Ampersand Gazette #111

Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …  

&&&&

The Longing to Matter
Is No Laughing Matter

What do you call it when people living in the wealthiest, most powerful country on the planet report feeling worn down, burned out and on edge?

Any number of explanations have been offered for this predicament, including political breakdown, economic inequality and an “epidemic of loneliness.” Two new books suggest that underlying these troubles is a “crisis of mattering.” According to “Mattering,” by the journalist Jennifer Breheny Wallace, and “The Mattering Instinct,” by the philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, feeling valued—which is to say, deserving of attention—is a core need that has grave consequences when it isn’t met.

“The Mattering Instinct” synthesizes ideas that have preoccupied Goldstein for decades. Even if the mattering instinct is something we all share, our mattering projects differ. “Socializers” want to matter to others; “competitors” want to matter more than others; “transcenders” want to matter to God (or the universe); and “heroic strivers” want to do something (whether artistic, athletic or intellectual) that matters to them.

Our mattering projects bring us a sense of purpose. Wallace, for her part, calls mattering a “meta-need” that “encompasses familiar concepts—feelings of connection, belonging and purpose.” Wallace’s book is mostly populated by ordinary people searching for meaning and connection in their lives.

The coincidence of two books on the subject of mattering being published at the same time is clearly a reflection of something larger. There is a lack, or a void, that has been ascendant in the last several years—the nihilism of “lol nothing matters” and “I really don’t care. Do U?” There is also the growing problem of our collapsing attention spans. All of these issues are connected.

Both books provide something rather than nothing. In dark times, that’s a start.

Excerpted from a review by Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times
“The Longing to Matter is No Laughing Matter”
January 28, 2026 

In more than forty years of counseling people, I’d have to say that the need to matter is a Prime Directive. The other turn of phrase for it is: I want to make a difference. It’s universal. 

I suspect that’s why I liked philosopher Goldstein’s mattering quadrants. She maintains there are different kinds of mattering. Of course there are. 

Etymologically, matter is a surprising word. It comes via Latin materia = substance, but its earlier basis is the Middle English Latin mater = mother. 

It makes sense, really. The dates comprising Middle English are 1100-1500 CE. At that point in the annals of medicine, women were ascribed the responsibility for creating matter vis-à-vis the male of the species, who allegedly contributed soul. 

Let’s revisit the quadrants, and see if you can identify your primary mattering needs: Do you … 

want to matter to others—then you’re a Socializer;
want to matter more than others—then you’re a Competitor;
want to matter to God or the universe—then you’re a Transcender;
want to do something that matters to yourself—then you’re a Heroic Striver. 

For me, I realized that I want to matter in all those ways—in different arenas of my life. And I posit that you do, too.  

Ms. Szalai suggests that two books on mattering at the same time signify something. I agree. Both approach one of the greatest human fears via differing lenses. In the deepest, least accessible aspect of the self, we fear that we, our lives, our words, our deeds don’t matter. 

And, to be sure, sometimes it feels like they don’t. But just because we can’t see how something we do or think or say impacts others or the world doesn’t mean that it doesn’t; it means that from where we stand, we can’t see it. 

Mattering, Belovèd, doesn’t require evidence—it requires faith, and that’s an inside job. 

& 

Consistent gratitude transforms stress into momentum.

Rick Levine, Libra Horoscope 

The Question: 

How can I make things consistently easier in my life? 

&mpersand Answers: 

In the plainest terms, what causes things to be hard in our lives is resistance, and resistance arises by degrees. You can have the finest sandpaper resistance or a full-blown, all-out ABSOLUTELY NOT resistance, and all the resistances in between. Same same, just different degrees. 

We don’t usually think of the word resistance when it comes to life being hard, though. Instead, we’ve come to use what I call a shopping bag word, that being: stress. All sorts of things cause us stress, but the bare bones truth is that we are causative for our own stress. 

And lest you think I’m handing out blame, think again.  

No blame here. Just awareness. Because … the minute we become aware that we’re resisting—even a little, or a lot—there is an immediate, free, available cure. And that is … 

G*R*A*T*I*T*U*D*E 

Gratitude is the oil that guaranteed reverses resistance. Now, to those whose practice is Christian, there is a scripture that provides the key, and is worth our attention. It’s from I Thessalonians 5:18. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 

There is a key to gratitude in these words, one that most of us miss. Can you guess what it is? 

The first preposition: In. The verse recommends “in” all things, not “for” all things. It’s “for” that tangles us up every time. 

So, let’s say you’re late, caught in traffic, no bars on your phone. Resistance is the name of the game here, or is it? You don’t have to be thankful that you’re late or that you’re caught in traffic, or that there are no bars on your phone. But you can be thankful “in” the midst of all that. 

Are you breathing? Good, there’s oxygen. Oh, and your lungs are working. And if your lungs are working, then so is your heart. Is your foot on the gas pedal? Or the brake? Can you sense it there? Well, then your nerves are hard at work, too. And if nerves, well, then muscles, too. How many fingers do you have? You have that many gratitudes to offer. 

I could go on and on and on, but you take my point. Gratitude turns stress into motion, action, and thereby, results, as long as you remember to practice it. It’s a practice, not a perfect. 

& 

Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …  

&

 Still in world-building mode, but also getting clearer as each day goes by. That’s a relief, although whilst I am in the midst of the process, it seems molasses-in-January slow. 

Because I know that there are a lot of books in this series, part of what I’m doing is investigating history, but history I lived through myself. It’s odd what I remember and what I am reminded of. This second book of the series, Betrayed, takes place in 1983—the year Moose Murders opened and bombed in one night, the year the last episode of M*A*S*H played on television to 77% of the viewing audience, and the year I co-wrote a television special based on Tommy Tune and Twiggy in My One and Only. I’m sifting through history. 

As for the recording studio, I’m doing a little bit every day, and just like Alice since I began at the beginning, and am going on, when I get to the end, I will stop. I’m still fixed on not the perfect of an audiobook, instead the imperfect of a bedtime story read aloud. 

 I’ve pretty much decided, or, really, I’ve been guided, to prepare to write two books at the same time again—a perfect way to recover from major surgery. Book 2 of Prismatica, as above, and the eleventh Mex Mystery. It’s called Shrew This! and it takes place during the Covid-19 shutdown. Anchored in an all-female production of Taming of the Shrew presented by the residents of a domestic safe-house shelter, it addresses intimate partner violence. The spiritual healing modality is the use of mandala.

Please make this indie author happy. Choose one of my series, and read all of them. Then review all of them. That’s the way others find books. 

The entire series of The Subversive Lovelies is one option. Fall into the stories of the four siblings who just will not follow the rules of society.

& 

Special Request: 

Send me your spiritual questions please. As of now, which I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m posting &mpersand Answers twice a week. 

& 

Our lunch conversations lately have been all over the map! I switch from Prismatica to Mex and back in the twinkling of an eye, and because of his familiarity with my work, Tony keeps up with me. His suggestions and one-sentence ideas invariably enrich my creative process, and my writing.  

Some authors can write anywhere. Others need to go away from their everyday lives to get anything on the page. One of the things that some find helpful is a weekend retreat, a jump-start into the momentum of a project. The authors who I’ve witnessed doing this take quantum leaps forward in a few short days.  

Tony Amato is a full service, one-stop shop. His customized retreats here in the Hudson River Valley are game changers. Come stay in an Air B & B, and give your project a big boost. He’s helped more LGBTQ+ authors, as well as others, get clear on the best way to tap into their creativity, discern their own processes, learn their craft, and come up with stellar projects. Find this genius—yes, I’m saying it, who has been nurturing authors for more than thirty years, here.  

Oh, and here’s his substack Subscribe here. Also, remember that the next Body Double, the once-a-month writing workshop he facilitates, is April 16th. Write to Tony here. 

& 

Ring of Salt: A Memoir of Finding Home and Hope on the Wild Coast of Ireland by Betsy Cornwell 

At twenty-four, Betsy Cornwell runs from a painful past to Ireland for a fresh start. There she chases her dream of becoming a novelist, meets a handsome and charming horse trainer, and her life takes on the glow of a fairy tale when they elope to Gretna Green.

from the blurb: 

“Five years later, her happy ending has twisted into a nightmare. Betsy is trapped in an abusive marriage, isolated and afraid with a newborn baby. On her son’s first birthday, she flees home again, this time turning to the women around her—her local survivor support group, a trusted family friend, and an online Smith College alumnae network—for help she’d never known she could ask for.

As she struggles to scrape together a living for herself and her son, she scrolls through real estate listings that might as well be castles in the air, and starts to foster an impossible dream: What if she could use her writing to buy a home, one that no one could take away from her and her baby? One that might become a haven, not just for her family, but other single parent artists and writers, too?

She discovers a historic knitting factory on Ireland’s rugged Connemara coastline, left empty for years, and that precarious dream becomes her lifeline. Over the next two years she works to crowdfund the old knitting factory’s purchase by sharing its story and her own, and her heartbreaking fight to keep custody of her son, with her growing online community. As the deadline to buy nears, this New York Times bestselling author who rewrites fairy tales for our modern times realizes she will have to reckon with everything she believes about family, survival, and what happily-ever-after truly means for her dream to have any chance of coming true.

Ring of Salt crafts a real-world fairy tale about the ordinary, but no less life-changing, forms of magic we can all access: vulnerability, community, and the power of telling your own story.” 

I’d read about this knitting factory somewhere, and still can’t recall where, when another story about it popped up in the alumnae quarterly of my alma mater. I could not put this book down. Against all my own nearly seven decades of reading habits, I jettisoned everything else I was reading and sank into Betsy’ exquisite writing, heartbreaking storyline, praying/wishing/ dreaming/clapping-my-hands-so-Tinkerbelle-will-live until the very last word. Utterly brilliant. 

& 

Are you waiting for a sign?
How about this one?

 Here’s another stage
just for you.
It’s got every and any
energy healing possibility
in the world. 

Just position yourself under
the downlights
you need energetically.
A minute ought to do the trick. 

Soak it in, soak it up,
wrap yourself in light.
All light is frequency,
and you have the spectrum
at your beck and call.

USE IT. 

Metaphysician,
heal thyself. 

& 

I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
Let’s commit to practicing And ever more diligently, shall we? 

Until next time,
Be Ampersand 

&&&&