of himself. RN would be strong, resolute, compassionate yet completely masculine. The America he was to lead was riven by antiwar protests, riots in the cities, a rising crime rate. He would end the war and work toward world peace; at home he would bring prosperity to all Americans, stand for law and order, and instill a sense of decency the country had lost.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  If war was necessary, she would do it as economically and efficiently as possible. She invested large sums in creating the most elaborate spy system in Europe, which allowed her to know in advance Spain’s plans for the invasion, including the date of the launch. With such knowledge, she could commission and pay for an army at the last minute, saving huge sums of money. She financed Sir Frances Drake’s raids on the coast of Spain and its galleons at sea. This allowed her to enrich England’s coffers and delay the launching of the armada, which made it all the more expensive for Philip. When it seemed certain the launch would occur within a few months, she quickly built up the English navy, commissioning smaller and faster ships, cheaper to build in bulk and well suited to the English seas. Unlike Philip, she left battle strategy in the hands of her admirals, but she overruled them on one score—she wanted them to fight the armada as close to England as possible. This would play into English hands, as the Spanish galleons were not suited for the stormy northern seas, and the English soldiers, fighting with their backs to their country, would fight all the harder. In the end, Spain was bankrupted and never to return to her former glory, while England under Elizabeth was now the rising power. But after this great victory, she resisted the calls to take the battle to Spain and deal the country a fatal blow. She was not interested in war for glory or conquest but only to safeguard the country’s interests. After the defeat of the armada, her authority and credibility seemed invulnerable, but Elizabeth would never let her guard down. She knew that with age and success would naturally come that dreaded sense of entitlement and the insensitivity that went with it. As a woman ruling the country by herself, she could not afford such a letdown. She retained her receptiveness to the moods of those around her, and she could sense that the younger men now filling the court had a much different attitude toward her. Their respect was for her position as queen, but it did not run much deeper than that. Once again she would have to struggle against masculine egos, but this time without her own youthful charms and coquetry to fall back on. Her goal with Essex was to tame and channel his spirit for the good of the country, as she had done with her ministers. She indulged him in his endless desires for money and perks, trying to calm his insecurities, but when it came to giving him any political power, she set limits. He had to prove himself, to rise to her level, before she would grant him such powers. When he threw tantrums, she remained calm and steady, unconsciously proving to him her superiority and the need for self-control. When it became clear he

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  redirect this into active empathy (see chapter 2), and transform this flaw into an asset to use for positive social purposes. If you have a rebellious character, you have a natural dislike of conventions and the usual ways of doing things. Channel this into some kind of innovative work, instead of compulsively insulting and alienating people. For each weakness there is a corresponding strength. Finally, you need to also refine or cultivate those traits that go into a strong character—resilience under pressure, attention to detail, the ability to complete things, to work with a team, to be tolerant of people’s differences. The only way to do so is to work on your habits, which go into the slow formation of your character. For instance, you train yourself to not react in the moment by repeatedly placing yourself in stressful or adverse situations in order to get used to them. In boring everyday tasks, you cultivate greater patience and attention to detail. You deliberately take on tasks slightly above your level. In completing them, you have to work harder, helping you establish more discipline and better work habits. You train yourself to continually think of what is best for the team. You also search out others who display a strong character and associate with them as much as possible. In this way you can assimilate their energy and their habits. And to develop some flexibility in your character, always a sign of strength, you occasionally shake yourself up, trying out some new strategy or way of thinking, doing the opposite of what you would normally do. With such work you will no longer be a slave to the character created by your earliest years and the compulsive behavior it leads to. Even further, you can now actively shape your very character and the fate that goes with it. In anything, it is a mistake to think one can perform an action or behave in a certain way once and no more. (The mistake of those who say: “Let us slave away and save every penny til we are thirty, then we wil enjoy ourselves.” At thirty they wil have a bent for avarice and hard work, and wil never enjoy themselves any more . . . .) What one does, one wil do again, indeed has probably already done in the distant past. The agonizing thing in life is that it is our own decisions that throw us into this rut, under the wheels that crush us. (The truth is that, even before making those decisions, we were going in that direction.) A decision, an action, are infal ible omens of what we shal do another time, not for any vague, mystic, astrological reason but because they result from an automatic reaction that wil repeat itself. —Cesare Pavese 5 Become an Elusive Object of Desire The Law of Covetousness Absence and presence have very primal effects upon us. Too much presence suffocates; a degree of absence spurs our

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  others, to go his own way, and be a bit rough about it were key parts of his success, which we venerate. And so it is with many creative, powerful people. Subtract their active Shadow, and they would be like everyone else. Understand: You pay a greater price for being so nice and deferential than for consciously showing your Shadow. First, to follow the latter path you must begin by respecting your own opinions more and those of others less, particularly when it comes to your areas of expertise, to the field you have immersed yourself in. Trust your native genius and the ideas you have come up with. Second, get in the habit in your daily life of asserting yourself more and compromising less. Do this under control and at opportune moments. Third, start caring less what people think of you. You will feel a tremendous sense of liberation. Fourth, realize that at times you must offend and even hurt people who block your path, who have ugly values, who unjustly criticize you. Use such moments of clear injustice to bring out your Shadow and show it proudly. Fifth, feel free to play the impudent, willful child who mocks the stupidity and hypocrisy of others. Finally, flout the very conventions that others follow so scrupulously. For centuries, and still to this day, gender roles represent the most powerful convention of all. What men and women can do or say has been highly controlled, to the point where it seems almost to represent biological differences instead of social conventions. Women in particular are socialized to be extra nice and agreeable. They feel continual pressure to adhere to this and mistake it for something natural and biological. Some of the most influential women in history were those who deliberately broke with these codes—performers like Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker, political figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, businesswomen such as Coco Chanel. They brought out their Shadow and showed it by acting in ways that were traditionally thought of as masculine, blending and confusing gender roles. Even Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis gained great power by playing against the type of the traditional political wife. She had a pronounced malicious streak. When Norman Mailer first met her in 1960 and she seemed to poke fun at him, he saw that “something droll and hard came into her eyes as if she were a very naughty eight-year-old indeed.” When people displeased her, she showed it rather openly. She seemed to care little what others thought of her. And she became a sensation because of the naturalness she exuded. In general, consider this a form of exorcism. Once you show these desires and impulses, they no longer lie hidden in corners of your personality, twisting and operating in secret ways. You have released your demons and enhanced your presence as an authentic human. In this way, the Shadow becomes your ally. Unfortunately there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as a

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  And so when she entered public life at the age of ten, she naturally drifted beyond that restricted circle imposed on women. She could play many roles. As a dutiful Sforza, she could be the loyal wife. Naturally empathetic and caring, she could be the devoted mother. She felt great pleasure in being the most fashionable and beautiful young woman at the papal court. But when the actions of her husband appeared to doom her and her family, she felt herself called to play another role. Trained to think for herself and inspired by her father, she could turn into the daring soldier, bringing an entire city under her control. She could become the keen strategist, plotting several moves ahead in a crisis. She could lead her troops, sword in hand. As a young girl she had fantasized about playing these various roles, and it felt natural and deeply satisfying to do so in real life. We could say of Caterina that she had a feminine spirit with a pronounced masculine undertone, the reverse of her father. And these feminine and masculine traits were blended together, giving her a unique style of thinking and acting. When it came to ruling, she displayed a high degree of empathy, something quite unusual for the time. When plague struck Forlì, she comforted the sick, at great risk to her own life. She was willing to suffer the worst conditions in prison to safeguard the inheritance for her children, a rare act of self-sacrifice for a person of power. But at the same time she was a shrewd and tough negotiator, and she had no tolerance for the incompetent or the weak. She was ambitious and proud of it. In conflicts, she always strategized to outwit her aggressive male opponents and avoid bloodshed. With Cesare Borgia, she tried to lure him onto the drawbridge using her feminine wiles; later, she tried to lure him deeper and deeper into the castle, trapping him in a protracted battle, giving her allies plenty of time to rescue her. She nearly succeeded in both efforts. This ability to play many different roles, to blend the masculine with the feminine, was the source of her power. The only time she relinquished this was in her marriage to Giacomo Feo. When she fell in love with Feo, she was in a highly vulnerable position. The pressures on her had been immense—dealing with a hopeless and abusive husband, surviving the numerous pregnancies that had worn her down, holding together the tenuous political alliances she had built up. And so suddenly experiencing Feo’s adoring attention, it was natural for her to seek a respite from her burdens, to relinquish power and control for love. But in narrowing herself down to the role of the devoted wife, she had to repress her naturally expansive character. She had to expend her energy in placating her husband’s insecurities. In the process she lost all initiative and paid the price,

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Duffy handed me a book titled Labor’s Untold Story. 1 opened the cover. Inside he’d written: To Jess, with great expectations. “It’s a book I always wanted to give you,” he explained. “Lucky I had it in my desk drawer when you called.” I thought back to the autobiography of Mother Jones he’d given me years ago and inscribed the same way. “Does this mean I get another chance?” I asked. He smiled warmly. “You haven’t begun to use up your chances, Jess.” We both stood up and shook hands. He turned to go. “Hey, Duffy. I once asked you a question and you never answered it. Are you a communist?” Duffy turned around slowly. “I don’t know what that word means to you, so I don’t know what a yes would mean. What do you say we sit down over supper and [ll tell you how I see the world and my place in it?” I nodded. “Fair enough.” It was hot that night, almost too unbearable to sleep. The air pressure and humidity made it difficult to breathe. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I thought about how my life was changing, in little ways and big ways. And I thought about Theresa. I’d never written that letter she’d asked me for. Could I write it someday soon? What would I say? Where could I send it? The rain pelted my windows. As I fell asleep thinking about the letter, lightning bolts streaked the sky. During the night I had this dream: I walked across a vast field. Women and men and children stood on the edges of the field looking at me, smiling and nodding. I headed toward a small round hut near the edge of the woods. I had a feeling I had been in this place before. There were people who were different like me inside. We could all see our reflections in the faces of those who sat in this circle. I looked around. It was hard to say who was a woman, who was a man. Their faces radiated a different kind of beauty than Id grown up seeing celebrated on television or in magazines. It’s a beauty one isnt born with, but must fight to construct at great sacrifice. I felt proud to sit among them. I was proud to be one of them. Ai fire burned in the center of our gathering. One of the oldest in the circle caught my eyes. I didnt know if she was a man or a woman at birth. She held up an olyect. I understood I was supposed to accept the realness of this object. I looked more closely. It was the ring that the Dineh women gifted me with as an infant. I felt an urge to leap to my feet, to plead for the ring to be returned to me. I restrained the impulse.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  place a premium value on effort. The first thought or idea that comes to you is most often incomplete and inadequate. Think more thoroughly and deeply about your ideas, some of which you must discard. Do not become attached to your initial ideas, but rather treat them roughly. Keep in mind that your life is short, that it could end any day. You must have a sense of urgency to make the most of this limited time. You don’t need deadlines or people telling you what to do and when to finish. Any motivation you need comes from within. You are complete and self-reliant. When it comes to operating with this inner authority, we can consider Leonardo da Vinci our model. His motto in life was ostinato rigore , “relentless rigor.” Whenever Leonardo was given a commission, he went well beyond the task, poring over every detail to make the work more lifelike or effective. No one had to tell him to do this. He was ferociously diligent and hard on himself. Although his interests ranged far and wide, when he attacked a particular problem, it was with complete focus. He had a sense of a personal mission—to serve mankind, to contribute toward its progress. Impelled by this inner authority, he pushed beyond all of the limits that he had inherited—being an illegitimate son with little direction or education early on in his life. Such a voice will likewise help us push beyond the obstacles that life places in our path. It might seem at first glance that having such a voice from within could lead to a rather harsh and unpleasant life, but in fact it is the opposite. There is nothing more disorienting and depressing than to see the years pass by without a sense of direction, grasping to reach goals that keep changing, and squandering our youthful energies. Much as the outer authority helps keep the group unified, its energy channeled toward productive and higher ends, the inner authority brings you a sense of cohesion and force. You are not gnawed by the anxiety that comes with living below your potential. Feeling the higher self in ascendance, you can afford to indulge that lower self, to let it out at moments to release tension and not become a prisoner of your Shadow. And most important, you no longer need the comfort and guidance of a parent or leader. You have become your own mother and father, your own leader, truly independent and operating according to your inner authority. The select man, the excel ent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts. . . . We distinguished the excel ent man from the common man by saying that the former is one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself, but contents

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  amount of material from memories, experiences, and information absorbed in study. After prolonged research or work on a problem, when we relax our minds in dreams or while we are performing unrelated banal activities, the unconscious begins to go to work and associate all sorts of random ideas, some of the more interesting ones bubbling to the surface. We all have dreams, intuitions, and free associations of ideas, but we often refuse to pay attention to them or take them seriously. Instead you want to develop the habit of using this form of thought more often by having unstructured time in which you can play with ideas, widen the options you consider, and pay serious attention to what comes to you in less conscious states of mind. In a similar vein, you want to explore from within your own darkest impulses, even those that might seem criminal, and find a way to express them in your work or externalize them in some fashion, in a journal for instance. We all have aggressive and antisocial desires, even toward those we love. We also have traumas from our earliest years that are associated with emotions we prefer to forget. The greatest art in all media somehow expresses these depths, which causes a powerful reaction in us all because they are so repressed. Such is the power of the films of Ingmar Bergman or the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and you can have the same power by externalizing your dark side. Show the Shadow. Most of the time we secretly suffer from the endless social codes we have to adhere to. We have to seem so nice and agreeable, always going along with the group. We better not show too much confidence or ambition. Seem humble and similar to everyone else; that’s how the game is played. In following this path we gain comfort by fitting in, but we also become defensive and secretly resentful. Being so nice becomes a habit, which easily turns into timidity, lack of confidence, and indecision. At the same time, our Shadow will show itself, but unconsciously, in explosive fits and starts, and often to our detriment. It would be wise to look at those who are successful in their field. Inevitably we will see that most of them are much less bound by these codes. They are generally more assertive and overtly ambitious. They care much less what others think of them. They flout the conventions openly and proudly. And they are not punished but greatly rewarded. Steve Jobs is a classic example. He showed his rough, Shadow side in his way of working with others. Our tendency in looking at people like Jobs is to admire their creativity and subtract their darker qualities as unnecessary. If only he had been nicer, he would have been a saint. But in fact the dark side was inextricably interwoven with his power and creativity. His ability to not listen to