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Atlantic
17-06-2025
- Health
- Atlantic
Dear James: Do I Need to Share My Diagnosis?
Editor's Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, After a series of unsettling events, including what I (falsely) believed was a hit-and-run—a belief that had me Googling 'hit and run' and sent me into a tailspin, convinced that the police were after me—I was diagnosed with a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder characterized by mostly mental (rather than physical) compulsions. Now, with medication and therapy, I've started revisiting the neurotic behaviors I've lived with for most of my life, like the year I was convinced I had HIV until a friend, tired of hearing about it, dragged me to get tested, or the time I was sure a swollen lymph node was cancer but my doctor refused to biopsy it. Now that I have some clarity, I wonder: Do I need to explain all of this to my friends, family, and colleagues? Or should I just keep moving forward armed with my new sense of understanding? Dear Reader, First of all: congratulations. I, too, have committed crimes that never happened and almost died of illnesses I didn't have. Once, in a bar in London, I groped in my pocket for some cash, felt a lump in my thigh, and immediately blacked out. Clang, onto the floor, full length. I came around gazing into the neutrally concerned face of an EMT. As Morrissey says: 'Oh, I can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible.' And it's not like I can't still feel it, right next to me, right under me, that whipping, lashing realm of contingency, all the ghastly possibilities blah blah. But somehow, it's no longer at the center of my awareness. I'm not sure what happened—maybe I displaced it with alcohol and pro wrestling. Or maybe it was the 10 years of therapy. Or maybe I finally figured out what D. H. Lawrence meant when he wrote 'If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed / By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world.' The point is: We made it. We can look back on these crises with rue and wonderment. I don't think you need to explain anything to anybody. To those who accompanied you through it (like your friend who insisted you get tested), the change in you, the strengthening in you, will be self-evident. The time to use your new understanding will come when you encounter someone in similar difficulties. At that moment, you'll be able to plug right into the regenerative power of the universe—the countercurrent to all of the fear and destruction—and help somebody out. On the mend, James Dear James, I'm 61, and I retired from full-time work four years ago—not to move toward anything in particular but to find relief from a lifestyle that was no longer physically or mentally healthy. I was well compensated for work, but the toll it was taking on my body, mind, and psyche resulted in a risk-benefit imbalance. Four years later, I'm still figuring out how to live in retirement. Mental-health professionals and well-meaning advice dispensers all seem to encourage a retired life filled with service to others, and devoted to maintaining or strengthening social contacts. I'm all for those activities, and some of them are and will be part of my retired life. However, I'm on the far end of introvert on the introvert-extrovert continuum. And I'm perfectly happy in my little corner of the world, minding my own business, enjoying the sights and sounds of my environment, and appreciating still being alive. I'm never bored and rarely lonely. Do you see anything wrong with a small, quiet, do-no-harm existence, or must I force myself out into the world more often than I wish to? Dear Reader, Bollocks to service, and bollocks to strengthening social contacts. Be untroubled by these buzzwords. By cultivating so exquisitely your own portion of consciousness, you're doing more for the collective than any number of noisy humanitarians. Relish your solitary days! Strewing petals, James
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Dear James: I Love Going Naked on the Beach
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, In the second half of last year, I went to a naturist beach for the first time. I was afraid on my whole walk there that I would chicken out. But there was nobody around for miles—so I stripped. Since then, I've done it five more times, at various beaches, with growing confidence, in front of other people who have and have not been clothed. I've found great peace in lying naked on the sand, listening to the waves. But: Over the winter I started to get these feelings of shame and guilt. I was raised a very strict Catholic. And although my mother has been dead for a decade, I can suddenly feel her strong disapproval from beyond the grave. It's a conundrum. How would you handle it? Dear Reader, Well, I was in church on Sunday morning for the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the wacky mandate of the Holy Spirit to go where it pleases—to land, if it likes, right on top of somebody's head (your head, my head, anybody's head) and nest there in a throbbing bolus of flame. So yup, I'm ready to get Catholic about this. I'm ready to get dogmatic. Your body is a gift from God. In the appropriate place (such as a naturist beach), you should be able to go as naked as Adam in the garden and feel not a twinge-let of shame. You should be like the primal newborns in the Doors' 'Waiting for the Sun': 'At first flash of Eden / We raced down to the sea / Standing there on freedom's shore.' (Who dares to say Jim Morrison isn't a great American poet?) Isn't that the true spirit of nudism? They don't call it a birthday suit for nothing. Shed your clothes; shed everything that cramps or abashes you. Air out those musty parts. Unshadow yourself. Let it all flap. Be a real American. Scamper shoeless across the sand into liberty's gold-green sunrise. Me, I'm not great at being naked. It makes me feel too … naked. So I know where you're coming from. But you've done so well, made such strides in self-development. The confidence, the peace, the waves: Keep going! Of course—as at any breakthrough moment, any evolutionary threshold of the psyche—you're being swarmed by the old demons, now at extra strength: guilt, disgrace, an image of your mother scolding you. They are to be stoutly resisted. Imagine instead your mother's delight in you as a baby, in all your sweet-smelling, roly-poly nudeness. Imagine reality taking pleasure in itself across the surface of your skin. Last word here goes to Gerard Manley Hopkins, great Catholic sensualist, nudist in his heart: 'The Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.' Safe in my trousers, James By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
10-06-2025
- General
- Atlantic
Dear James: I Love Going Naked on the Beach
Editor's Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, In the second half of last year, I went to a naturist beach for the first time. I was afraid on my whole walk there that I would chicken out. But there was nobody around for miles—so I stripped. Since then, I've done it five more times, at various beaches, with growing confidence, in front of other people who have and have not been clothed. I've found great peace in lying naked on the sand, listening to the waves. But: Over the winter I started to get these feelings of shame and guilt. I was raised a very strict Catholic. And although my mother has been dead for a decade, I can suddenly feel her strong disapproval from beyond the grave. It's a conundrum. How would you handle it? Dear Reader, Well, I was in church on Sunday morning for the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the wacky mandate of the Holy Spirit to go where it pleases—to land, if it likes, right on top of somebody's head (your head, my head, anybody's head) and nest there in a throbbing bolus of flame. So yup, I'm ready to get Catholic about this. I'm ready to get dogmatic. Your body is a gift from God. In the appropriate place (such as a naturist beach), you should be able to go as naked as Adam in the garden and feel not a twinge-let of shame. You should be like the primal newborns in the Doors' ' Waiting for the Sun ': 'At first flash of Eden / We raced down to the sea / Standing there on freedom's shore.' (Who dares to say Jim Morrison isn't a great American poet?) Isn't that the true spirit of nudism? They don't call it a birthday suit for nothing. Shed your clothes; shed everything that cramps or abashes you. Air out those musty parts. Unshadow yourself. Let it all flap. Be a real American. Scamper shoeless across the sand into liberty's gold-green sunrise. Me, I'm not great at being naked. It makes me feel too … naked. So I know where you're coming from. But you've done so well, made such strides in self-development. The confidence, the peace, the waves: Keep going! Of course—as at any breakthrough moment, any evolutionary threshold of the psyche—you're being swarmed by the old demons, now at extra strength: guilt, disgrace, an image of your mother scolding you. They are to be stoutly resisted. Imagine instead your mother's delight in you as a baby, in all your sweet-smelling, roly-poly nudeness. Imagine reality taking pleasure in itself across the surface of your skin. Last word here goes to Gerard Manley Hopkins, great Catholic sensualist, nudist in his heart: 'The Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.'
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dear James: I'm Not Very Punk Rock
Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, I'm not very punk rock. Not even a little. I'm well into middle age and experiencing my first taste of the many small indignities sure to come. I wear sensible shoes with gel insoles scientifically designed to relieve the pain and discomfort of plantar fasciitis. I have long and detailed conversations about insurance. And yet, in my heart, I believe that all is mendacity. That virtue is impossible. That the system crushes us all beneath its relentless wheel. I tell hilarious jokes about the cruel pointlessness of existence and receive only blank stares in return. If the world were to perish in flames, I'm pretty sure it would be no more than it deserved. So my question to you is simple: Is this any way to live? Also: Can you recommend any good bands? Dear Reader, You are punk rock to the tips of your gel-cushioned toes, my friend. Don't worry about that. I'm sorry that nobody's digging your nihilistic humor. Maybe work on your material a bit, soften the edges, angle it a touch toward the mainstream? Day-to-day discourse, in my experience, can absorb a remarkable amount of savage absurdism, gags about doom, and so on (this stuff is highly relatable!)—as long as you don't come off as aggressive or out of your mind. As long as you don't come off too punk rock. To your larger point: How are we to live, make our way, proceed in the world when so much of said world is clearly an evil farce? (Huge pause while advice columnist slurps his coffee, stares out the window, and considers the question.) The punk rockers were not the first to have this insight, of course: The poets and the prophets have always known it. No one is more punk rock than the unknown author of Ecclesiastes. Or John Donne. Or Sylvia Plath. Or the author(s) of the Psalms, in certain moods. The trick, I think, is to use this world-withering vision as a stimulant rather than as a philosophical end point. Don't let it shut you down; let it wake you up. Use it to sharpen your senses and file your encounters to a keen edge. As in: It's all bollocks and everyone dies, but wow, this bag of Dunkin' Donuts Snackin' Bacon tastes amazing. Or: It's all bollocks and everyone dies, so why don't I help this elderly person with her shopping? Use it, this flame of disgust, to refine your language! Regarding bands, I have one word for you: Godflesh. (Cue sound of Godflesh fans across America falling to their knees in grateful assent.) It's all there. The beauty, the horror, the low end that purges your bowels, the guitar tone that scrapes the plaque from your heart. Start with Hymns. Wanting to be sedated, James Dear James, What are some great movies that have come out this year? Dear Reader, The last great movie I saw was Friendship. Profoundly awkward person (Tim Robinson) is absorbed at dizzying speed into charmed friend circle of smooth bro (Paul Rudd) and then—even more abruptly—rejected. At which point he shouts, in despair, 'You made me feel too free! You accepted me too quickly!' Genius. Feet up in the back row, James By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Dear James: I'm Not Very Punk Rock
Editor's Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, I'm not very punk rock. Not even a little. I'm well into middle age and experiencing my first taste of the many small indignities sure to come. I wear sensible shoes with gel insoles scientifically designed to relieve the pain and discomfort of plantar fasciitis. I have long and detailed conversations about insurance. And yet, in my heart, I believe that all is mendacity. That virtue is impossible. That the system crushes us all beneath its relentless wheel. I tell hilarious jokes about the cruel pointlessness of existence and receive only blank stares in return. If the world were to perish in flames, I'm pretty sure it would be no more than it deserved. So my question to you is simple: Is this any way to live? Dear Reader, You are punk rock to the tips of your gel-cushioned toes, my friend. Don't worry about that. I'm sorry that nobody's digging your nihilistic humor. Maybe work on your material a bit, soften the edges, angle it a touch toward the mainstream? Day-to-day discourse, in my experience, can absorb a remarkable amount of savage absurdism, gags about doom, and so on (this stuff is highly relatable!)—as long as you don't come off as aggressive or out of your mind. As long as you don't come off too punk rock. To your larger point: How are we to live, make our way, proceed in the world when so much of said world is clearly an evil farce? (Huge pause while advice columnist slurps his coffee, stares out the window, and considers the question.) The punk rockers were not the first to have this insight, of course: The poets and the prophets have always known it. No one is more punk rock than the unknown author of Ecclesiastes. Or John Donne. Or Sylvia Plath. Or the author(s) of the Psalms, in certain moods. The trick, I think, is to use this world-withering vision as a stimulant rather than as a philosophical end point. Don't let it shut you down; let it wake you up. Use it to sharpen your senses and file your encounters to a keen edge. As in: It's all bollocks and everyone dies, but wow, this bag of Dunkin' Donuts Snackin' Bacon tastes amazing. Or: It's all bollocks and everyone dies, so why don't I help this elderly person with her shopping? Use it, this flame of disgust, to refine your language! Regarding bands, I have one word for you: Godflesh. (Cue sound of Godflesh fans across America falling to their knees in grateful assent.) It's all there. The beauty, the horror, the low end that purges your bowels, the guitar tone that scrapes the plaque from your heart. Start with Hymns. James Dear James, Dear Reader, The last great movie I saw was Friendship. Profoundly awkward person (Tim Robinson) is absorbed at dizzying speed into charmed friend circle of smooth bro (Paul Rudd) and then—even more abruptly—rejected. At which point he shouts, in despair, 'You made me feel too free! You accepted me too quickly!' Genius. Feet up in the back row, James
