Mr. DiBello is a computer IT person, a troubleshooter, much valued at his work for his abilities and knowledge.  But he said he worried that he wouldn't be able to solve the problems that came up: “I have a sense of foreboding, that something bad’s going to happen.” 

We asked him: “Do you think there is something in us that might like to see the world as an enemy?  Might even make ourselves important that way?”  He answered thoughtfully, “Yes.  My wife seems to think so.  Why else would I go to it like I do?” 

In the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry class taught by Ellen Reiss which we're quoting from in this seminar, speaking on the subject of “What Poetry Tells Us about Worry,” she asked these questions: 

"Can worry, like poetry, be judged on how well it puts opposites together?  Is there a more beautiful worry and a less beautiful worry?...One of the awful things about worry when it's bad [is] there can be a narrowness, a zeroing in, and nothing else exists.... Meanwhile, it's necessary to see also that the world you're worried about has other things than worry."

Will a man be proud if, as he thinks about his own concerns, he also wants to think deeply about other people?  To be proud he needs to ask: Does my worry make me a kinder or a meaner person?  Is it based on what the facts are, or do I get any fake importance by the way I can worry?  Do I use my worries to justify a hate for the outside world?  Is there a concern I need to have in behalf of other people? 

I.    When does worry begin?

From as early as I can remember, as I worried about things, I would “zero-in”: whether I’d be popular, whether I was going to get the right English racer; whether I’d make the team and be a starter.  Would I be chosen to be captain of the team? 

While my family was financially fortunate, money was a worry.  I vividly remember being nervous as my father lost money on various business ventures.  Even so, at 13, I was given money to invest in stocks.  Then I worried at night how they were doing, and as I opened the Wall Street journal in the morning, would sigh with relief if my stocks advanced.  The whole world revolved around my stocks, and even as I worried, I felt very important.  Ms. Reiss explained in the class: “Worry can deeply be contempt, where people prefer to think that the world is going to hurt them in some way rather than see what they have to be grateful for.” 

I also had another kind of worry, one that was far wider.  After graduating from college I went to work teaching third grade in the tough Brownsville section of Brooklyn.  This was so different from where I grew up on Long island and where I then lived on Manhattan’s upper east side.  But I threw myself into teaching these young persons, and I found myself worrying about them. What was to become of Michael Garrett who came from a broken home and couldn't read?  He came to school looking like he hadn't slept, with his clothes in disarray and hungry.  There was Dean Stuart, very poor, who loved to listen to the story “The Little Tug That Could.”  What was his future going to be?  As I got into my car and drove back to the city I sometimes found myself tearful—what would become of these boys?  This was a worry I could have been proud of because it wasn't just my selfish self.  It was utterly different from my worry about what figure I’d cut as I started my ski run down Killington Mountain. 

What was happening in world wasn't of real interest to me.  That in Vietnam thousands and thousands of people were being napalmed, or thousands of Americans my age were being killed or wounded, wasn't my concern.  Said Ms. Reiss, “We also have to be able to feel that there's something that doesn't have to do with me at all, and I'm worried about it.”  But I wasn't: my main concern was how not to have it happen to me. 

II. Worry and women and anger 

By the time I was twenty-four I was worried about myself.  My disgust with people had gotten so out of control I did reckless things and I was taking drugs. Like many young men, I wanted to find love, and I would work hard to get a woman to like me, which meant her agreeing to have sex with me.  But even after I got what I thought I wanted, I would lose interest and become cold and sarcastic.  When a woman couldn't make up her mind what movie to see or what she wanted to order at a restaurant, I’d growl, “C’mon already, order!”  I could act “Hale fellow, well met,” but inside I felt like a heel.  Even my friends were worried, not knowing what would come out of me—would my sense of fun veer into sadism or cruelty, which took the form of a nasty wit.  I often got laughs, but I hurt people. 
My friend, Robert Murphy, now my colleague in teaching Aesthetic Realism, told me he prayed I wouldn't turn on him. 

In an Aesthetic Realism lesson, which took place when I was 24, Eli Siegel spoke to me about a document I’d written to him, and asked: 

Do you believe your chief personal worry is that you can get into a kind of rage where you don't consider the other person? 

JC.  I feel that is my chief personal worry. 

ES.  Do you believe that sex has encouraged kindness or cruelty? 

JC.  I think it's encouraged cruelty in me, Mr. Siegel. 

ES.  And are you afraid of the cruelty? 

JC.  Yes, I am. 

ES.  Do you think most men have used sex for contempt? Most men do; it's part of malehood. 

I had; and Mr. Siegel said: 

ES.  Aesthetic Realism says the only way you can like yourself, Jeff Carduner, is if you look at the world and you say: “I like the way I see it.”  That means all—that’s the only way you'll ever like yourself.  You want to stand for justice to people--that’s the way you like yourself. 

I saw that I had to be worried about the contempt I had, which took the form of unjust anger.  If I worried about whether or not I was fair to a woman and to other people—I could be proud of myself.  I began to ask: Am I having a good effect on a person or a bad effect?  And for the first time to ask, What do all people deserve—in terms of jobs, health care, education. 

 “The test of one's character,” Ms. Reiss said, “is to like these questions: Am I honest, am I kind, am I really interested in anything outside of myself, am I selfish?”