Realization

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 Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  The’Rebellion’ did not occupy me for more than six weeks, but this brief period proved to be a very important epoch in my life. The importance of vows grew upon me more clearly than ever before. I realized that a vow, far from closing the door to real freedom, opened it. Up to this time I had not met with success because the will had been lacking, because I had had no faith in myself, no faith in the grace of God, and therefore, my mind had been tossed on the boisterous sea of doubt. I realized that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism to a real monogamous marriage. ‘I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows,’ is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision ? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realized the necessity of definite action.’But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow ? ‘ Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced. That is why Nishkulanand has sung ‘Renunciatfon without aversion is not lasting.’ Where therefore the desire is gone, a vow of renunciation is the natural and inevitable fruit. 64BRAHM ACHARYA - IIAfter full discussion and mature deliberation I took the vow in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of taking the vow. She had no objection. But I had great difficulty in making the final resolve. I had not the necessary strength. How was I to control my passions? The elimination of carnal relationship with one’s wife seemed then a strange thing. But I launched forth with faith in the sustaining power of God. As I look back upon the twenty years of the vow, I am filled with pleasure and wonderment. The more or less successful practice of self-control had been going on since 1901. But the freedom and joy that came to me after taking the vow had never been experienced before 1906. Before the vow I had been open to being overcome by temptation at any moment. Now the vow was a sure shield against temptation. The great potentiality of brahmacharya daily became more an more patent to me. The vow was taken when I was in Phoenix.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES The case having been concluded, I had no reason for staying in Pretoria. So I went back to Durban and began to make preparations for my return home. But Abdulla Sheth was not the man to let me sail without a send-off. He gave a farewell party in my honour at Sydenham. It was proposed to spend the whole day there. Whilst I was turning over the sheets of some of the newspapers I found there, I chanced to see a paragraph in a corner of one of them under the caption ‘Indian franchise’. It was with reference to the Bill then before the House of Legislature, which sought to deprive the Indians of their right to elect members of the Natal Legislative Assembly. I was ignorant of the Bill, and so were the rest of the guests who had assembled there. I inquired of Abdulla Sheth about it. He said: ‘What can we understand in these matters? We can only understand things that affect our trade. As you know all our trade in the Orange Free State has been swept away. We agitated about it, but in vain. We are after all lame men, being unlettered. We generally take in newspapers simply to ascertain the daily market rates, etc. What can we know of legislation? Our eyes and ears are the European attorneys here.’ ‘But,’said I, ‘there are so many young Indians born and educated here, Do not they help you?’ ‘They!’ exclaimed Abdulla Sheth in despair. ‘They never care to come to us, and to tell you the truth, we care less to recognize them. Being Christians, they are under the thumb of the white clergymen, who in their turn are subject to the Government.’ This opened my eyes. I felt that this class should be claimed as our own. Was

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  my wont Idiscussed my thoughts with my co-workers, It became my conviction that procreation and the consequent care of children were inconsistent with public serviice. I had to break up my household at Johannesburg to be able to serve during the ‘Rebellion’. Within one month of offering my services, I had to give up the house I had so carefully furnished. I took my wife and children to Phoenix and led the Indian ambulance corps attached to the Natal forces. During the difficult marches that had then to be performed, the idea flashed upon me that if I wanted to devote myself to the service of the community in this manner, I must relinquish the desire for children and wealth and live the life of a vanaprastha – of one retired from household cares. The’Rebellion’ did not occupy me for more than six weeks, but this brief period proved to be a very important epoch in my life. The importance of vows grew upon me more clearly than ever before. I realized that a vow, far from closing the door to real freedom, opened it. Up to this time I had not met with success because the will had been lacking, because I had had no faith in myself, no faith in the grace of God, and therefore, my mind had been tossed on the boisterous sea of doubt. I realized that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism to a real monogamous marriage. ‘I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows,’ is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision ? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realized the necessity of definite action.’But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow ? ‘ Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced. That is why Nishkulanand has sung ‘Renunciatfon without aversion is not lasting.’ Where therefore the desire is gone, a vow of renunciation is the natural and inevitable fruit. 64.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Again, to his credit, the young man persisted. He did not beg to be released (though he did beg for a reprieve). He did not lose his temper or revile his tormenters. He struggled with his pain, willing (though not wise enough) to savor it. But he began to see what transcendence might be possible, what god he might someday be fit to serve. The spoiler had suddenly pulled away and stood up. His pawn had almost come, and he would not allow that, even if the boy’s cock had not been trussed up, and the orgasm would not have damaged it. The master was running his silk-clad hands over the bruised scarlet skin, murmuring like a groom soothing a jumpy horse. He had no more use for the boy, so he was tender. He could tell that Curt couldn’t take much more, and he was not interested in continuing at the present level. It would have taken days of this sort of work to make his arm just a little tired, and nowadays, exhaustion was the chief thing he got out of flogging. Normally, at this point in the scene he would offer the subject’s ass to the other master, if one were present. Most bottoms got pissy if there wasn’t some kind of sex at the end of a scene, and he personally found it distasteful. There was a limit to pretense, after all, a limit to what you could give someone who was not your heart’s desire. But the spoiler had anticipated this and deflected the invitation. “My turn,” he said, drawing a whip from his shirt. It had been wrapped around his waist, hidden until now. He had been lucky to wear it on this night’s jaunt. This occasioned some alarm on one face, some curiosity on the other. “Be my guest,” said the master, and went to hold up the wall and commune with a small, brown cigar. This was the man who had pointed the boy in his direction. Perhaps Curt had capabilities the master had not sensed. The spoiler shook out a dog quirt. It was a single length of light tan leather, plaited in David Morgan’s workshop, thirty-nine inches in length. Of that, ten inches were the cracker of braided black cord. Sweat had started to darken its handle and the inside of the wrist strap. It was a signal whip, intended to make a rhythmic noise that would set the pace for a dog team. It could also be used to alert the lead dog to change direction, or break up a fight. It was not used to punish huskies, who had such thick fur and hides that they would have simply grinned the way dogs do when people do something foolish, and continued about their noisy bad-dog business. But a boy’s skin is not nearly as thick as a wolfdog’s, as Curt was about to learn.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Sir Malcolm decided to travel with Connie, and Duncan could come on with Hilda. The old artist always did himself well: he took berths on the Orient Express, in spite of Connie's dislike of _trains de luxe_, the atmosphere of vulgar depravity there is aboard them nowadays. However, it would make the journey to Paris shorter. Sir Malcolm was always uneasy going back to his wife. It was habit carried over from the first wife. But there would be a house-party for the grouse, and he wanted to be well ahead. Connie, sunburnt and handsome, sat in silence, forgetting all about the landscape. "A little dull for you, going back to Wragby," said her father, noticing her glumness. "I'm not sure I shall go back to Wragby," she said, with startling abruptness, looking into his eyes with her big blue eyes. His big blue eyes took on the frightened look of a man whose social conscience is not quite clear. "You mean you'll stay on in Paris a while?" "No! I mean never go back to Wragby." He was bothered by his own little problems, and sincerely hoped he was getting none of hers to shoulder. "How's that, all at once?" he asked. "I'm going to have a child." It was the first time she had uttered the words to any living soul, and it seemed to mark a cleavage in her life. "How do you know?" said her father. She smiled. "How _should_ I know!" "But not Clifford's child, of course?" "No! Another man's." She rather enjoyed tormenting him. "Do I know the man?" asked Sir Malcolm. "No! You've never seen him." There was a long pause. "And what are your plans?" "I don't know. That's the point." "No patching it up with Clifford?" "I suppose Clifford would take it," said Connie. "He told me, after last time you talked to him, he wouldn't mind if I had a child: so long as I went about it discreetly." "Only sensible thing he could say, under the circumstances. Then I suppose it'll be all right." "In what way?" said Connie, looking into her father's eyes. They were big blue eyes rather like her own, but with a certain uneasiness in them, a look sometimes of an uneasy little boy, sometimes a look of sullen selfishness, usually good-humoured and wary. "You can present Clifford with an heir to all the Chatterleys, and put another baronet in Wragby." Sir Malcolm's face smiled with a half-sensual smile. "But I don't think I want to," she said.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  realized that nothing but harm could result from adopting a resolution that even those who voted for it were unable to carry out. ‘Mere boycott of foreign cloth cannot satisfy us, for who knows long it will be, before we shall be able to manufacture Swadeshi cloth in sufficient quantity for our needs, and before we can bring about effective boycott of foreign cloth? We want something that will produce an immediate effect on the British. Let your boycott of foreign cloth stand, we do not mind it, but give us something quicker, and speedier in addition’- so spoke in effect Maulana Hasrat Mohani. Even as I was listening to him, I felt that something new, over and above boycott of foreign cloth, would be necessary. An immediate boycott of foreign cloth seemed to me also to be a clear impossibility at that time. I did not then know that we could, if we liked, produce enough Khadi for all our clothing requirements; this was only a later discovery. On the other hand, I knew even then that, if we depended on the mills alone for effecting the boycott of foreign cloth, we should be betrayed. I was still in the middle of this dilemma when the Maulana concluded his speech. I was handicapped for want of suitable Hind or Urdu words. This was my first occasion for delivering an argumentative speech before an audience especially composed of Musalmans of the North. I had spoken in Urdu at the Muslim League at Calcutta, but it was only for a few minutes, and the speech was intended only to be a feeling appeal to the audience. Here, on the contrary, I was faced with a critical, if not hostile, audience, to whom I had to explain and bring home my view-point. But I had cast aside all shyness. I was not there to deliver an address in the faultless, polished Urdu of the Delhi Muslims, but to place before the gathering my views in such broken Hindi as I could command. And in this I was successful. This meeting afforded me a direct proof of the fact that Hindi-Urdu alone could become the #lingua franca# of India. Had I spoken in

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The influence of Le Fèvre and the study of the Bible brought him gradually to the conviction that salvation can be found only in Christ, that the word of God is the only rule of faith, and that the Roman traditions and rites are inventions of man. He was amazed that he could find in the New Testament no trace of the pope, of the hierarchy, of indulgences, of purgatory, of the mass, of seven sacraments, of sacerdotal celibacy, of the worship of Mary and the saints. Le Fèvre, being charged with heresy by the Sorbonne, retired in 1521 to his friend William Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux, who was convinced of the necessity of a reformation within the Catholic Church, without separation from Rome.342 There he translated the New Testament into French, which was published in 1523 without his name (almost simultaneously with Luther’s German New Testament.) Several of his pupils, Farel, Gérard, Roussel, Michel d’Arande, followed him to Meaux, and were authorized by Briçonnet to preach in his diocese. Margaret of Valois, sister of King Francis I. (then Duchess of Alençon, afterwards Queen of Navarre), patronized the reformers and also the freethinkers. But Farel was too radical for the mild bishop, and forbidden to preach, April 12, 1523. He went to Gap and made some converts, including four of his brothers; but the people found his doctrine "very strange," and drove him away. There was no safety for him anywhere in France, which then began seriously to persecute the Protestants. Farel fled to Basel, and was hospitably received by Oecolampadius. At his suggestion he held a public disputation in Latin on thirteen theses, in which he asserted the perfection of the Scriptures, Christian liberty, the duty of pastors to preach the Gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith, and denounced images, fasting, celibacy, and Jewish ceremonies (Feb. 23, 1524).343 The disputation was successful, and led to the conversion of the Franciscan monk Pellican, a distinguished Greek and Hebrew scholar, who afterwards became professor at Zürich. He also delivered public lectures and sermons. Oecolampadius wrote to Luther that Farel was a match for the Sorbonne.344 Erasmus, whom Farel imprudently charged with cowardice and called a Balaam, regarded him as a dangerous disturber of the peace,345 and the Council (probably at the advice of Erasmus) expelled him from the city. Farel now spent about a year in Strassburg with Bucer and Capito. Before he went there he made a brief visit to Zürich, Schaffhausen, and Constance, and became acquainted with Zwingli, Myconius, and Grebel. He had a letter of commendation to Luther from Oecolampadius, but it is not likely that he went to Wittenberg, since there is no allusion to it either in his or in Luther’s letters. At the request of Ulrich, Duke of Würtemberg, he preached in Mömpelgard (Montbéliard), and roused a fierce opposition, which forced him soon to return to Strassburg. Here he found Le Fèvre and other friends from Meaux, whom the persecution had forced to flee.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  “It’s such a relative thing,” Christina mused. “Where I came from is so different than where you came from, so what sex means to me is so different. If a year ago I’d had sex with two people, I wouldn’t have been okay with that. But now I am. So I think the ‘meaningful’ has to be a sliding definition both for each person and over time. And I think . . . I think I don’t care anymore about someone’s number. I mean, for safe sex, yes, but in terms of feeling like they’re a morally better or worse person . . . I used to think the checklist of whether or not you were a good person was about ‘are you drinking, are you smoking, are you having sex, are you loose in these ways’? That’s not my checklist at all anymore. Because everyone has so much more depth and so many more dimensions than that. “And I don’t think I want to set lines for myself anymore, either,” she added. “Because you’ll be disappointed when you cross them. I have to trust myself to know what feels good and natural and what doesn’t.” Caitlin was messing with Christina’s computer and had cued up another Pam Stenzel video. This one was called “Definition of Sex.” Stenzel was still pacing in front of the “High Cost of Free Love” sign, spieling like a Catskills tummler. She talked about a girl she’d met who’d had a “radical hysterectomy” at eighteen; her cervical cancer was diagnosed in ninth grade, caused by her contracting HPV in seventh. (While she warned, correctly, that condoms can’t fully protect against HPV, Stenzel neglected to mention there is a vaccine, offered by pediatricians when children are eleven, that will. Nor did she mention that regular pap smears will effectively screen for abnormalities.) Then she began to talk once again about virginity. “I’m now going to give you the medical definition of ‘sex,’” she said. (And right there a viewer should have been suspicious, since, as I’ve said, there actually isn’t one.) “This is the medical line over which you can’t step, and if you have ever stepped over this line, you have risked disease and you need to get tested, and don’t you DARE! Don’t you DARE tell anyone you’re a virgin! Here is the line over which you can’t step. Absolutely no genital contact of any kind. That’s hand-to-genital, mouth-to-genital, genital-to-genital. Oral sex, which is mouth-to-genital, is sex. Hence the name ‘oral sex.’ And if you have had oral sex, you are not a virgin and don’t you dare tell anyone you are.”

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  9 When they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, who guarded the doors, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah and Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 Then they gave it to the workmen who were appointed over the house of the LORD , and the workmen who were working in the house of the LORD gave it [to others] to repair and restore the house (temple). 11 They in turn gave it to the carpenters and builders to buy quarried stone and timber for couplings (trusses, braces) and to make beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had let go to ruin. 12 The men did the work faithfully with foremen over them to supervise and inspect [their work]: Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam of the sons of the Kohathites, and the Levites, all who were skillful with musical instruments. 13 They were also in charge of the burden bearers [who carried heavy loads], and supervised all the workmen in any kind of service; and some of the Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers. Hilkiah Discovers Lost Book of the Law 14 When they were bringing out the money which had been brought into the house of the LORD , Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the LORD given by Moses. 15 Hilkiah told Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD .” And he gave the book to Shaphan. 16 Shaphan brought the book to the king, but [first] reported further to him, “Your servants are doing everything that was entrusted to them. 17 “They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the LORD , and have delivered it into the hands of the overseers and the workmen.” 18 Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king. 19 When the king heard the words of the Law, he tore his clothes.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Her intentional invocation of her own corporeality through the use of embodied discourse reminds us that intellectual work is not a disembodied project. That fact alone makes it untenable for scholars to continue to read Black women’s literature solely or primarily through the corporeal frames offered to us by the culture of dissemblance or the politics of respectability. Respectability and dissemblance belong to a broader constellation of social formulations that race women theorized and enacted to protect themselves and make themselves known on their own terms. But if we fail to move beyond respectability, we will continue to miss critical parts of the story. Cooper, like other Black women thinkers of her time, recognized that muting her body, or dissembling, offered little safety and limited prospects for achieving respectability. For instance, in what is most assuredly an allusion to Ida B. Wells’s violent encounter on a train in the late 1880s, Cooper wrote, “I purposely forbear to mention instances of personal violence to colored women traveling in less civilized sections of our country, where women have been forcibly ejected from cars, thrown out of seats, their garments rudely torn, their person wantonly and cruelly injured.”19 This forthright presentation of a Black female body injured in the process of doing race work is just one of many examples of how embodied discourse shows up in Cooper’s work and that of other Black women—pushing us to deal with the embodied dimensions of public Black women’s lives. Cooper’s use of embodied discourse as a disruptive textual practice ultimately locates Black female bodies within the project of racial knowledge production and the reorganization of place or public space. For Cooper, and for this project, Black bodies—and in particular, Black women’s bodies—mark possibilities and generative tensions that are sites of inspiration and theory production. Whether the orienting Black body included a pregnant woman, a young man, an embryonic, gender neutral body, or even her own body experiencing various modes of segregation, Cooper’s work can be read through tracking the varying invocations of Black bodies as a mechanism for theory production itself.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  27 ‘Therefore, O king, let my advice to you be [considered and found] acceptable; break away now from your sins and exhibit your repentance by doing what is right, and from your wickedness by showing mercy to the poor, so that [if you repent] there may possibly be a continuance of your prosperity and tranquility and a healing of your error.’ The Vision Fulfilled 28 “All this happened to Nebuchadnezzar the king. 29 “Twelve months later he was walking on the upper level of the royal palace of Babylon. 30 “The king said thoughtfully, ‘Is not this the great Babylon which I myself have built as the royal residence and seat of government by the might of my power and for the honor and glory of my majesty?’ 31 “While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came [as if falling] from heaven, saying, ‘O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: “The kingdom has been removed from you, 32 and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the animals of the field. You will be given grass to eat like the cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you know [without any doubt] that the Most High God rules over the kingdom of mankind and He bestows it on whomever He desires.” ’ 33 “Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was b driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails were like birds’ claws . 34 “But at the end of the days [that is, at the seven periods of time], I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my understanding and reason returned to me; and I blessed the Most High [God] and I praised and honored and glorified Him who lives forever, For His dominion is an everlasting dominion; And His kingdom endures from generation to generation. 35 “All the inhabitants of the earth are regarded as nothing. But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth; And no one can hold back His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’ 36 “Now at the same time my reason returned to me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor were returned to me, and my counselors and my nobles began seeking me out; so I was re-established in my kingdom, and still more greatness [than before] was added to me.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  I realize how easily desire is transformed into reality. I have to be careful even of what I dream, since for me between dream and reality there is only the thinnest veil. The One Book I Always Wanted to Write—The World of SexIn reading my books which are purely autobiographical one should bear in mind that I am writing of things which happened a considerable time ago. The Tropic of Capricorn , for example, which will run to several volumes, deals chiefly with a period of about seven years’ duration, my life with a woman called Mona in Tropic of Cancer . In telling this story I am not following a strict chronological sequence but have chosen to adopt a circular or spiral form of time development which enables me to expand freely in any direction at any given moment. The ordinary chronological development seems to me wooden and artificial, a synthetic reconstitution of the facts of life. The facts and events of life are for me only the starting points on the way towards the discovery of truth. I am trying to get at the inner pattern of events, trying to follow the potential being who was deflected from his course here and there, who circled around himself, so to speak, who was becalmed for long stretches or who sank to the bottom of the sea or suddenly flew to the loftiest peaks. I am trying to seize the quintessential moments in which things happened, things which altered me profoundly. The man who tells the story is not the one who experienced the events recorded. There is distortion and deformation, but only for the purpose of capturing the true inner reality. Thus, for no apparent reason, I may often lapse back into a period anterior to the one I am talking about. The reader may find himself puzzled: he may wonder about the relevancy of such lapses. But they are dictated by necessity. A sudden switch, a long parenthetical detour, a monologue, a remembrance which suddenly crops up, all these, without conscious effort on my part, serve to bind the loose threads together and augment the whole emotional trend. A man does not go forward through life along a straight, horizontal path; often he does not stop at the stations indicated on the time table; sometimes he goes off the track completely; sometimes he dives below and is lost for a time, or he takes to the air and is flung against the side of a steep cliff. Tremendous voyages sometimes occur without the person moving from the spot. In five minutes some men have lived out the span of an ordinary man’s life. Some men use up numbers of lives in the course of their stay on earth. Some develop like mushrooms, while others slip back, retrogress. What goes on at every moment in the life of each and every man is something forever unfathomable and inexhaustible to relate.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Or, and from a Zen view not such a weakness either, the desire to imitate life. Not record or present life, but imitate it, in short, make books live. All this leading to that point I began to make in my writings, and which bothers writers no end, that the highest art is the art of living, that writing is but a prelude or form of initiation for this purpose. From this standpoint most every writer is consequently a rank failure. The fear which writers or artists in general have when confronted with such an issue is that art would disappear. Dear Art! As if anything could destroy it. How do you destroy the cornerstone of life? Why worry? True, we may eliminate the hot-house geniuses—but on the other hand we might, once again, endow everything we see, do, touch or think about with art. We may all become, or re-become, artists! There is the kind of immolation (of the artist) I believe in. But even from a limited, academic, hidebound point of view, the traditional art view, how silly it is for critics to be disturbed about slag, excrescences, drift and scoriae. How little they understand the role or the value of the so-called non-essential, the commonplace, the ugly, the inartistic. Their desire for perfection is so similar to that false religious attitude which desires only the good. You may think I am trying to justify my weakness. No, I am trying to tell you that I learned as much, or more, from the bad, the wrong, the slipshod, the evil, the misfit, and so on, than the other way round. When we speak of a person getting to grips with himself, accepting himself for what he is, we do not simply mean that he admits and recognizes his weaknesses but that he also discovers how important they were in his evolution. Asked how long a man’s legs should be, Lincoln replied: “Just long enough to reach from his waist to the ground.” And then there’s another thing about the drift and slag … have you ever noticed how, in life, there come these dull, dull moments when everything drags, everything seems futile, and you grow into a sort of vegetable … and just when you have reached the nadir, so to speak, of your being, there comes an awakening from deep down, like a flower opening its petals, and little by little, as if there were chinks in your armor, the light seeps in, stirs you gently back to life and awareness. But that vegetable pause or break was necessary; without it there would be no wonderful return. I say “wonderful” return to distinguish it from the usual returns which occur more frequently—because admit it or not, we are continually on the verge of falling asleep (mentally, morally, spiritually).

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  One day he didn’t come to school, and the next day the teacher announced that he had gotten sick and died. That was all. I recall no particular reaction—my own or anyone else’s in the class. But there is one extraordinary thing about it: L.E.’s face remains so clearly in my mind. I can still visualize him—with an astonished look on his face and his very light blond hair standing straight up in a short crew cut. D R. Y ALOM: And that’s extraordinary because?… I RVIN: It is extraordinary that his image is so clear. It’s weird because I didn’t know him very well. I think he was in my class only that one year. What’s more, he had some kind of sickness and his mother drove him to and from school, and so we never walked home together or played. There were many other kids in that class whom I knew far, far better, and yet I can’t remember any other faces. D R. Y ALOM: And that means that?… I RVIN: It must mean that death obviously caught my attention, but that I chose not to think about it directly. D R. Y ALOM: Were there times you did think directly about it? I RVIN: It’s hazy in my mind, but I recall I was walking around in my neighborhood, after having played on the pinball machine at a five-and-dime store, and the idea just thundered down on me that I was going to die like everyone else, everyone who lives, or will ever live. That’s all I remember, except I know that it was my first realization of my own death, and also that I couldn’t hold it in my mind for very long, and, of course, I never spoke of it to anyone. Until now. D R. Y ALOM: Why “of course”? I RVIN: My life is very solitary. There’s no one I can share those thoughts with. D R. Y ALOM: Does solitary mean lonely? I RVIN: Oh, yes. D R. Y ALOM: What comes to mind when you think of “lonely”? I RVIN: I think of riding my bike in the old “Soldiers Home,” a large park about ten blocks from my father’s store… D R. Y ALOM: You always say “my father’s store” rather than “my home.” I RVIN: Yes, good catch, Dr. Yalom. I just noticed that too. My shame about my home runs deep. What comes to mind—and I’m still free-associating, right? D R. Y ALOM: Right. Continue. I RVIN: What comes to mind is a Saturday night birthday party I attended when I was about eleven or twelve held at a very ritzy house, a house the likes of which I had never seen except in Hollywood films. It was the home of a girl named Judy Steinberg whom I had met and romanced at a summer camp—I think we even kissed.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  See further ARN 39 (ET, p. 162). Tannaitic Literature [I pay a good reward to the righteous!' 122 In any case, this is a relatively small development within the general idea that the suffering of the righteous is to be explained as God's just punishment for their few sins. 123 Having been punished here, they need not be punished hereafter. Thus Israel is compared to a vessel of common earthenware which, having been broken, cannot be 'punished' further. 'Thus when punishment ceases from Israel, it will not return upon them in the future.' 124 This discussion shows again how incorrect the weighing idea is as an accurate reflection of the views of the Tannaim. It follows logically from their conception of the justice of God, and is sometimes stated. But they also thought that God had provided means of atonement which were both thoroughly efficacious and also in accord with his justice. If salvation be viewed as God's activity, then sufferings may be said to satisfy God's just require- ment; one is not both punished and damned for transgression. 125 But internally, sufferings are seen by the religious man as moving him to examination and repentance. The Rabbis did not see suffering as God's just punishment for transgression and suffering as God's means of urging man to repentance as in any way in conflict. Both statements spring from deeply held religious convictions (God is just and man is liable to sin and in need of repentance) and both can be expressed by saying that suffering brings atonement. 126 It is only a small step to saying that death atones. In addition to the state- ment of R. Ishmael, we have already seen Yoma 8.8, which probably reflects the view of R. Akiba. In Sifre Numbers, this view is explicitly credited to R. Akiba. Commenting on Numbers 5.8, he says that the specified guilt- offering is to be brought for a person who needs atonement, but this excludes one who is dead, since his soul (or life) has atoned for him. 12 7 The logic behind the view that death atones is the same as that behind the 122 Mek. Vayassa' 3 (165; II, 110 [ch. 4]; to 16.13). 123 See further on this topic Biichler, Types, pp. 111-14 (who thinks that the general view that one suffers here in order to enter the world to come purified can be traced to the first century); Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind, p. 218. We should note that later in the second century there was at least a partial return to the early idea (see the beginning of section 6) that the righteous prosper in this world also. Thus the sayings by R. Simeon b. Judah in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai and by R. Simeon b. Menasya in Aboth 6.8 (cf. T.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  Among the Greeks and the Romans, the practice of life guidance included a fairly wide range of different procedures. One finds it in the form of discontinuous and circumstantial relations: Antiphon the Sophist maintained a consulting office where he would sell advice to those facing difficult situations,2 and the physicians would respond to requests concerning not only physical ailments but also moral illnesses: just as much as preventive methods or guidelines for health, the regimens they prescribed were rules for living, for controlling the passions, gaining self-control, managing the economy of pleasures, and ensuring fairness in relations with others.3 But the consultations could also be acts of friendship and kindness, without remuneration: conversations, exchanges of correspondence, drafting of a little treatise addressed to a friend in distress. In general, these episodic forms of direction responded to a specific situation: a stroke of bad luck, exile, a spell of mourning could trigger them, but also a crisis, a period of difficulty, a moment of uncertainty. This was the case with Serenus when he explained his condition to Seneca, requesting the aid of his diagnosis and his counsel.4 He felt he was no longer progressing on the path of Stoic wisdom: opposite impulses were agitating his soul, not to the point of provoking a “storm,” but with enough force to give him “something like seasickness.”5 But there also existed much more continuous and much more institutionalized forms of direction. They functioned in the schools of philosophy in particular. There the discipline of collective life that was imposed on everyone was completed by much more individualized relations. The teacher was a constant guide for the disciple: he taught him the truth little by little, helped him progress on the path of virtue, self-control, and tranquility of the soul, tested his progress, and, day by day, gave him advice on living. Thus, among the Epicureans, individual interviews were set up, a rule of frankness was imposed on members of the school, encouraging everyone to reveal their soul and not to hide anything, so that they might be guided effectively; only the wisest teachers could take charge of this individual direction of students, while the others had the collective responsibility for a group.6

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Accordingly, Christmas Day come, the lady arose at daybreak and attiring herself, repaired to the church appointed her of her husband, who, on his part, betook himself to the same place and reached it before her. Having already taken order with the chaplain of that which he had a mind to do, he hastily donned one of the latter's gowns, with a great flapped cowl, such as we see priests wear, and drawing the hood a little over his face, seated himself in the choir. The lady, entering the chapel, enquired for the chaplain, who came and hearing from her that she would fain confess, said that he could not hear her, but would send her one of his brethren. Accordingly, going away, he sent her the jealous man, in an ill hour for the latter, who came up with a very grave air, and albeit the day was not over bright and he had drawn the cowl far over his eyes, knew not so well to disguise himself but he was readily recognized by the lady, who, seeing this, said in herself, 'Praised be God! From a jealous man he is turned priest; but no matter; I will e'en give him what he goeth seeking.'

• From Another Country (1962)

  But that is not so important—anyway, no matter how happy I may become, and I am sure that I shall have great moments yet, this house will always stay with me. I found out something here.” “And what was that?” Yves turned his head and looked up at Eric. “I was afraid that I would just remain a street boy forever, that I was no better than my mother.” He turned away, toward the window again. “But, somehow, down here in this house with you, I finally realized that that is not so. I have not to be a whore just because I come from whores. I am better than that.” He stopped. “I learned that from you. That is really strange, for, you know? in the beginning I thought you thought of me like that. I thought that you were just another sordid American, looking for a pretty, degenerate boy.” “But you are not pretty,” Eric said, and sipped his whiskey. “Au fait, tu es plutôt moche.” “Oh. Ça va .” “Your nose turns up.” He stroked the tip of Yves’ nose. “And your mouth’s too big”—Yves laughed—“and your forehead’s too high and soon you won’t have any hair.” He stroked Yves’ forehead, stroked his hair. “And those ears, baby! you look like an elephant or a flying machine.” “You are the first person who ever say that I am ugly. Perhaps that is why I am intrigued.” He laughed. “Well. Your eyes are not too bad.” “Tu parle. J’ai du chien, moi.” “Well, yes, baby, now that you mention it, I’m afraid you’ve got a point.” They were silent for a moment. “I have been with so many horrible people,” Yves said, gravely, “so soon, and for so long. Really, it is a wonder that I am not completely sauvage .” He sipped his whiskey. Eric could not see his face, but he could imagine the expression it held: hard and baffled and terribly young, with the cruelty that comes from pain and fear. “First, my mother and all those soldiers, ils étaient mes oncles, tous ,” and he laughed, “and then all those awful, slimy men, I no longer know how many.” He was silent again. “I lay in the bed, sometimes we never got to bed, and let them grunt and slobber. Some of them were really fantastic, no whore has ever told the truth about who comes to her, I am sure of that, they would chop off her head before they would dare to hear it. But it is happening, it is happening all the time.” He leaned up, hugging his knees, staring at the sea. “Then I would take their money; if they made difficulties I could scare them because I was mineur . Anyway, it was very easy to scare them.

• From Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (1999)

  Gardner Lindzey brings up another reason that beauty was shunned by social scientists—the “spectacular failure” of previous attempts to link physical attributes to behavior (phrenology, physiognomy, and so on). In the next chapter we will review these studies and see that they yielded very little in the way of scientific fact and spread many fictions. It is no wonder that many scientists were eager to dissociate themselves from this work. Charles Darwin was one of many of its near victims. The captain of the Beagle, like many people of his time, had been influenced by the physiognomist Johann Caspar Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy, written in 1772, which suggested that certain facial features predict character. As Darwin wrote in his biography, the captain “was an ardent disciple of Lavater … and he doubted whether anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage.” As psychologist Leslie Zebrowitz has said, “The theory of evolution was almost lost for want of a proper nose.” Social scientists shunned beauty as trivial, undemocratic, and all in all not a proper subject for science. But by the late 1960s, Lindzey was chiding his colleagues for their “neglect of morphology [outward appearance]” and suggesting, “Perhaps now is the time to restore beauty and other morphological variables to the study of social phenomena.” Within the next three decades an explosion of research was to provide compelling evidence for a new view of human beauty. It suggested that the assumption that beauty is an arbitrary cultural convention may simply not be true. The research comes at a time when scientists have begun to question anew many other assumptions about the relationship between human behavior and culture. As Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, and Jerome Barkow point out: “Culture is not causeless and disembodied. It is generated in rich and intricate ways by information-processing mechanisms situated in human minds. These mechanisms are in turn the elaborately sculpted product of the evolutionary process.” Clearly, culture cannot just spring forth from nowhere; it must be shaped by, and be responsive to, basic human instincts and innate preferences. Until the 1960s it was believed that languages could vary arbitrarily and without limit, but now there is a consensus among linguists that there is a universal grammar underlying this diversity. Similarly, it was thought that facial expressions of emotion could arbitrarily vary across cultures until the psychologist Paul Ekman showed that many emotions are expressed by the same facial movements across cultures. Ekman made the important distinction between the facial expression of emotion (smiles, frowns, scowls, and so on), which are universal, and the rules for when to display those emotions, which show cultural variation. Similarly, aspects of judgments of human beauty may be influenced by culture and individual history, but the general geometric features of a face that give rise to perception of beauty may be universal.

• From Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (1999)

  Mothers can recognize their babies by smell alone within six hours after birth, and within days babies can recognize their mothers’ distinct smells. As adults, we can recognize our own smells well enough to reliably fish out our T-shirts from a pile of others. Wedekind’s research suggests that we become attracted to the people who smell the least like our family members. When we tamper with our reproductive capability, as when we use birth control pills, we also derail this mechanism. Wedekind concludes that “no one smells good to everybody, it depends on who is sniffing whom.” People sometimes wonder why some beauties leave them sexually unaroused: perhaps they are sniffing something too close to home. Not Waiting for Beauty Visual beauty does not reign supreme in our sensual world—we are lured by beautiful voices, gestures of invitation, and sexy smells. We are even drawn to people by secretions from their hormones and immune systems that we cannot consciously detect. Looks are not everything, even in the superficial world of attraction and glances. But we are still left with the question of how to think about beauty, or why we should be thinking about it. After all, beauty is howlingly unfair. It is a genetic given. And physical appearance tells us little about a person’s intelligence, kindness, pluck, sense of humor, or steadfastness, although we think it does. As Tom Wolfe has written, “At the very core of fashionable society exists a monstrous vulgarity: The habit of judging human beings by standards having no necessary relation to their character. To be found dwelling upon this vulgarity, absorbed in it, is like being found watching a suck ’n fuck movie.” The grubbiness spreads contagiously and no one wants to touch the topic. But our squeamishness is no reason to stay away. Knowledge is power: the more we know about human nature, the better hope we have of addressing inequalities and of changing ourselves. Scientific inquiry is different from the assignment of value, and the fact that a tendency or preference is innate does not mean that culture, nurture, and circumstance cannot radically alter its expression. Our impulses are not necessarily good, but they are resistible. The politics of beauty needs a fresh forum, free from the attacks of the beauty bashers, as well as the unthinking reverence of beauty worshipers. As Lester Bangs wrote in 1979 about another fact of life (rock music), since it is “bound to stay in your life you would hope to see it reach some point where it might not add to the cruelty and exploitation already in the world.” Beauty is not going anywhere. The idea that beauty is unimportant or a cultural construct is the real beauty myth. We have to understand beauty, or we will always be enslaved by it.