the doubter will have the strongest faith
CAIN: One answer lies deep in our cultural history. Western societies, and in particular the U.S., have always favored the man of action over the man of contemplation. But in America's early days, we lived in what historians call a culture of character where we still at that point valued people for their inner selves and their moral rectitude. And if you look at the self-help books from this era, they all had titles with things like "CHARACTER: The Grandest Thing In The World." And they featured role models like Abraham Lincoln who was praised for being modest and unassuming. Ralph Waldo Emerson called him a man who does not offend by superiority.----------------
But then we hit the 20th century, and we entered a new culture that historians call the culture of personality. You know, what happened is we had evolved from an agricultural economy to a world of big business. And so suddenly, people are moving from small towns to the cities. And instead of working alongside people they've known all their life, now they are having to prove themselves in a crowd of strangers. So quite understandably qualities like magnetism and charisma suddenly come to seem really important. And sure enough the self-help books changed to meet these needs. And they start to have had names like "How To Win Friends And Influence People." And they feature, as their role models, really great salesmen. So that's the world we're living in today. That's our cultural inheritance.
WASHINGTON: I have a problem. It's not the worst thing in the world - I'm fine. I'm not on fire. I know that other people in the world have far worse things to deal with, but for me, language and music are inextricably linked through this one thing and the thing is that I have a stutter. It might seem curious, given that I spend a lot of my life on the stage. One would assume that I'm comfortable in the public sphere and comfortable here speaking to you guys, but the truth is that I've spent my life up into this point and including this point, living in mortal dread of public speaking.----------
Public singing - whole different thing.
RAZ: When you were out there on your own, was your mind clear? Was it full? Was it quiet? Was it loud? Like, what do you remember?----------------
FRANCIS: Yeah, there were - there's a couple of things that when I'm walking - and I might be thinking of the road and where I'm going. But at some point, I realized that as I'm walking, I'm not thinking about the road and where I'm going. In fact, I catch myself not thinking. And then I'm thinking again, of course. But so there are long periods of times that I was just being on the planet and breathing. And I think maybe breathing has a lot to do with that.
RAZ: After 17 years of silence, John Francis got so good at listening to other people that he'd almost become a different person. And the voice he once had - kind of angry, a little combative, unsure - it was gone.
PRETOR-PINNEY: Well, you know, there are a lot of distractions (laughter). And in fact, there are probably more distractions these days than there've ever been. You know, you never stick on anything for long. And so I talk about cloud spotting being something that legitimizes doing nothing. And I had this the other day before a talk. I was kind of nervous. And I stepped outside and walked along, and then I saw a hummingbird come along and take some nectar from the blossom of a tree in front of me. And I just sort of locked on that and looked at it for a moment, and that was kind of enough to sort of center me. It's the same thing with - with clouds. I find that sometimes by paying attention to something outside of yourself is just enough for you to kind of find yourself centered again.----------
IYER: I think you clear the anxiety by sitting still and addressing it and seeing it come and go in some ways. But you're absolutely right. When I go and sit still at my desk as a writer for five hours every day, often those hours are agonizing. They're torture, and I think a monk would tell you that a large part of the time he spends alone in his cell is spent with doubt and darkness. But running around is never going to address those feelings very well. It's only going to evade them. And I think actually one of the things that you find if you sit still is those feelings of anxiety and all the sufferings and pains that every one of us know fall into a kind proportion.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a 2013 romantic comedy-drama adventure cult film directed by, produced by, and starring Ben Stiller. Gore Verbinski served as executive producer.[7][8] This is the second film adaptation of James Thurber's 1939 short story of the same name. The 1947 version was produced by Samuel Goldwynand directed by Norman Z. McLeod, with Danny Kaye playing the role of Walter Mitty.[9] The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 5, 2013.[10] The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was theatrically released on December 25, 2013 in North America, to generally mixed reception, and was a moderate box office success, however the film has gathered a cult following since its release.[11] (Wikipedia)I want to avoid plot items and spoilers, but need to figure out how to convince people to go back a few years and see this movie that so many seemed to have missed. It's a film where the underdog has moments of success that we can share. It is not overly sickeningly sweet, but offers elements of optimism in the midst of seemingly overwhelming insurmountable odds. None of it feels real, and yet all of it feels completely real. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, eh? Ultimately, Mitty is supposed to be an ineffectual dreamer, but Ben Stiller (lead actor and director) manages to present us with an extremely likable Mitty who manages to DO something in his life beyond just dream. He comes off as heroically likable while somehow still playing the teased schoolboy who often gets picked last or who is overlooked completely.
In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea... --H.K.
The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences other than the physical sensation of touch, such as 'a feeling of warmth' and of sentience in general... Perception of the physical world does not necessarily result in a universal reaction among receivers, but varies depending on one's tendency to handle the situation, how the situation relates to the receiver's past experiences, and any number of other factors. Feelings are also known as a state of consciousness, such as that resulting from emotions, sentiments or desires. (wikipedia)
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| Dr. Gloria Wilcox's Feelings Wheel, 2001 |
Forgiveness is the key: While Wilcox's wheel seems to help in identification, other wheels seem to intend a process. The one to the left helping us to move from negative feelings to positive ones by progressing from shame through forgiveness to love. The similarities to Wilcox's wheel are evident, but there is a directional purpose offered here. There seems to be more judgement in this second wheel, with the hope for progress to a positive emotion. Although Wilcox hoped to help people move from negatives to positives, her wheel was for identification in that process, while this second wheel builds in it's purpose to help draw the observer "south" to love emotions away from shame emotions. While Wilcox implies that Isolated equals Lonely equals Sad, this second wheel seems to imply some causation: Lonely is an indication of being Abandoned which causes Shame.
Peacefully Artful Displays of Rocks: Good writing is about people, I think; People who feel real. And it is in our complexities and abstractnesses that we establish ourselves in this world uniquely as what we are. Our complexities and abstractnesses make us so much more interesting than say, a pile of artfully displayed rocks (although rocks can be delightfully interesting to look at and described, there is little room for development or transformation there). So below I offer Kaitlin Robbs' feelings wheel for your perusal, amusement, and illumination. Use it as you wish...
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
September 1, 1939
W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
