Mood Edits Quotes

It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent. You can draw up a tremendous list of reasons why it should be insupportable. The fogs, the smoke, the dirt, the darkness, the wet, the distances, the ugliness, the brutal size of the place, the horrible numerosity of society, the manner in which this senseless bigness is fatal to amenity, to convenience, to conversation, to good manners – all this and much more you may expatiate upon. You may call it dreary, heavy, stupid, dull, inhuman, vulgar at heart and tiresome in form. [...] But these are occasional moods; and for one who takes it as I take it, London is on the whole the most possible form of life. [...] It is the biggest aggregation of human life – the most complete compendium of the world.

During these years her moods alternated like sun and showers in April. She longed to be dead, or to come of age, to be alive in another century, or some other part of the earth, to be a nun or so beautiful as to ravish the entire world.

Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward, edited by Isaac Metzker.)

Give samples to interested people only. Give them only to people who exhibit that interest by some effort. Give them only to people whom you have told your story. First create an atmosphere of respect, a desire, an expectation. When people are in that mood, your sample will usually confirm the qualities you claim.

481 I went into the barbershop as usual, with the pleasant sensation of entering a familiar place, easily and naturally. New things are distressing to my sensibility; I’m at ease only in places where I’ve already been. After I’d sat down in the chair, I happened to ask the young barber, occupied in fastening a clean, cool cloth around my neck, about his older colleague from the chair to the right, a spry fellow who had been sick. I didn’t ask this because I felt obliged to ask something; it was the place and my memory that sparked the question. ‘He passed away yesterday,’ flatly answered the barber’s voice behind me and the linen cloth as his fingers withdrew from the final tuck of the cloth in between my shirt collar and my neck. The whole of my irrational good mood abruptly died, like the eternally missing barber from the adjacent chair. A chill swept over all my thoughts. I said nothing. Nostalgia! I even feel it for people and things that were nothing to me, because time’s fleeing is for me an anguish, and life’s mystery is a torture. Faces I habitually see on my habitual streets – if I stop seeing them I become sad. And they were nothing to me, except perhaps the symbol of all of life. The nondescript old man with dirty gaiters who often crossed my path at nine-thirty in the morning… The crippled seller of lottery tickets who would pester me in vain… The round and ruddy old man smoking a cigar at the door of the tobacco shop… The pale tobacco shop owner… What has happened to them all, who because I regularly saw them were a part of my life? Tomorrow I too will vanish from the Rua da Prata, the Rua dos Douradores, the Rua dos Fanqueiros. Tomorrow I too – I this soul that feels and thinks, this universe I am for myself – yes, tomorrow I too will be the one who no longer walks these streets, whom others will vaguely evoke with a ‘What’s become of him?’. And everything I’ve done, everything I’ve felt and everything I’ve lived will amount merely to one less passer-by on the everyday streets of some city or other.

Nietzsche wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” and his observation is backed up by science; exercise-induced brain chemicals help people think clearly. In fact, just stepping outside clarifies thinking and boosts energy. Light deprivation is one reason that people feel tired, and even five minutes of daylight stimulates production of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals that improve mood.

Some days since: a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced frenzy-sorrow, sullenness. I longed for thee! I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I asked of G-d, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words- "Jane! Jane! Jane!

My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I’ll explain all this some day. Good-night.

In bed at night, as I ponder my many sins and exaggerated shortcomings, I get so confused by the sheer amount of things I have to consider that I either laugh or cry, depending on my mood. Then I fall asleep with the strange feeling of wanting to be different than I am or being different than I want to be, or perhaps of behaving differently than I am or want to be. Oh dear, now I'm confusing you too. Forgive me, but I don't like crossing things out, and in these times of scarcity, tossing away a piece of paper is clearly taboo. So I can only advise you not to re-read the above passage and to make no attempt to get to the bottom of it, because you'll never find your way out again!

My habit – due to indifference chiefly at first – of giving up to you in everything had become insensibly a real part of my nature. Without my knowing it, it had stereotyped my temperament to one permanent and fatal mood. That is why, in the subtle epilogue to the first edition of his essays, Pater says that ‘Failure is to form habits.’ When he said it the dull Oxford people thought the phrase a mere wilful inversion of the somewhat wearisome text of Aristotelian Ethics, but there is a wonderful, a terrible truth hidden in it. I had allowed you to sap my strength of character, and to me the formation of a habit had proved to be not Failure merely but Ruin. Ethically you had been even still more destructive to me than you had been artistically.

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.

I saw a guy the other day at a wedding, and I told him my theory on why we’ve seen this explosion in comedies in the past fifteen years. Number one, America is tacking hard to the right. That sort of extremism always kind of kicks up the need to create comedy. But the second thing is Avid. What’s Avid? It’s a digital movie-editing program that directors use, and it’s incredibly helpful. I think Avid is hugely responsible for this boom in comedy. In the past, one would have to shoot the film and edit it, which was a big deal. Now, filmmakers can record the laughs from a test audience at a screening, and we can then cut to the rhythm of those laughs, the rhythm of the audience. We synchronize the laughs with the film. We can really get our timing down to a hundredth of a second. You can decide where you want your story to kick in, where you want a little bit of mood, where you want a hard laugh line. All of this can really be calibrated to these test screenings that we do. It doesn’t mean that it becomes mathematical. It still ultimately means that you have to make creative choices, but you can just really get a lot out of it. Sort of like surgery with a laser compared with a regular scalpel. We’re able to download a movie onto the computer and literally do all our edits in minutes. The precision is incredible. You play back the audio of the test screening and get everything timed just right. Like, “This laugh is losing this next line; let’s split the difference here.” You’re able to achieve this rolling energy. You can try experimental edits, and do multiple test screenings, and it’s all because you can move so fast with this program. Comedy is the one genre that I think has just really benefited from this more than any other.

The case of a patient with dissociative identity disorder follows: Cindy, a 24-year-old woman, was transferred to the psychiatry service to facilitate community placement. Over the years, she had received many different diagnoses, including schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder. Dissociative identity disorder was her current diagnosis. Cindy had been well until 3 years before admission, when she developed depression, "voices," multiple somatic complaints, periods of amnesia, and wrist cutting. Her family and friends considered her a pathological liar because she would do or say things that she would later deny. Chronic depression and recurrent suicidal behavior led to frequent hospitalizations. Cindy had trials of antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytics, all without benefit. Her condition continued to worsen. Cindy was a petite, neatly groomed woman who cooperated well with the treatment team. She reported having nine distinct alters that ranged in age from 2 to 48 years; two were masculine. Cindy’s main concern was her inability to control the switches among her alters, which made her feel out of control. She reported having been sexually abused by her father as a child and described visual hallucinations of him threatening her with a knife. We were unable to confirm the history of sexual abuse but thought it likely, based on what we knew of her chaotic early home life. Nursing staff observed several episodes in which Cindy switched to a troublesome alter. Her voice would change in inflection and tone, becoming childlike as ]oy, an 8-year-old alter, took control. Arrangements were made for individual psychotherapy and Cindy was discharged. At a follow-up 3 years later, Cindy still had many alters but was functioning better, had fewer switches, and lived independently. She continued to see a therapist weekly and hoped to one day integrate her many alters.

Revelation. I understand the mechanism of my own thinking. I know precisely how I know, and my understanding is recursive. I understand the infinite regress of this self-knowing, not by proceeding step by step endlessly, but by apprehending the limit. The nature of recursive cognition is clear to me. A new meaning of the term ‘self-aware.’ Fiat logos. I know my mind in terms of a language more expressive than any I’d previously imagined. Like God creating order from chaos with an utterance, I make myself anew with this language. It is meta-self-descriptive and self-editing; not only can it describe thought, it can describe and modify its own operations as well, at all levels. What Gödel would have given to see this language, where modifying a statement causes the entire grammar to be adjusted. With this language, I can see how my mind is operating. I don’t pretend to see my own neurons firing; such claims belong to John Lilly and his LSD experiments of the sixties. What I can do is perceive the gestalts; I see the mental structures forming, interacting. I see myself thinking, and I see the equations that describe my thinking, and I see myself comprehending the equations, and I see how the equations describe their being comprehended. I know how they make up my thoughts. These thoughts. Initially I am overwhelmed by all this input, paralyzed with awareness of my self. It is hours before I can control the flood of self-describing information. I haven’t filtered it away, nor pushed it into the background. It’s become integrated into my mental processes, for use during my normal activities. It will be longer before I can take advantage of it, effortlessly and effectively, the way a dancer uses her kinesthetic knowledge. All that I once knew theoretically about my mind, I now see detailed explicitly. The undercurrents of sex, aggression, and self-preservation, translated by the conditioning of my childhood, clash with and are sometimes disguised as rational thought. I recognize all the causes of my every mood, the motives behind my every decision. What

Walking had an added benefit: it helped me to think. Nietzsche wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” and his observation is backed up by science; exercise-induced brain chemicals help people think clearly. In fact, just stepping outside clarifies thinking and boosts energy. Light deprivation is one reason that people feel tired, and even five minutes of daylight stimulates production of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals that improve mood. Many times, I’d guiltily leave my desk to take a break, and while I was walking around the block, I’d get some useful insight that had eluded me when I was being virtuously diligent.

Cultural Diplomacy—and an Accolade Among Piazzolla’s tasks during his first summer at the Chalet El Casco was the composition of “Le Grand Tango,” a ten-minute piece for cello and piano commissioned by Efraín Paesky, Director of the OAS Division of Arts, and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, to whom Piazzolla sent the score. Rostropovich had not heard of Piazzolla at the time and did not look seriously at the music for several years.7 Written in ternary form, the work bears all Piazzolla’s hallmarks: tight construction, strong accents, harmonic tensions, rhythmic complexity and melodic inspiration, all apparent from the fierce cello scrapes at the beginning. Piazzolla uses intervals not frequently visited on the cello fingerboard. Its largely tender mood, notably on display in the cello’s snaking melodic line in the reflective middle section, becomes more profoundly complex in its emotional range toward the end. With its intricate juxtapositions of driving rhythms and heart-rending tags of tune, it is just about the most exciting music Piazzolla ever wrote, a masterpiece. Piazzolla was eager for Rostropovich to play it, but the chance did not come for eight years. Rostropovich, having looked at the music, and “astounded by the great talent of Astor,” decided he would include it in a concert. He made some changes in the cello part and wanted Piazzolla to hear them before he played the piece. Accordingly, in April 1990, he rehearsed it with Argentine pianist Susana Mendelievich in a room at the Teatro Colón, and Piazzolla gently coached the maestro in tango style—”Yes, tan-go, tan-go, tan-go.” The two men took an instant liking to one another.8 It was, says Mendelievich, “as if Rostropovich had played tangos all his life.” “Le Grand Tango” had its world premiere in New Orleans on April 24, 1990. Sarah Wolfensohn was the pianist. Three days later, they both played this piece again at the Gusman Cultural Center in Miami. [NOTE C] Rostropovich performed “Le Grand Tango” at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, in July 1994; the pianist was Lambert Orkis. More recently, cellist Yo-Yo Ma has described “Le Grand Tango” as one of his “favorite pieces of music,” praising its “inextricable rhythmic sense...total freedom, passion, ecstasy.

As I pass Logan’s room, I catch a glorious purple glow. My curiosity gets the best of me. I walk in and flick on the light switch. On the wall above a bookshelf hangs something truly magnificent. Delicately, I pick up the Mace Windulightsaber replica. It reminds me of those super expensive knives professional chefs use that are weighted perfectly for precision. I take a step back and brandish the weapon at a poster of Aragorn from Lord of the Rings on the wall. “Don’t worry, your highness. Your Jedi escort will see you to safety,” I say in my best Obi Wan accent. “The force is strong with this one.” The words come from behind me. I whip around out of pure freaked-out instinct, swinging the lightsaber in a big arc. It clashes with one just like it, except it’s blue. I look up into Dan’s smug face and wish these lightsabers weren’t replicas. Sure, it’s a cute face, but it’s a face I’m not in the mood to deal with at the moment. I swirl my saber to move his out of the way and put the point of it to his chin. “Don’t make me slice your nose off, you scruffy-looking nerf herder.” I’ve always wanted to call someone that, but the opportunity never presented itself until now. He tosses his lightsaber onto the bed and holds his hands up in surrender. “I yield, but only because that is a limited edition.

Revelation. I understand the mechanism of my own thinking. I know precisely how I know, and my understanding is recursive. I understand the infinite regress of this self-knowing, not by proceeding step by step endlessly, but by apprehending the limit. The nature of recursive cognition is clear to me. A new meaning of the term "self-aware". Fiat logos I know my mind in terms of a language more expressive than any I'd previously imagined. Like God creating order from chaos with an utterance, I make myself anew with this language. It is meta-self-descriptive and self-editing; not only can it describe thought, it can describe and modify its own operations as well, at all levels. What Gödel would have given to see this language, where modifying a statement causes the entire grammar to be adjusted. With this language, I can see how my mind is operating. I don't pretend to see my own neurons firing; such claims belong to John Lilly and his LSD experiments of the sixties. What I can do is perceive the gestalts; I see the mental structures forming, interacting. I see myself thinking, and I see the equations that describe my thinking, and I see myself comprehending the equations, and I see how the equations describe their being comprehended. I know how they make up my thoughts. These thoughts. *** Initially I am overwhelmed by all this input, paralyzed with awareness of my self. It is hours before I can control the flood of self-describing information. I haven't filtered it away, nor pushed it to the background. It's become integrated into my mental processes, for use during my normal activities. It will be longer before I can take advantage of it, effortlessly and effectively, the way a dancer uses her kinesthetic knowledge. All that I once knew theoretically about my mind, I now see detailed explicitly. The undercurrents of sex, aggression, and self-preservation, translated by the conditioning of my childhood, clash with and are sometimes disguised as rational thought. I recognize all the causes of my every mood, the motives behind my every decision. What can I do with this knowledge? Much of what is conventionally described as "personality" is at my discretion; the higher-level aspects of my psyche define who I am now. I can send my mind into a variety of mental or emotional states, yet remain ever aware of the state and able to restore my original condition.

The other thing I think we learned on Tuesday (election day) is that this is an electorate that is not particularly generous in doling out the credit for things. I think this goes beyond politics, bur clearly in the case of politics where the voters are now conditioned to look for the worst in everyone and really to disbelieve that there's very much good in anyone. It's hard to be a politician under those circumstances, but, again, I think this mood of looking for the worst in everyone extends beyond the political world. (from the book The NPR Interviews 1995, edited by Robert Siegel)

1. the Hindole Raga is heard only at dawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal love; 2. Deepaka Raga is played during the evening in summer, to arouse compassion; 3. Megha Raga is a melody for midday in the rainy season, to summon courage; 4. Bhairava Raga is played in the mornings of August, September, October, to achieve tranquillity; 5. Sri Raga is reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love; 6. Malkounsa Raga is heard at midnights in winter, for valor.

What do you want?” “My, you sound belligerent. I was hoping to find you in a better mood.” “Oh, I apologize. What the fuck do you want?

It was Ernie Haller, who had photographed Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, who was solely responsible for the visuals in Mildred Pierce, said Crawford. "Ernie was at the rehearsals. And so was Mr. [Anton] de Grot, who did the sets. I recall seeing Ernie's copy of the script and it was filled with notations and diagrams. I asked him if these were for special lights and he said, 'No, they're for special shadows.' Now, that threw me. I was a little apprehensive. I was used to the look of Metro, where everything, including the war pictures, was filmed in blazing white lights. Even if a person was dying there was no darkness. But when I saw the rushes of Mildred Pierce I realized what Ernie was doing. The shadows and half-lights, the way the sets were lit, together with the unusual angles of the camera, added considerably to the psychology of my character and to the mood and psychology of the film. And that, my dear, is film noir." "Mildred

THE DSM-V: A VERITABLE SMORGASBORD OF “DIAGNOSES” When DSM-V was published in May 2013 it included some three hundred disorders in its 945 pages. It offers a veritable smorgasbord of possible labels for the problems associated with severe early-life trauma, including some new ones such as Disruptive Mood Regulation Disorder,26 Non-suicidal Self Injury, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Dysregulated Social Engagement Disorder, and Disruptive Impulse Control Disorder.27 Before the late nineteenth century doctors classified illnesses according to their surface manifestations, like fevers and pustules, which was not unreasonable, given that they had little else to go on.28 This changed when scientists like Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch discovered that many diseases were caused by bacteria that were invisible to the naked eye. Medicine then was transformed by its attempts to discover ways to get rid of those organisms rather than just treating the boils and the fevers that they caused. With DSM-V psychiatry firmly regressed to early-nineteenth-century medical practice. Despite the fact that we know the origin of many of the problems it identifies, its “diagnoses” describe surface phenomena that completely ignore the underlying causes. Even before DSM-V was released, the American Journal of Psychiatry published the results of validity tests of various new diagnoses, which indicated that the DSM largely lacks what in the world of science is known as “reliability”—the ability to produce consistent, replicable results. In other words, it lacks scientific validity. Oddly, the lack of reliability and validity did not keep the DSM-V from meeting its deadline for publication, despite the near-universal consensus that it represented no improvement over the previous diagnostic system.29 Could the fact that the APA had earned $100 million on the DSM-IV and is slated to take in a similar amount with the DSM-V (because all mental health practitioners, many lawyers, and other professionals will be obliged to purchase the latest edition) be the reason we have this new diagnostic system?

like to thank the many people who have assisted and supported me in this work. First, thanks to the Johns Hopkins University Press and its editors, who have believed in me from the fi rst: thanks to Anders Richter, who shepherded me through the publication of the fi rst edition, and to Jacqueline Wehmueller, who inherited me from Andy after his retirement and encouraged me to write a second and now a third edition of the book. She has been a constant and steadfast source of inspiration and support for this and many other projects. Immeasurable thanks is owed to my teachers and mentors at Johns Hopkins, Paul R. McHugh and J. Raymond DePaulo, and to my psychiatric colleagues (from whom I never stop learning), especially Jimmy Potash, Melvin McInnis, Dean MacKinnon, Jennifer Payne, John Lipsey, and Karen Swartz. Thanks to Trish Caruana, LCSW, and Sharon Estabrook, OTR, for teaching me the extraordinary importance of their respective disciplines, clinical social work and occupational therapy, to the comprehensive treatment of persons with mood disorders. And thanks, of course, to my partner, Jay Allen Rubin, for much more than I could ever put into words. x ■ pre face

Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi report that 2 out of 5 adults and 7 out of 10 children say that they watch too much TV. Also, viewers often feel that they can’t stop watching TV. Furthermore, while people report increased good moods after activities such as sports and hobbies, they report being in the same mood or in a worse mood after watching TV

Studies show that in a phenomenon called “emotional contagion,” we unconsciously catch emotions from other people—whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we’re infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy. As

THE MULADHARA PERSONALITY Someone ruled by the Muladhara chakra is often confronted with life lessons about security—or rather, the desire to be physically and financially secure. The behavior of these people is often compared to that of ants, which ardently work for their queen. Their sense of self is often based on gaining approval or following the laws. Thus, for these people, their lessons are often about confronting and freeing themselves from greed, lust, sensuality, and anger. Like the earth element, Muladhara personalities are physically strong and productive. They often win competitively because of their drive and strength. THE SVADHISTHANA PERSONALITY A Svadhisthana individual is most likely devoted to the higher things in life—art, music, poetry, and the jewels of creativity. While beautiful, this lushness also presents temptation away from the spiritual path, with the major diversions involving sexuality, sensuality, and indulgence. A second-chakra person is likely to experience mood swings or emotional inconsistency. Desire is rooted in the second chakra, and can lead to love and the enjoyment of pleasures, but also to frivolity or just plain selfishness. The Svadhisthana path is often called the way of the butterfly, for life is full of so many joys, it can be hard to remain in one place for long. It is important to develop discipline to balance the compulsion to experience. THE MANIPURA PERSONALITY This chakra embraces the planes of karma (the past), dharma (one’s purpose), and the celestial plane. Its focus is to atone for one’s past errors. Manipura is the fire chakra, and people who dwell here tend to be fiery; the key to joy lies in the application of the heat. Is it used to avoid the past—or to work toward a positive future? Third-chakra people tend to be temperamental but are also able to commit to their goals. They are often driven by the need to be recognized and to succeed. The chief issue to confront is ego. By confronting issues of pride and control, the Manipura person is able to embrace the best features of its major animal, the ram. The ram can walk nimbly into the highest of mountaintops; so can the third-chakra individual. THE ANAHATA PERSONALITY When the lotus unfolds, the twelve petals invite the movement of energy in twelve directions. This activates twelve mental capabilities: hope, anxiety, endeavor, possessiveness, arrogance, incompetence, discrimination, egoism, lustfulness, fraudulence, indecision, and repentance (as described in the Mahanirvana Tantra, a detailing of Tantric rituals and practices, edited for Western audiences by Arthur Avalon (pen name of Sir John Woodroffe) in 1913).25 Twelve divinities in the form of sound assist with the process involved in confronting, dealing with, and healing one’s way through these twelve qualities. A heart-based person might find him- or herself greatly challenged by the so-called negative qualities that stir in the heart. However,

Brecks, right?” My smile immediately fell with her question, along with my mood. I somehow forced a tight smile, but before I could even nod, another voice boomed my answer from behind me. “It’s B,” he said. His voice was smooth, oak infused and deeper than I remembered.

Because unless you’re discerning, you may unwittingly tune in to what you don’t want. Psychic airwaves are like radio frequencies, broadcasting many levels of information at the same time. Think of the signals from your spirit as the psychic equivalent of a classical music satellite station—that is, a beautiful channel for high, spiritual guidance and healing. In contrast, what I call “psychic riffraff”—or the generic relay of other people’s feelings, moods, fears, thoughts, anxieties, and even nightmares—is the psychic equivalent of low-vibration AM talk radio. In other words, useless noise.

Servants don’t try to give the Master a better idea; servants don’t complain that they think the task is stupid; servants don’t pause to consider whether they’re in the mood to do it; servants don’t decide if the task is within their dignity to perform. They just do it.

Just as, whether we know it or not, we all have a metaphysics, so too, whether we like it or not, we all have a morality. I have a very simple morality: not to do good or evil to anyone. Not to do evil, because it seems only fair that others enjoy the same right I demand for myself – not to be disturbed – and also because I think that the world doesn’t need more than the natural evils it already has. All of us in this world are living on board a ship that is sailing from one unknown port to another, and we should treat each other with a traveller’s cordiality. Not to do good, because I don’t know what good is, nor even if I do it when I think I do. How do I know what evils I generate if I give a beggar money? How do I know what evils I produce if I teach or instruct? Not knowing, I refrain. And besides, I think that to help or clarify is, in a certain way, to commit the evil of interfering in the lives of others. Kindness depends on a whim of our mood, and we have no right to make others the victims of our whims, however humane or kind-hearted they may be. Good deeds are impositions; that’s why I categorically abhor them.

—the descent follows the ascent—to wisdom as to despair. A man is under the crassest necessity to break down the pinnacles of his moods fearlessly — to the bases; base! to the screaming dregs, to have known the clean air .

Often people think of feelings as things to work through or deal with. But feelings were meant to be a barometer to help us maintain our emotional equilibrium. Feelings provide our moment-to-moment experience of life. They tell us the extent to which our perceptions are distorted by our moods and thought systems.