Love, Appreciation, and Gratitude with and from Pride

A tanka about how the right kind of pride is a sacrament, not a sin

Appreciation Conveys respect — gratitude “I am proud of you” Emits those and state of love Feeling nachas — the reward

The synchronicities that lead me to write this poem have layers of synchronicities. First, a simple decoder ring, as I believe any poet who is not a fucking snob should include with their poetry. This is a notion I first started thinking about when Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) rejected a submission of mine to her fine pub months ago because she wanted her pub to open up poetry to those unaccustomed to reading poems.

On one level, my tanka poem simply reflects the power of appreciation. “I appreciate you” includes “I love you” and “I adore you.” Appreciation and gratitude are more meaningful than worship. Even God says so:

“The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude. When you thank God in advance for that which you choose to experience in your reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is there…in effect. Thankfulness is thus the most powerful statement to God; an affirmation that even before you ask, I have answered. Therefore never supplicate. Appreciate.”

― Neale Donald Walsch, The Complete Conversations with God

As for “nachas,” bear with my INTP-Christmas-tree-brain, and I will connect the dots.

Over the weekend, ILLUMINATION and Dr Mehmet Yildiz were defamed by Tessa Schlesinger. Dr. Yildiz responded with grace to the attack by issuing this story.

Yet, Tessa, with whom I have engaged before on Medium politely when we have disagreed, doubled down, and replied back with more attacks and tooting her own horn. I thought she might. I had responded in Mehmet’s story:

You cult leaders are so charming!! That’s humor before any moron says aha!!! Seriously, why is anyone as accomplished as yourself putzing around on Medium? That’s a rhetorical question — obviously writing and helping writers is a labor of love for you, and I for one am very appreciative of the opportunities that you make available for the advancement of others with nothing to gain except nachas, which is priceless. For those who do not know, Nachas is a Yiddish word meaning that you are happy and proud, especially of someone’s accomplishments. Nachas is the joy you feel over the achievements of someone close to you, because you’re so connected with that person, that it’s as if the accomplishment is yours. It’s often translated as pride, but it’s much more personal — an individual pleasure derived from someone else’s success. I hope [for her own sake] Tessa does not double down…

The first line of my response was inspired by both a) Markus Scorelius and his satiric wit,

to which he graciously permitted me to contribute as an editor, and b) the irreverently humorous public service announcements in the name of an immensely important cause of Janice Arenofsky, for which I have also been a doula:

Coincidentally, I have experience responding to libel from narcissists.

This morning I was prepared to drop the whole Tessa matter after I wrote this story about the concept of nachas:

But then I read Tessa’s response to Mehmet’s story, and realized that I would be doing her soul a favor by seeking to hold her accountable for her poor behavior:

When one stands by and allows people to act in discordance with the spiritual purpose of their souls, the bad actors’ souls get stained with entitlement. So, holding people responsible for their actions … is a great service to their souls for the after-life and future life cycles.

Excerpted from my short piece on Emile Zola and the Dreyfus Affair.

Please join me in standing up for the wrongly accused, and in asking Medium Staff and Medium Legal to see that justice is served, not only here, but in Heaven. There’s not a chance in hell he will see it, but you will actually be doing the gaslighter, Jonathan Green, a great service as well.

So far Medium has taken no action against Mr. Greene. That stain of entitlement results in such nonsense as Tessa’s defamatory posts, for which I partially blame myself for not ripping Tessa a new one back in December when she said to me that anyone who believes in God is mentally ill. Even Patrick M. Ohana doesn’t go that far afield.

I close with this song that I was thinking of when I wrote the tanka:

In Rama I create,

Marcus*

• “Marcus, my soul’s name, is a traditionally masculine name with Gaelic and Latin roots. It can mean “polite,” “shining,” and/or “hammer,” a somewhat violent reference that makes sense with Marcus’ overlap root word with the Roman god of war, Mars.”
• Those at first blush opposing definitions are quite synchronous with my personality.