Shame

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 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  He loves me, he loves me not, we are taught to say, as we tear the flower away from its flowerness. To arrive at love, then, is to arrive through obliteration. Eviscerate me, we mean to say, and I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll say yes. “Keep going,” I begged. “Fuck me up, fuck me up.” By then, violence was already mundane to me, was what I knew, ultimately, of love. Fuck. Me. Up. It felt good to name what was already happening to me all my life. I was being fucked up, at last, by choice. In Trevor’s grip, I had a say in how I would be taken apart. So I said it: “Harder. Harder,” until I heard him gasp, as if surfacing from a nightmare we swore was real. — After he came, when he tried to hold me, his lips on my shoulder, I pushed him away, pulled my boxers on, and went to rinse my mouth. Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined. — Then, one afternoon, out of nowhere, Trevor asked me to top him, the way we had been doing it, which we now called fake fucking. He lay on his side. I spat in my palm and snuggled up to him. I was only up to his neck in height, but lying down, spooning, our heads met. I kissed his shoulders, made my way to his neck, where his hair ended, as some boys’ do, with the strands whittled down to a small half-inch tail at the nape. It was the part that shone like wheat-tips touched by sunlight, while the rest of his head, with its fuller hair, stayed dark brown. I flicked my tongue under it. How could such a hard-stitched boy possess something so delicate, made entirely of edges, of endings? Between my lips, it was a bud sprouted from inside him, possible. This part is the good part of Trevor, I thought. Not the squirrel shooter. Not the one who axed up what was left of the shot-up park bench to splinters. The one who, in a fit of rage I can’t recall the cause of, shoved me into a snowbank on our walk back from the corner store. This part, this flick of hair, was what made him stop his truck in the middle of traffic to stare at a six-foot sunflower on the side of the road, his mouth slack. Who told me sunflowers were his favorite because they grew higher than people. Who ran his fingers so gently down their lengths I thought red blood pulsed inside the stalks. But it was over before it began. Before my tip brushed his greased palm, he tensed, his back a wall. He pushed me back, sat up. “Fuck.” He stared straight ahead.

• From Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir (2004)

  She took a job at the bank, as a teller, so we’d have insurance ( bluecrossblueshield ), so she could get a loan, a mortgage. She could still work nights and weekends in bars, in restaurants. The Bell Buoy. Pier 44. The Ebb Tide, with its unintentionally tragic name. For a while she woke up at five to open the bakery at the supermarket, where she made donuts. This was the only real supermarket in town, having drawn the lifeblood ( bigfisheatlittlefish ) from the smaller markets. I remember it being built on the muddy field that the tenements once occupied. A friend had lived in one of those decrepit buildings—the yellow trucks came one day and knocked them all down. Each evening after the workers left I’d creep around the machines and mud. A small outbuilding was left standing and inside were boxes filled with skeleton keys (a key to a skeleton? or was the key itself a bone?). I took some home and the next evening this building too was gone, bulldozed under. The bank gave her a loan to buy a two-thousand-dollar ruin, a complete wreck of a house. Nightly the raccoons came to our ramshackle porch and raided the garbage, which was submerged in the yard beneath a lid that flipped open when you stepped on it. We’d watch them from the kitchen with the lights out, amazed at how organized they were, a team—one holding open the lid, another reaching into the pail and passing out the bones and scraps to a line of hungry bandits. The lookout would raise a paw and hiss if we came to the door. Unless a boyfriend was sleeping over she would bring my brother and me to the supermarket rather than leave us in that drafty house to wake up alone. We’d wander the empty aisles while she opened the bakery. It was unspoken, but we could eat anything we wanted, as long as we hid the evidence. At least that’s how I understood our agreement. An entire supermarket. Like a television game show. Aisle of cracker, aisle of chocolate. A few years later I would walk in with the silver coins I stole from the coffee can in her bedroom, coins she’d hoarded from the bank, from tips, and use them to buy candy bars, until one day a cashier asked if I really wanted to use a rare Flying Liberty silver dollar to pay for a Heath bar. Soon after I began shoplifting, deciding it was wrong to take money from my mother. I hit all the stores she had worked—the convenience store, the newsstand, I even had my eye on the bank. I found a loose grate that led into a crawlspace and to the bank’s basement. I was skinny, I had a plan.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The next evening I came to the bar late, hoping that Monique and her crowd would not be there waiting. They were. I slunk over to our table and sat down. No one knew exactly what had or had not happened the night before. But everyone knew something was very wrong. I sat drowning in my own shame, remembering out date. I was scared by the time I had gotten to Monique’s house. It occurred to me that I didn’t really know what sex was. When and how did it begin? What was I supposed to do? And Monique frightened the hell out of me. All of a sudden I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want to go through with it. I chattered nervously. Monique smirked. As I moved from couch to chair, she followed. “Whatsa matter?” she mocked Stone Butch Blues 29 me. “Don’t you like me, honey? Whatsa matter, huh?” I made small talk until Monique finally stood up in exasperation. “Get the hell out of here!” She sounded disgusted with me. I mumbled relieved excuses and ran from her house. But back at the bar, I couldn’t escape the consequences. I sat at a table across from Monique and rubbed my forehead with my hands, as though I could wipe away the memory. I wondered how long this evening could possibly last. A long time. A very long time. Monique whispered something to a butch sitting near her. The butch crossed the room and approached our table. “Hey,” she called to me. I didn’t look up. “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real butch?” I twisted in my seat. Al whispered something to this butch I couldn’t hear. “Oh, I’m sorry Al, I didn’t know she was your femme.” Al stood up and hit the butch before any of us knew what had happened. Then Al looked at me expectantly. “Well?” she said. She was holding up the butch who was doubled over. Al wanted me to hit the woman, to defend my honor. I couldn’t think of anyone in the room I would want to hit, except maybe myself. I had no honor to defend. 30 Leslie Feinberg The butches nearest Monique stood, ready to cross the room. Al and the other butches in our crowd lined up in front of the table to defend me. Jacqueline put her hand on my thigh to reassure me that I didn’t have to fight. She needn’t have. Mona came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. The femmes were closing ranks with me, too. I sat with my face in my hands, shaking my head, wanting it all to stop. But it wouldn't. Monique’s crowd finally backed down. But none of us could leave the bar until they did, otherwise we'd get jumped. It was going to be a /ong night. Al was furious with me. “You gonna let that bulldagger talk to you that way?” She thumped the table for emphasis.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “T was so ashamed,” my mother told my father. He glared at me in the rearview mirror. All I could see were his thick black eyebrows. My mother had been informed that I could no longer attend temple unless I wore a dress, something I fought tooth and nail. At that moment I was wearing a Roy Rogers outfit— without my guns. It was hard enough being the only Jewish family in the projects without being in trouble at the temple. We had to drive a long time to go to the nearest synagogue. My father prayed downstairs. My mother and sister and I had to watch from the balcony, like at the movies. It seemed like there weren’t many Jews in the world. There were some on the radio, but none in my school. Jews weren’t allowed on the playground. That’s what the older kids told me, and they enforced it. We were nearing home. My mother shook her head. “Why can’t she be like Rachel?” Rachel looked at me sheepishly. I shrugged. Rachel’s dream was a felt skirt with an appliqué poodle and rhinestone-studded plastic shoes. Stone Butch Blues 13 My father pulled our car to a stop in front of our house. “You go straight to your room, young lady. And stay there.” I was bad. I was going to be punished. My head ached with fear. I wished I could find a way to be good. Shame suffocated me. It was almost sundown. I heard my parents call Rachel to join them in their bedroom to light the Shabbas candles. I knew the shades were drawn. A month before, we’d heard laughter and shouting outside the living room windows while my mother was lighting the candles. We raced to the windows and peered out into the dusk. Two teenagers pulled down their pants and mooned us. “Kikes!” they shouted. My father didn’t chase them away; he closed the drapes. After that, we started praying in their bedroom with the shades pulled down. Everyone in my family knew about shame and fear. Soon afterward my Roy Rogers outfit disappeared from the dirty clothes hamper. My father bought me an Annie Oakley outfit instead. “No!” I shouted, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to wear it. Pll feel stupid!” My father yanked me by the arm. “Young lady, I spent $4.90 for this Annie Oakley outfit and you’re going to wear it.” I tried to shake off his hand, but it was clamped 14 Leslie Feinberg painfully on my upper arm. Tears dripped down my cheeks. “I want a Davy Crockett hat.” My father tightened his grip. “I said no.” “But why?” I cried. “Everybody has one except me. Why not?” His answer was inexplicable. “Because you’re a girl.” “I’m sick of people asking me if she’s a boy or a girl,’ I overheard my mother complain to my father. “Everywhere I take her, people ask me.”

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  who knocked on your window at three in the morning, who you thought was smiling until you saw the blade held over his mouth. I made this, I made this for you, he said, the knife suddenly in your hand. Trevor later on your steps in the grey dawn. His face in his arms. I don’t wanna, he said. His panting. His shaking hair. The blur of it. Please tell me I am not, he said through the sound of his knuckles as he popped them like the word But But But. And you take a step back. Please tell me I am not, he said, I am not a faggot. Am I? Am I? Are you? Trevor the hunter. Trevor the carnivore, the redneck, not a pansy, shotgunner, sharpshooter, not fruit or fairy. Trevor meateater but not veal. Never veal. Fuck that, never again after his daddy told him the story when he was seven, at the table, veal roasted with rosemary. How they were made. How the difference between veal and beef is the children. The veal are the children of cows, are calves. They are locked in boxes the size of themselves. A body-box, like a coffin, but alive, like a home. The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends on how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones. We love eatin’ what’s soft, his father said, looking dead into Trevor’s eyes. Trevor who would never eat a child. Trevor the child with the scar on his neck like a comma. A comma you now put your mouth to. That violet hook holding two complete thoughts, two complete bodies without subjects. Only verbs. When you say Trevor you mean the action, the pine-stuck thumb on the Bic lighter, the sound of his boots on the Chevy’s sun-bleached hood. The wet live thing dragged into the truck bed behind him. Your Trevor, your brunette but blond-dusted-arms man pulling you into the truck. When you say Trevor you mean you are the hunted, a hurt he can’t refuse because that’s something, baby. That’s real. And you wanted to be real, to be swallowed by what drowns you only to surface, brimming at the mouth. Which is kissing. Which is nothing if you forget. His tongue in your throat, Trevor speaks for you. He speaks and you darken, a flashlight going out in his hands so he knocks you in the head to keep the bright on. He turns you this way and that to find his path through the dark woods. The dark words— which have limits, like bodies. Like the calf waiting in its coffin-house. No window—but a slot for oxygen. Pink nose pressed to the autumn night, inhaling. The bleached stench of cut grass, the tar and gravel road, coarse sweetness of leaves in a bonfire, the minutes, the distance, the earthly manure of his mother a field away.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The inability to exit from the immobility response generates unbearable frustration, shame and corrosive self-hatred. The therapist must approach this Gordian knot carefully and untangle it through deliberate and careful titration, along with reliance on the experience of pendulation and a resolve to befriend intense aggressive sensations. In this way, the individual is able to move out of this “kill or be killed” counterattack bind. As one begins to open gradually to accepting one’s intense sensations, one enhances the capacity for healthy aggression, pleasure and goodness. It is no surprise, then, that traumatized individuals constrict and brace against their rage as socialized animals. But let us look at the cumulative consequence of suppressing rage. Tremendous amounts of energy need to be exerted (on an already strained system) to keep rage and other primitive emotions at bay. This “turning in” of anger against the self, and the need to defend against its eruption, leads to debilitating shame, as well as to eventual exhaustion. This involution adds another layer to the complexity and seeming intransigence of the festering traumatic state. For these reasons, titration becomes even more crucial as a measure to interrupt this self-perpetuating “shame cycle.” In the case of molestation and other forms of previous abuse, a substratum of self-reproach has already been laid beneath a later trauma during adulthood. Indeed, because immobility is experienced as a passive response, many molestation and rape victims feel tremendous shame for not having successfully fought their attackers. This perception and the overwhelming sense of defeat can occur regardless of the reality of the situation: the relative size of the attacker doesn’t matter; nor does the fact that the immobility might have even protected the victim from further harm or possibly death. † And I haven’t even included here the additional blanket of confusion and shame that occurs within the complex dynamics of secrecy and betrayal in the incestuous family. As traumatized individuals begin to reown their sense of agency and power, they gradually come to a place of self-forgiveness and self- acceptance. They achieve the compassionate realization that both their immobility and their rage are a biologically driven, instinctual imperative and not something to be ashamed of as if it were a character defect. They own their rage as undifferentiated power and agency, a vital life-preserving force to be harnessed and used to benefit oneself.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  You have benefited from an education that embodies the wisdom of thousands of years of experience. It is so easy to take this all for granted, to imagine that it all just came about naturally and that you are entitled to have all of these powers. That is the view of spoiled children, and you must see any signs of such an attitude within you as shameful. This world needs constant improvement and renewal. You are here not merely to gratify your impulses and consume what others have made but to make and contribute as well, to serve a higher purpose. To serve this higher purpose, you must cultivate what is unique about you. Stop listening so much to the words and opinions of others, telling you who you are and what you should like and dislike. Judge things and people for yourself. Question what you think and why you feel a certain way. Know yourself thoroughly—your innate tastes and inclinations, the fields that naturally attract you. Work every day on improving those skills that mesh with your unique spirit and purpose. Add to the needed diversity of culture by creating something that reflects your uniqueness. Embrace what makes you different. Not following this course is the real reason you feel depressed at times. Moments of depression are a call to listen again to your inner authority. In a world full of endless distractions, you must focus and prioritize. Certain activities are a waste of time. Certain people of a low nature will drag you down, and you must avoid them. Keep your eye on your long- and short-term goals, and remain concentrated and alert. Allow yourself the luxury of exploring and wandering creatively, but always with an underlying purpose. You must adhere to the highest standards in your work. You strive for excellence, to make something that will resonate with the public and last. To fall short of this is to disappoint people and to let down your audience, and that makes you feel ashamed. To maintain such standards, you must develop self-discipline and the proper work habits. You must pay great attention to the details in your work and 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.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Then one day, when the plant whistle blew, silence hung heavy in the air. I looked from face to face. Something was up. Muriel spoke first. ““Today you start the song,” she suggested casually, “any song you want.” I looked around in disbelief, but she was serious. I felt the blood rise in my face. I didn’t want to call attention to myself. I didn’t want to hear my voice tise alone, even for a minute, above the sounds of the machines and the other women. In fact, I realized I felt ashamed of my own voice. “I can’t,” I protested. I felt near tears. No one said a word. They just kept working in silence. By lunchtime I realized there would be no songs until I began one. Why? I wondered. Why are the women doing this to me? Are they making fun of me? I knew it wasn't true. They noticed how quietly I mouthed the words to songs. They were inviting my voice to join theirs. They were honoring me again. That night I lay awake in panic. The daily routine wouldn’t resume until I sang alone. My throat clenched at the very idea. I thought about calling in sick, but it was too cowardly and it wouldn’t change anything. No one was going to forget I was asked to start the first song, Besides, the next day was Christmas Eve. I would lose my holiday pay if I called in sick. And immediately after the holiday I was eligible to join the union. In the morning I tried to act normal at work. I was welcomed as usual. When Yvonne came in, I wondered if she had heard. Her smile let me know she had. The whistle blew. Each of us punched in. Stone Butch Blues 83 We took our places in line. The tension was thick. I cleared my throat several times. Muriel watched her hands while she worked; she smiled gently. This was it. I would try to find my voice and be proud of it. After several false starts my voice began to rise, singing the song I loved most—the first song Td learned. Almost immediately the other women lifted their voices up with mine to spare me any pain. We all smiled at each other and sang with tears in our eyes. After lunch the foreman called me into his office and handed me a pink slip. “Sorry,” he said. He escorted me to my locker to get my things. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone. I actually felt embarrassed about being fired. I knew it was because I was so close to getting into the union. And I knew management had been watching the growing solidarity with great trepidation. But my shame rekindled as I realized the foreman probably heard my voice rising alone in song.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  More often than not he was coming to the house at that hour to ask the child Anton to replace him in the grocery shop that he owned, in the backwater town of Taganrog, Russia, where the family lived. For most of the year, the shop was unbearably cold. While minding the counter, Anton would try to do his homework, but his fingers would quickly become numb and the ink in the pot for his pen would freeze up. In that mess of a store, which smelled of rancid meat, he would have to listen to the dirty jokes of the Ukrainian peasants who worked there, and witness the lewd behavior of the assortment of town drunks who wandered in for their shots of vodka. In the midst of all this, he had to make sure that every kopeck was accounted for, or he would get an added thrashing from his father. He would often be left there for hours while his father was getting drunk somewhere else. His mother would try to intervene. She was a gentle soul who was no match for her husband. The boy was too young to work, she would say. He needed time for his studies. Sitting in the freezing shop was ruining his health. The father would thunder back that Anton was lazy by nature, and only through hard work could he become a respectable citizen. There was no respite from the father’s presence. On Sunday, the one day the shop was closed, he would wake the children up at four or five in the morning to rehearse their singing for the church choir, of which he was the director. Once home from the service, they would have to repeat it, ritual by ritual, on their own, then return for the noon mass. By the time it was over, they were all too exhausted to play. In the moments he had to himself, Anton would wander around town. Taganrog was a grim place to grow up. The fronts of almost all of the houses were decaying and crumbling, as if they were already ancient ruins. The roads were not paved, and when the snow melted there was mud everywhere, with giant potholes that could swallow a child up to the neck. There were no streetlights. Prisoners would be tasked with finding the stray dogs on the streets and beating them to death. The only quiet and safe place was the surrounding graveyards, and Anton would visit them often. On these walks, he would wonder about himself and the world. Was he really so worthless that he deserved the almost daily beatings from his father? Perhaps. And yet his father was a walking contradiction—he was lazy, a drunk, and quite dishonest with customers, despite his religious zeal. And the citizens of Taganrog were equally ridiculous and hypocritical.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  more prone than others to go into that deep narcissistic rage. They are hypersensitive. They also like to stir up constant drama as a means to justify their power—they are the only ones who can solve the problems they create. This also gives them more opportunities to be the center of attention. The workplace is never stable under their direction. Sometimes they can become entrepreneurs, people who found a company because of their charisma and ability to attract followers. They can have creative flair as well. But for many of these leader types, eventually their own inner instability and chaos will come to be mirrored in the company or group they lead. They cannot forge a coherent structure or organization. Everything must flow through them. They have to control everything and everyone, their self- objects. They will proclaim this as a virtue—as being authentic and spontaneous—when really they lack the ability to focus and create something solid. They tend to burn and destroy whatever they create. Let us imagine narcissism as a way of gauging the level of our self-absorption, as if it existed on a measurable scale from high to low. At a certain depth, let us say below the halfway mark on the scale, people enter the realm of deep narcissism. Once they reach this depth, it is very difficult for them to raise themselves back up, because they lack the self-esteem device. The deep narcissist becomes completely self-absorbed, almost always below the mark. If for a moment they manage to engage with others, some comment or action will trigger their insecurities and they will go plummeting down. But mostly they tend to sink deeper into themselves over time. Other people are instruments. Reality is just a reflection of their needs. Constant attention is their only way of survival. Above that halfway mark is what we shall call the functional narcissist , where most of us reside. We also are self-absorbed, but what prevents us from falling deep into ourselves is a coherent sense of self that we can rely upon and love. (It is ironic that the word narcissism has come to mean self-love, when it is in fact the case that the worst narcissists have no cohesive self to love, which is the source of their problem.) This creates some inner resiliency. We may have deeper narcissistic moments, fluctuating below the mark, particularly when depressed or challenged in life, but inevitably we elevate ourselves. Not feeling continually insecure or wounded, not always needing to fish for attention, functional narcissists can turn their attention outward, into their work and into building relationships with people. Our task, as students of human nature, is threefold. First, we must fully understand the phenomenon of the deep narcissist. Although they are in the minority, some of them can inflict an unusual amount of harm in the world. We must be able to distinguish the toxic types that stir up drama and try to turn us into objects they can

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  It is normal to want to keep up with the latest news, but to base any kind of decision on these snapshots of the moment is to run the risk of misreading the larger picture. Furthermore, people tend to react and overreact to any negative or positive change in the present, and it becomes doubly hard to resist getting caught up in their panic or exuberance. Look at what Abraham Lincoln had to face in a much less technological age. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he looked at the larger picture—as he estimated it, the North should prevail because it had more men and more resources to draw on. The only danger was time. Lincoln would need time for the Union Army to develop itself as a fighting force; he also needed time to find the right generals who would prosecute the war as he desired. But if too much time passed and there were no big victories, public opinion might turn against the effort, and once the North became divided within itself, Lincoln’s job would become impossible. He needed patience but also victories on the battlefield. In the first year of the war the North suffered a great defeat at Bull Run, and suddenly almost everyone questioned the president’s competency. Now even levelheaded Northerners such as the famous editor Horace Greeley urged the president to negotiate peace. Others urged him to throw everything the North had into an immediate blow to crush the South, even though the army was not ready for this. On and on this went, the pressure continually mounting as the North failed to deliver a single solid victory until finally General Ulysses S. Grant finished off the siege at Vicksburg in 1863, followed soon by the victory at Gettysburg under General George Meade. Now suddenly Lincoln was hailed as a genius. But some six months later, as Grant got bogged down in his pursuit of the Confederate Army under General Robert E. Lee and the casualties mounted, the sense of panic returned. Once again Greeley urged negotiation with the South. Lincoln’s reelection that year seemed doomed. He had become immensely unpopular. The war was taking too long. Feeling the weight of all this, in late August of 1864 Lincoln finally drafted a letter spelling out the terms of peace he would offer the South, but that very night he felt ashamed for losing his resolve and hid the letter in a drawer. The tide had to turn, he felt, and the South would be crushed. Only a week later, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched into Atlanta and all the doubts about Lincoln suddenly vanished for good. Through long-term thinking Lincoln had correctly gauged the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two sides and how the war would eventually trend. Everyone else got caught up in the day-by- day reports of the progress of the war. Some wanted to negotiate, others to suddenly speed up the effort, but all of this was based on

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  They may even accuse you of adding to their stress. You must understand that at the root of this is the need to make it clear to themselves and to you that they are in some way superior. If they were to say in so many words that they felt superior to you, they would incur ridicule and shame. They want you to feel it in subtle ways, while they are able to deny what they are up to. Putting you in the inferior position is a form of control, in which they get to define the relationship. You must pay attention to the pattern more than the apologies, but also notice the nonverbal signs as they excuse themselves. The tone of the voice is whiny, as if they really feel it is your problem. The apologies are laid on extra thick to disguise the lack of sincerity; in the end, such excuses communicate more about their problems in life than about the facts of their forgetfulness. They are not really sorry. If this is chronic behavior, you must not get angry or display overt irritation—passive aggressors thrive on getting a rise out of you. Instead, stay calm and subtly mirror their behavior, calling attention to what they are doing, and inducing some shame if possible. You might make dates or appointments and leave them in the lurch, or show up impossibly late with the sincerest of apologies, laced with a touch of irony. Let them brood on what this might mean. Earlier on in his career, when the renowned psychotherapist Milton Erickson was a medical professor at a university, he had to deal with a very smart student named Anne, who always showed up late to classes, then apologized profusely and very sincerely. She happened to be a straight-A student. She always promised to be on time for the next class but never was. This made it difficult for her fellow students; she frequently held up lectures or laboratory work. And on the first day of one of Erickson’s lecture classes she was up to her old tricks, but Erickson was prepared. When she entered late, he had the entire class stand up and bow down to her in mock reverence; he did the same. Even after class, as she walked down the hall, the students continued their bowing. The message was clear—“We see through you”—and feeling embarrassed and ashamed, she stopped showing up late. If you are dealing with a boss or someone in a position of power who makes you wait, their assertion of superiority is not so subtle. The best you can do is keep as calm as possible, showing your own form of superiority by remaining patient and cool. The Sympathy Strategy: Somehow the person you are dealing with is always the victim—of irrational hostility, of unfair circumstances, of society in general.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  Then, about ten minutes in, as Trevor went faster, our skin sucking with humid sweat, something happened. A scent rose up to my head, strong and deep, like soil, but sharp with flaw. I knew right away what it was, and panicked. In the heat of it, I didn’t think, didn’t yet know how to prepare myself. The porn clips I had seen never showed what it took to arrive where we were. They just did it—quick, immediate, sure, and spotless. No one had shown us how this was to be done. No one had taught us how to be this deep—and deeply broken. Ashamed, I pressed my forehead to my wrist and let it throb there. Trevor slowed, then paused. All quiet. Above us the moths flitted between the tobacco. They had come to feed on the plants, but the pesticides left over from the fields killed them soon as they placed their mouths on the leaves. They fell all around us, their wings, in the midst of death throes, buzzed across the barn floor. “Fuck.” Trevor stood up, his face disbelieving. I turned away. “Sorry,” I said instinctually. His cock, touched at the tip with the dark inside me, pulsed under the lamplight as it softened. I was, in that moment, more naked than I was with my clothes off—I was inside out. We had become what we feared most. He breathed hard above me. Trevor being who he was, raised in the fabric and muscle of American masculinity, I feared for what would come. It was my fault. I had tainted him with my faggotry, the filthiness of our act exposed by my body’s failure to contain itself. He stepped toward me. I rose to my knees, half covered my face, bracing. “Lick it up.” I flinched. Sweat shone on his forehead. A moth, suffocating, thrashed against my right knee. Its huge and final death merely a quiver on my skin. A breeze shifted the dark outside. A car hummed down the road across the fields. He gripped my shoulder. How did I already know he would react like this? I twisted my face to meet him. “I said get up.” “What?” I searched his eyes. I had misheard. “C’mon,” he said again. “Get the hell up.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  When they went on vacation he would often go hungry for days. His one jacket was threadbare; he had no galoshes for the heavy rains. He felt ashamed when he entered people’s houses, shivering and his feet all wet. But at least he was now able to support himself. He had decided to become a doctor. He had a scientific frame of mind, and doctors made a good living. To get into medical school he would have to study much harder. Frequenting the town library, the only place he could work in peace and quiet, he began to also browse the literature and philosophy sections, and soon he felt his mind soaring far beyond Taganrog. With books, he no longer felt so trapped. At night, he returned to his corner of a room to write stories and sleep. He had no privacy, but he could keep his corner neat and tidy, free of the usual disorder of the Chekhov household. He had finally begun to settle down, and new thoughts and emotions came to him. Work was no longer something he dreaded; he loved absorbing his mind in his studies, and tutoring had made him feel proud and dignified—he could take care of himself. Letters came from his family—Alexander ranting and complaining about their father making everyone miserable again; Mikhail, the youngest son, feeling worthless and depressed. Anton wrote back to Alexander: stop obsessing over our father and start taking care of yourself. He wrote to Mikhail: “Why do you refer to yourself as my ‘worthless, insignificant little brother’? Do you know where you should be aware of your worthlessness? Before God, perhaps . . . but not before people. Among people you should be aware of your worth.” Even Anton was surprised by the new tone he was taking in these letters. Then one day, several months after being abandoned, he wandered through the streets of Taganrog and suddenly felt welling up from within a tremendous and overwhelming sense of empathy and love for his parents. Where did this come from? He had never felt this before. In the days leading up to this moment he had been thinking long and hard about his father. Was he really to blame for all their problems? Pavel’s father, Yegor Mikhailovich, had been born a serf, serfdom being a form of indentured slavery. The Chekhovs had been serfs for several generations. Yegor had finally been able to buy the family’s freedom, and he set his three sons up in different fields, Pavel designated as the family merchant. But Pavel could not cope. He had an artistic temperament, could have been a talented painter or musician. He felt bitter at his fate—a grocery store and six children. His father had beaten him, and so he beat his children.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  He went back and forth on this in his mind, but in the end he decided to not destroy them. By invoking executive privilege he would resist handing them over. Finally, as pressure mounted, in April 1974 Nixon decided to release edited transcripts of the tapes in the form of a 1,200-page book and hope for the best. The public was horrified by what it read. Yes, many had thought him slippery and devious, but the forceful language, the swearing, the sometimes hysterical, paranoid tone of his conversation, and the utter lack of compunction or hesitation in ordering various illegal acts revealed a side of Nixon they had never suspected. Even members of his family were shocked. When it came to Watergate, he seemed very weak and indecisive, not at all the de Gaulle image he wanted to project. He never once showed the slightest desire to get at the truth and punish the wrongdoers. Where was the man of law and order? On July 24 came the final blow: the Supreme Court ordered him to hand over the tapes themselves, and among them would be the recorded conversation of June 23, 1972, in which he had approved of using the CIA to quash the FBI investigation. This was the “smoking gun” that revealed his involvement in the cover-up from early on. Nixon was doomed, and although it was against everything he believed in, by early August he decided to resign. The morning after he delivered his resignation speech to the country, Nixon addressed his staff one last time, and fighting to control his emotions, he concluded, “Never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” Along with his family, he then got into the helicopter that was to take him into political exile. • • • Interpretation: For those who worked closely with Richard Nixon, the man was an enigma. According to his chief speechwriter, Ray Price, there were two Nixons, one light, one dark. The light Nixon was “exceptionally considerate, exceptionally caring, sentimental, generous of spirit, kind.” The dark Nixon was “angry, vindictive, ill- tempered, mean-spirited.” He saw both sides as being “at constant war with one another.” But perhaps the most perceptive observer of Nixon, the one closest to figuring out the enigma, was Henry Kissinger, who made a point of studying him closely so that he could manage and even play him for his own purposes. And according to Kissinger, the key to Nixon and his split personality must somehow lie in his childhood. “Can you imagine,” Kissinger once observed, “what this man would have been like if somebody had loved him?”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Feeling the weight of all this, in late August of 1864 Lincoln finally drafted a letter spelling out the terms of peace he would offer the South, but that very night he felt ashamed for losing his resolve and hid the letter in a drawer. The tide had to turn, he felt, and the South would be crushed. Only a week later, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched into Atlanta and all the doubts about Lincoln suddenly vanished for good. Through long-term thinking Lincoln had correctly gauged the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two sides and how the war would eventually trend. Everyone else got caught up in the day-by- day reports of the progress of the war. Some wanted to negotiate, others to suddenly speed up the effort, but all of this was based on momentary swings of fortune. A weaker man would have given in to such pressures and the war would have ended very differently. The writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, who visited Lincoln in 1864, later wrote of him: “Surrounded by all sorts of conflicting claims, by traitors, by half-hearted, timid men, by Border States men and Free States men, by radical Abolitionists and Conservatives, he has listened to all, weighed the words of all, waited, observed, yielded now here and now there, but in the main kept one inflexible, honest purpose, and drawn the national ship through.” Lincoln provides the model for us all and the antidote to the fever. First and foremost we must develop patience, which is like a muscle that requires training and repetition to make it strong. Lincoln was a supremely patient man. When we face any kind of problem or obstacle, we must follow his example and make an effort to slow things down and step back, wait a day or two before taking action. Second, when faced with issues that are important, we must have a clear sense of our long-term goals and how to attain them. Part of this involves assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the parties involved. Such clarity will allow us to withstand the constant emotional overreactions of those around us. Finally, it is important to have faith that time will eventually prove us right and to maintain our resolve. 4. Lost in trivia. You feel overwhelmed by the complexity of your work. You feel the need to be on top of all the details and global trends so you can control things better, but you are drowning in information. It is hard to see the proverbial forest for the trees. This is a sure sign that you have lost a sense of your priorities—which facts are more important, what problems or details require more attention. The icon for this syndrome would have to be King Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). He had a prodigious appetite for paperwork and for keeping on top of all facets of the Spanish government.

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

  Secondly, it may happen without fault on his part, as, for instance, when he has sorrowed over his sin, but is not sufficiently contrite: and in such a case he does not sin in receiving the body of Christ, because a man cannot know for certain whether he is truly contrite. It suffices, however, if he find in himself the marks of contrition, for instance, if he “grieve over past sins,” and “propose to avoid them in the future” [*Cf. Rule of Augustine]. But if he be ignorant that what he did was a sinful act, through ignorance of the fact, which excuses, for instance, if a man approach a woman whom he believed to be his wife whereas she was not, he is not to be called a sinner on that account; in the same way if he has utterly forgotten his sin, general contrition suffices for blotting it out, as will be said hereafter ([4646]XP, Q[2], A[3], ad 2); hence he is no longer to be called a sinner. Whether to approach this sacrament with consciousness of sin is the gravest of all sins?Objection 1: It seems that to approach this sacrament with consciousness of sin is the gravest of all sins; because the Apostle says (1 Cor. 11:27): “Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord”: upon which the gloss observes: “He shall be punished as though he slew Christ.” But the sin of them who slew Christ seems to have been most grave. Therefore this sin, whereby a man approaches Christ’s table with consciousness of sin, appears to be the gravest. Objection 2: Further, Jerome says in an Epistle (xlix): “What hast thou to do with women, thou that speakest familiarly with God at the altar?” [*The remaining part of the quotation is not from St. Jerome]. Say, priest, say, cleric, how dost thou kiss the Son of God with the same lips wherewith thou hast kissed the daughter of a harlot? “Judas, thou betrayest the Son of Man with a kiss!” And thus it appears that the fornicator approaching Christ’s table sins as Judas did, whose sin was most grave. But there are many other sins which are graver than fornication, especially the sin of unbelief. Therefore the sin of every sinner approaching Christ’s table is the gravest of all. Objection 3: Further, spiritual uncleanness is more abominable to God than corporeal. But if anyone was to cast Christ’s body into mud or a cess-pool, his sin would be reputed a most grave one. Therefore, he sins more deeply by receiving it with sin, which is spiritual uncleanness, upon his soul.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  If you have any natural gifts that elevate you above others, you must be aware of the dangers and avoid flaunting such talents. Instead you want to strategically reveal some flaws to blunt people’s envy and mask your natural superiority. If you are gifted in the sciences, make it clear to others how you wish you had more social skills. Show your intellectual clumsiness at subjects outside your expertise. John F. Kennedy seemed almost too perfect to the American public. So handsome, intelligent, and charismatic, and with such a beautiful wife—it was hard to identify with or like him. As soon as he made his big mistake in the failed invasion of Cuba (known as the Bay of Pigs) early on in his administration, and took full responsibility for the debacle, his poll numbers skyrocketed. The mistake had humanized him. Although this was not done by design, you can have a similar effect by discussing the mistakes you have made in the past and showing some selective awkwardness in certain areas that do not diminish your overall reputation. Women who achieve success and fame are more prone to attracting envy and hostility, although this will always be veiled as something else—such women are said to be too cold, or ambitious, or unfeminine. Oftentimes we choose to admire people who achieve great things, admiration being the opposite of envy. We do not feel personally challenged or insecure in the face of their excellence. We might also emulate them, use them as spurs toward trying to achieve more. But unfortunately this is rarely the case with successful women. A high-achieving woman inflicts greater feelings of inferiority in both other women and men (“I’m inferior to a woman?”), which leads to envy and hostility, not admiration. Coco Chanel, the most successful businesswoman of her era, especially considering her origins as an orphan (see chapter 5), suffered from such envy her entire life. In 1931, at the height of her power, she met Paul Iribe, an illustrator and designer whose career was on the decline. Iribe was an expert seducer and they had much in common. But several months into their relationship, he began to criticize her for her extravagance and torment her about her other flaws as he saw them. He wanted to control all aspects of her life. Lonely and desperate for a relationship, she hung on, but she later wrote of Iribe, “My growing celebrity eclipsed his declining glory. . . . Iribe loved me with the secret hope of destroying me.” Love and envy are not mutually exclusive. Successful women will have to bear this burden until such entrenched underlying values are changed. In the meantime, they will have to be even more adept at deflecting envy and playing the humble card. Robert Rubin (b. 1938), two-term secretary of the treasury under Bill Clinton, was a grand master when it came to masking his excellence and defusing envy.

• From Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir (2004)

  As we wandered my grandmother’s yard I showed him the hose, how you could hit the upper windows with its spray, I showed him the path into the woods, and how I shimmied up the gutter pipe to stake out the roof. This might have been a mistake, because I realized too late that he’d never be able to follow me. I led him to my grandmother’s pear tree, which she bought and planted herself just a few years earlier. I had helped dig the hole, held it upright while she tamped the dirt back down. A spindly thing, slow-growing, with just one small hard pear, the first, dangling from a branch. We were told to let this pear grow, my grandmother checked it every day. I told Corey how proud she was of her lone pear, and he stared at me straight and defiant, like he was angry with me for some ungodly inscrutable reason, he stared and reached his hand out to this pear, forcing me to look right at it, my mouth dropping open a little. Then he smiled and gripped it with his palm, pulled it free. He threw it into the street, then turned and walked back into the house.

• From Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir (2004)

  vodka, stamps, flowers (1998) The corner of my father’s bed is the only surface in his room not stacked high with newspapers or books, pilfered reams of paper or tchotchkes. I take off my coat, sit where his body must have lain a few hours before, ask how he’s been. It’s still early in the month, so he hasn’t gone through his disability check yet. This means he’s drinking, good, Russian vodka, not that rotgut crap …. His background is, as he will often point out, Russian and Irish, so he’d be a little weird not to drink, if you get his point. So for the first ten, fifteen days of each month he drinks. Occasionally he takes himself out for a meal, somewhere other than a church basement, maybe he buys himself some shampoo. The remaining four hundred dollars goes to vodka, stamps and cut flowers. Cheap bouquets from the 7-Eleven. Stamps to send out letters to those few people with whom he keeps contact. The rest of the money goes to half gallons of Smirnoff’s, which he drinks with orange juice all day, days on end, until the money begins to run out, then for the last few days he drinks it straight. During this time he may have a friend crash on his floor, someone he knows from the streets—Mississippi Mike, Joe Kahn (I remember Joe from the shelter). My father points out the narrow passage on the floor, between his bed and a mound of clothes, where his visitors sleep, and it seems unlikely, though perhaps a relief from shelters or doorways. After insisting I shake his hand properly, deep and firm, he launches into a familiar flurry of hate speech, paranoid fist-to-palm gesticulating, racial invectives, this time something about ten-year-old white girls getting raped night after night outside his window by the blacks . This tirade causes me to have trouble focusing, and I consider leaving quickly, but will myself to stay. I look at the one cleared chair, turned vaguely toward the snowy television, take in the disorder—every wall, every chair, every countertop, deep with worthless junk. My inheritance. The television, donated by Tommy the Terror, his pal from the Portsmouth days, is always on, even if the volume is down. A one-panel comic strip pinned over my desk passes through my mind—a king holds an ice pick up to a boy and declares, Someday son this awl will be yours . My father negotiates the passageway between where he sleeps and the kitchen, keeping up a constant patter, pouring more orange juice into his vodka cup. I imagine Joe sitting in the one cleared chair, drinking the beer he’s brought, nodding, maybe wedging a story of his own in between my father’s endless stream. I tell my father I spoke with Tommy a few weeks ago. He answers that Tommy was sitting where I am, on the edge of his bed, not three days ago. But I know it was seven years ago, Tommy told me this, told me he’s given up on my father. Even Ray no longer writes, no longer visits, and Jonathan is not welcome to visit him. I excuse myself, pick my way to my father’s bathroom. The bathtub’s jammed with more magazines and clothes, so much so that to bathe must require a considerable investment of time and energy. I ask him if he uses it. Of course, he snorts. It’s just that it’s loaded with stuff, I point out. I move it, he growls. His stovetop too is thick with unopened cans of food, arranged in aesthetic patterns and pyramids, but never touched, as evidenced by the ever-thickening layer of dust over it all. The canned food is a relief, for it seems he’ll never starve. His refrigerator, unopened for years now, is barricaded by the ever-growing towers of saved magazines and newspapers. Even his bed’s mostly covered during the day, stacks of magazines which must be moved onto the one empty chair before he can lie down. It’s a form of generosity that my father invites a street person, a friend, up for the night. He’s even offered it to me, or my brother, anytime we need a place, something I never offered him when he was living on the streets. But in his room there is no place, unless I sat upright in a straight-backed chair all night, or stretched out on the bit of floor beside his single bed, in the path to the bathroom. Or, the horror, crawled in bed with him. I would first sleep on a bench, or under a bush. I would risk rats and mayhem before I would spend a night in his room.