Wellness

Elizabeth called this phenomenon the “meaning effect,” a term she much preferred to “placebo effect.” Because to say that these effects arose from placebo implied that they arose from nothing—for that’s what placebo traditionally was, an inert substance, literally and intentionally useless—when in fact the placebo effect was elicited by the strong

It was the ritual that was important—the acupuncturist’s thorough examination, the couple’s elaborate date, the mother’s comforting home remedy, the ceremonial mixing of the absinthe. It was in these observances that the placebo effect activated and materialized: the transubstantiation of belief into reality, of story into truth, a metaphor made fl

Someday, he thought, he’ll have digested enough Derrida, and he’ll have read all the right books, and heard all the right music, and watched all the right films, and seen all the right art, and through a kind of inner alchemy he’ll find himself being exactly who he right now hoped to become: publicly recognized, shown in galleries, reviewed ecstati

Elizabeth realized she needed to take the entire conversation-entering process that she had intuitively perfected all those times she was the new kid in school and break it down for Toby into manageable, followable micro-steps (honestly this was pretty fun for her; behavioral psychologists tend to love their flowcharts). The first step was Observe,

Neo-Bohemia by Richard Lloyd (who inspired Benjamin Quince’s theory of urban artists as corporate risk managers);

“You know, when I was young,” Jack said, “none of my friends wanted corporate sponsorship.” “Why?” “They called it selling out. It meant you were fake.” Toby snorted. “That’s dumb.” “You think so?” “It doesn’t mean you’re fake. It means you’re good.”

Elizabeth had never once set foot in Park Shore, Illinois, and when she’d first asked Benjamin what the place was like, he’d described it as “the confluence of real estate’s three magic l’s.” “And what are the three magic l’s?” she’d asked. “Liberal, leafy, and loaded.”

“Believe what you believe, my dear, but believe gently. Believe compassionately. Believe with curiosity. Believe with humility. And don’t trust the arrogance of certainty. I mean, my goodness, Elizabeth, if you want the gods to really laugh at you, then by all means call it your forever home.”

The people he loved, he thought, were visitors, and waiting inside them was the possibility of someone better or someone worse, someone good or someone wretched, someone intimate or someone strange. His wife, son, friends, coworkers—he could not count on any of them to be consistently themselves.