Maybe You Should Read This: On "Should."

Tony Robbins is known for saying: “Stop shoulding all over yourself!” And that gets both smiles and naughty laughs from his audiences. Then he offers them the opportunity to walk on hot coals because he thinks they “should.” What’s interesting is that he also thinks he “should” say certain things in his talks and not others, and he thinks he “should” warn us about the word “should” and the mindset it can represent. But it isn’t just Tony. Recently, I’ve heard or seen some of my favorite people either criticize the word “should,” express misgivings over it, or advise against it. And that makes me want to look into it more. But first: I get how it can represent a mindset of ongoing and nearly helpless self-observing self-deprecating or demeaning guilt, as in constant inner repetitions of: “I should eat better/sleep more/exercise daily/meditate regularly/read more books by Tom Morris and not Tony Robbins/spend less time on social media/calm down/do more for others.

But let’s look more deeply. You can imagine by now that I think we should.

Origins: The word “should” comes from the Old English sceolde, a past tense of a verb that meant “to owe” or “be obliged to.” It also traces back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning “to owe” or “be obligated.” Its meaning has evolved over centuries from financial debt to the expression of moral obligation or prudential desirability that we use today.

My wife bought a pair of Merrill hiking shoes but didn’t like the color so she ordered a different color saying, “I hope they fit the same.” I said, “They’re just a different color so they SHOULD.” There, the word expressed a solid expectation that has nothing to do with duty or obligation, unless of course we think shoe companies have an obligation of consistency with sizing. But even so, I didn’t have that in mind, but probabilities based on past experience. “It should rain later today.” No cloud has a duty to drop rain later. This usage is about evidence and expectation and is not mentioned in any etymology I can find, and yet is common.

I’ve been walking in the morning when my mind is clearest for philosophy. I recently realized I "should" change my schedule, write in the morning, and walk after lunch. There, my “should” has nothing to do with moral duty or probabilistic expectation, but is a “heuristic” – a discovery term. I’m realizing or discovering what it would be in my best interests to do. It’s a version of “I’ve been doing x, y would be better, therefore I SHOULD do y, and I think I CAN do y, thus, I WILL do y.” It’s a transitional term in decision making. Here it isn’t about helplessness or guilt, but the opposite—it’s about discovering and deciding a new path of action.

Of course, “should” is also used as a synonym for “ought” in our moral thinking, as well as in expression of aspirational ideals. And I believe we "should" think morally as well as have aspirational ideals.

Am I missing something? Am I shoulding all over myself? SHOULD I just stop with "should" altogether? I should very much like to hear your take, on the basis of all this. And yeah, you just caught another usage.

Two Kinds of Minds

Two Kinds of Minds. A historian and a mathematician walk into a bar. The two kinds of minds order two kinds of drinks. The historian has a mainly remembering mind. The mathematician has a predominantly reasoning mind. The Remembering Mind and the Reasoning Mind. I saw both kinds at Yale. Most people there were very good at both, but you could tell what a person's dominant talent was. Those who were extraordinary at one sort of mental function often seemed not quite as good at the other. Some could be extreme at one and almost poor at the other.

There's a famous story about the Hungarian mathematician Eugene Wigner visiting Harvard. He was at the Cambridge post office hunched over a table addressing a letter. Suddenly, he started staring at the envelope. "Come on, come on, come on," he muttered. He jerked the envelope up off the table and began pacing in short steps back and forth, muttering and hitting himself on the forehead with the envelope. A Harvard grad student approached the obviously agitated genius and said, "May I be of assistance, Professor Wigner?" The man looked thunderstruck and said, "Yes! Wigner!" And he wrote the return address. If you doubt this story, go to your local university math department at the end of the day and watch them look for their cars.

Let's postulate a third sort of mind, a revolutionary in his or her field, an innovator, an unusually creative thinker. Let's call that the Reinventing Mind. I suspect that to be one of those, you have to have a decent Remembering Mind, but an excellent Reasoning Mind, in the capacity of spotting patterns, real and possible.

I've known CEOs of huge companies, with a hundred thousand or a quarter million employees, and was always amazed at their recall concerning all the divisions, departments, and developments in their vast enterprise. The moving parts of a huge organization would defeat most of us. And those corporate leaders with a keen intellect tend to go deeper than most people in their probing and understanding of most of their business problems. Where the front line guys might understand things on a level one or two, and their managers on a level two or three, the top CEOs will grasp those things on a level four or five. The rare revolutionaries may dive down to a level ten. And I'd always recognize them as kindred spirits.

As the sort of philosopher I am, I have to live at a level five to ten most of the time at least in my work, and I do deep dives down to fifteen or twenty. Few accompany me there. When someone does, I always benefit from the partnership. But when I resurface, I try to make the results available at more accessible levels. I may not be as bad as Wigner with people's names or my own, but I share his Reasoning Mind and have to work hard to cultivate the Remembering side of my own mind. We all have strengths and weaknesses. No one type of mind is better than another in its orientation. Without my historian friends, I'd have a lot less to reason about, and reinventing would not be as available. You have to know and understand what was and is in order to create a better can be. That's what's wrong with our current politics. There are far too many in office at every level who have not cultivated either their Remembering Mind or their Reasoning Mind, and so don't get the Reinventing we need, just destruction. And I was going to make one more point but now can't recall it. What were we discussing?

Dangers and Limits

Our oldest epic story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is about a king who tolerated no limits. Frankenstein is a story about a young scientist who aspired to break through the ultimate scientific limit. Great minds have been warming us for some time about our ambivalence over limits.

The inventor and craftsman Daedalus was imprisoned on the Isle of Crete with his son Icarus. There was no escape by land or sea. But that left the air. What if a technology could be created mimicking something in the natural world that would allow their safe escape? Daedalus got to work and created two sets of wings, using candle wax to cover the frames with feathers and then instructed his son Icarus not to fly too low, lest the sea spray wet the feathers and weigh him down, or too high, since the heat of the sun could melt the wax and destroy the functionality of the wings. But Icarus got too excited mid flight and soared too high, ignoring caution, flew too close to the sun, and plummeted to his death.

We live in a world where a few fly too high and many fly too low, and disaster results. Let's take the ancient lesson, repeated in its own way in much great literature, and be careful with what we create and how we put it to use. Let's beware of the irrational exuberance that can make us oblivious to proper limits.

Our Idea of Uncertainty

Friends! As I prepare for a second Wisdom Weekend Retreat on The Gift of Uncertainty, October 10-12 here at the beach (2 seats still available) and edit my final draft of a book by the same title, I’ve considered beginning the book of practical philosophy with a little story that came to me yesterday. Here it is for your pondering pleasure:

The animals of the forest had gathered in a small group at daybreak. It was early autumn, with just a touch of chill in the morning air. One squirrel glanced around and with an unusually serious expression on his face and in his voice said to his friends, “I’ve decided not to go hunt for nuts today. There’s far too much uncertainty in the forest.” A second squirrel quickly replied, “Yes, there’s been a dense fog of the unpredictable in recent days.”

A nearby rabbit commented, “Dangers and threats that are known are bad, of course, but the unknown are perhaps worse.” There was a general nodding of heads as a small lizard scampered by, heading into thick cover, which struck the rabbit as a neat metaphor of the very phenomenon they were discussing.

A racoon added, “It’s just that too much mystery surrounds us now.” Silence followed his remark for a moment, as if symbolically confirming the theme. “And deep ambiguity,” a small gray mouse then replied.

Suddenly, they all heard a familiar “Who? Who? Who is to say?” These words came from a low branch of the large tree above them and announced the presence of a wise old owl, who sagely added: “At one level, uncertainty is an objective fact, at another a subjective perception, and at a third, an intellectual, conceptual construct that often constrains us, though we ironically take it to be empowering, and in part because of its protective nature as a recognition and caution, and that is certainly a paradox."

The other animals stared at him and in unison said, “What?” They were of course uncertain as to his meaning, which was just one more enigma for them to ponder on this newborn day.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

As a proud UNC Morehead-Cain Tar Heel graduate, as well as a patriotic American at this stage in our up and down turbulent history, I was reminded today of a famous literary passage, well worth reading slowly and pondering anew:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." Thank you, Chucky D.

I keep coming back to Plato's insistence that rarely are things exactly as they seem. And rarely are things stable. Then I'm reminded of the Stoic insistence that what in the end matters most is what's inside us, more than what's outside us and around us. Life is supposed to be an inside-out movement, bringing wisdom and virtue, and love and care to a needy world as we can. And as to the world itself, I keep reminding myself that you don't have to see a way for there to be a way. The only enduring win is the internal victory we bring to each day.

Wisdom Weekend Retreats!

We’re having retreats on the beach this fall! I’d love it if you could come!

This is one of my favorite Wisdom Weekend Retreat photos, a breakout session outside on a beautiful day, overlooking the pool and the waves, where everyone was so deeply into their discussion, it was hard to corral them back into the meeting room for the results of their ponderings. From left to right, a Morehead-Cain Scholar from UNC, a Duke Divinity grad Methodist minister, one of the top educators and leaders in the state of North Caroline, a back view of a great leadership consultant, former US Nationals basketball player (who helped John Wooden write an ethics policy for NCAA Refs), a filmmaker and wise woman from MA who discovered my books in a Harvard class, and a Forbes Five Top Books of the Year author from Canada. The other small groups scattered around outside and inside were also incredible arrays of accomplished and wonderful people, deeply engaged with each other. I thought I was going to have to physically pull one of the groups back into the meeting room! It was a great day. Come be part of one.

Click the link here and see the topics and dates: First up, October 10-12 The GIFT of Uncertainty - all about the unknown, the uncertain, the unpredictable, the mysterious, and how best to view it and handle it in our lives - the topic of an upcoming book. Come help me figure it out!

www.TomVMorris.com/retreats

Wisdom Weekend Retreats

Wisdom Weekend Retreats for early 2025. From Tom Morris:

15 years ago, I did retreats on Wrightsville Beach, NC near my home that brought to a comfortable resort great people who had read some of my books or heard me speak to a corporate group or big convention and wanted a weekend rather than just an hour or two to ponder the insights of the ages on things that matter. The retreats we held were amazing experiences for everyone involved, from Fortune 500 and 100 CEOs to college students, Washington lawyers, medical doctors, retired folks, and business founders. Participants from around the country got along famously, loved meeting fellow seekers of wisdom, and enlightened each another with deeper insights on the life and work perspectives we all need.

I’ve just started up the retreats again. If you are interested in actionable philosophy and deep practical wisdom, hearing new ideas on life, and enjoy a great beach, I’d love to host you at a new Wisdom Weekend. We had our first retreat in this new cycle on January 31-February 2, The Extraordinary Life Retreat. We’ll repeat that retreat on March 14-16, and then on April 4-6, we’ll do The Gift of Uncertainty Retreat. March 14-16, like our first, will be focused on true success, real happiness, and transformative change in our lives. The April Retreat will be a deep dive on navigating all the uncertainty of our day, based in the wisdom of the great philosophers. Some sample testimonials from the first retreat are below.

We’ll be diving deep into life and leadership wisdom with many great people already registered, including CEOs, presidents, directors, authors (one an author of a Forbes designated “Five Must Reads of the Year” book, a former CFO and recently retired leader of the FBI’s counter terrorism SWAT team, and lots of other fascinating people, including physicians, Morehead-Cain Scholars, and a prominent AI founder. For more, go to http://www.TomVMorris.com/retreats. If you’d like to come this year, email me ASAP at TomVMorris@aol.com, the world’s oldest email, as there will typically be only 15-25 spaces in each retreat, give or take. Our great resort hotel, recently renovated to have the aura of a high-end beach house, Lumina on Wrightsville Beach, is offering crazy low water view room prices for all attendees and is a place you’ll love. Retreat registration fees will be only $975 per person, rooms at the resort will be around $179 a night, depending on sound view or ocean view (2 nights needed for out-of-towners) and food is reasonable and very good. If you’d like to come, I’ll send final information for hotel discounts and our registration, along with other details. And bring a spouse or a friend or colleague!

Retreats will start on the respective Friday evening at 6:30PM, will go to 8 or 8:30 and will continue in sessions on Saturday 9AM to 12 Noon, with a great beach time break and 2 PM to 5 PM, then reconvene for more informal conversations Saturday evening. We’ll conclude with a session Sunday morning 8 AM to 11, then we'll all exchange contact information with our new favorite people, hug, and depart. Wilmington International Airport (ILM) is about 10 miles from the hotel and Uber, Lift, and cabs are available in abundance. We have direct flights many times a day with American, Delta, and United, among other domestic airlines. And of course, Myrtle Beach and RDU have airports within a 2-hour drive. Come and meet amazing people, enjoy deep dives into wisdom, and expand your community across space and time in a way that will support your growth for years to come.

A Sample of Recent 2025 Testimonials

The first word that comes to mind when thinking about my experience at the “Extraordinary Life” retreat led by Tom Morris is WOW - truly an extraordinary weekend with a group of extraordinary people (and now, new friends). It’s not often enough that we allow ourselves time to focus on topics that are of the utmost importance – happiness, handling change, personal growth – this is the perfect opportunity to give yourself that gift. Tom’s passion and energy as he dives into each of these topics (and more) is infectious. I walked away from the weekend feeling energized and empowered. And as an added perk, it all takes place at Lumina on Wrightsville Beach, NC which is so beautiful and serene. I HIGHLY recommend treating yourself to this experience!

- Debbie Reilly, New Jersey CPA

The Wisdom Retreat was a rare opportunity to spend time with interesting, engaging people while discussing and learning about ancient and modern philosophers. Studying the concepts of wisdom and happiness over history gives perspective to a modern life and current challenges facing each of us. Tom is knowledgeable, filled with passion, and endlessly curious about melding the great Philosophers into everyday life. We will be repeat customers!

- Bob Reilly, Licensed Professional Counselor, former FBI Special Agent, former CPA, current outdoorsman, New Jersey

Tom Morris brings excitement and energy to one’s soul and heart by exploring age-old philosophies of wisdom, happiness, and true success in life.

- Mike Priddy, Former Superintendent in larger urban North Carolina school districts, Distinguished Alumnus, UNC-Chapel Hill, and recipient of the state’s highest honor, The Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

The Wisdom retreat was a tremendous success, led by Tom Morris. Tom is an excellent speaker who engages the audience while presenting deep knowledge to the attendees. The retreat was well worth the time to not only enjoy Tom's information, but having deep conversations during breaks, lunch, dinner, and later in the evening. The quality of the people who attended raised the collective consciousness of everyone. I wholeheartedly endorse these retreats for anyone who wants to dive deeper into philosophy, psychology, and personal growth.

- Bill Bruner, Former actor, current President, theatre and theatrical company, Colorado, and author of the multi-award-winning blog, “Journey to Joy.”

Since the completion of the retreat, we have had more energy, we’ve been more oriented toward a purpose, and we’ve been doing some of the things we’ve been wanting to do for a very long time! You model for everyone how to be truly present for another person—your listening, your centeredness, your focus, and your kindness when we were all talking about a huge range of topics. Now we all know why you were raving about The Lumina Resort. We’ve never been to a more welcoming place! Incredible staff and unusually beautiful décor throughout! Such a happy place!!!

- Dorrie Gibson, UNC grad, got her teacher training at the College of Charleston and taught biology. She’s done volunteer work in the schools, community and church in North Charleston.

Tom Morris’s course is a stellar opportunity that transforms the wisdom of ancient philosophers into practical, applicable insights that anyone—at any stage of their career or life—can benefit from. Packed with witty anecdotes, thought-provoking case studies, and deep explorations of leading philosophers, it offers a roadmap for building a fulfilling life and leadership journey rooted in joy, wisdom, and peace.
- Rotimi Kukoyi, Morehead-Cain Scholar, UNC in Health Policy Management, Biology, and Chemistry. One of the youngest Jeopardy! champions in show history, for both Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings.

I highly recommend The Wisdom Weekend Retreat. If you are looking for ways to become more aware that life is a meaningful journey, this is a big and significant step in the right direction!!! This was my first Wisdom Weekend Retreat, and I hope to attend many more.

- Jack Gibson, retired physician, North Charleston, SC

And Finally: My new wisdom friend Dawn Epstein began reading my work while a student a Harvard and just came to one of my new Wisdom Weekend Retreats and posted this online:

<<So, I'm still buzzing with energy from last weekend's remarkable retreat with Tom Morris (and also: psychologist Gary Bradt)! I am not new to Tom's work, having many of his books, but this weekend spent in the company of a wide range of accomplished people of all ages really helped me pull his ideas together and make them actionable. In the informal, open environment Tom created--enhanced by glorious views of the beach outside--attendees were able to ask and discuss questions and share perspectives. I learned as much from fellow attendees as I learned from the excellent and generous presenters. I’d recommend this retreat to anyone looking for deep, philosophically grounded conversation or practical methods for (re)invigorating one’s life work during these challenging times. I think my most actionable take-away was an insight that led to a new direction of study that may revive my own (shelved) manuscript on protecting ourselves from unethical images. But I also felt refreshed in the knowledge that there are plenty of deeply principled, kind, and accomplished people of all ages and walks of life who want to do better by others in their passage through this world. I’m looking forward to returning in April. And I'd love to have your company walking on this 7-mile stretch of beach!>>

The Most Amazing Short Novel

I just read the most amazing short novel, Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, a book that won this year’s top British literary award, The Booker Prize. It’s about six people on the international space station, and a day in their lives, but it’s really about time, meaning, purpose, the earth, humanity, our politics, the cosmos, and so much more. It’s like a prose poem of ecstatic musings. Harvey takes you inside the minds and hearts and bodies of the 4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts as they circle the earth at 17,500 miles an hour, experiencing 16 sunrises and sunsets in one 24 hour period. I’ll quote a few passages and resist the temptation to quote the entire book. Do yourself a HUGE favor and get it and read it. 207 small pages with good print size. Easy to read. Transporting. Ethereal. And practical. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Samantha-Harvey/dp/0802161545/?tag=tomvmorriscom-20&ref_=pe_584750_33951330

Referring to the Japanese astronaut who just got word her mother has died:

Chie’s only mother now is that rolling, glowing ball that throws itself involuntarily around the sun once a year. Chie has been made an orphan, her father dead a decade. That ball is the only thing she can point to now that has given her life. There’s no life without it. Without that planet there’s no life. Obvious. (12)

Sometimes they look at the earth and could be tempted to roll back all they know to be true, and to believe instead that it sits, this planet, at the centre of everything. It seems so spectacular, so dignified and regal. They could still be led to believe that God himself had dropped it there, at the very centre of the waltzing universe, and they could forget all those truths men and women had uncovered (via a jerking and stuttering path of discovery followed by denial followed by discovery followed by cover-up) that the earth is a piddling speck at the centre of nothing. They could think: no negligible thing could shine so bright, no far-hurled nothing satellite could bother itself with these shows of beauty, no paltry rock could arrange such intricacy of fungus and minds. (40)

This thing that habours we humans who polish the ever-larger lenses of our telescopes that tell us how ever-smaller we are. And we stand there gaping. And in time we come to see that not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre, just a giddy mass of waltzing things, and that perhaps the entirety of our understanding consists of an elaborate and ever-evolving knowledge of our own extraneousness, a bashing away of mankind’s ego by the instruments of scientific inquiry until it is, that ego, a shattered edifice that lets light through. (41)

Pietro, the Italian, looking through the window at the earth below:

Radiance itself. What would it be to lose this? (52)

Nell wants to ask Shaun how it is he can be an astronaut and believe in God, a Creationist God, but she knows what his answer would be. He’d ask how it is that she can an astronaut and not believe in God. They’d draw a blank. She’d point out of the port and starboard windows, where the darkness is endless and ferocious. Where solar systems and galaxies are violently scattered. Where the field of view is so deep and multidimensional that the warp of space-time is something you can almost see. Look, she’d say, What made that but some heedless hurling beautiful force?
And Shaun would point out of the port and starboard windows where the darkness is endless and ferocious, at exactly the same violently scattered solar systems and galaxies and at the same deep and multidimensional field of view warped with space-time and he would say: what made that but some heedful hurling beautiful force?”
Is that all the difference there is between their views, then - a bit of heed? Is Shaun’s universe just the same as hers but made with care, to a design? Hers an occurrence of nature and his an artwork? [It gets better but I’ll stop here] (66-67)

When an astronaut remembers his daughter asking whether progress is a good or bad thing and he said it’s beautiful, and then on the orbits of earth he reconsiders:

Because who can look at man’s neurotic assault on the planet and find it beautiful? Man’s hubris. A hubris so almighty it’s matched only by his stupidity. (79)

At night. City lights in the blackness of space:

The night’s electric excess takes their breath away. The spread of life. The way the planet proclaims to the abyss: there is something and someone here. (106)

There is a passage on the beauty of earth and the awfulness of human conduct that rises to the level of a symphony of insight and poetry that goes from pages 108-110 and would take too long to quote. But it’s one of the finest passages of the book, and maybe of any book. The ugliness of our politics, marring the surface of a gorgeous planet, described in amazing terms.

Pages 169-173 give the best cosmic history I’ve ever seen, and in terms that are unforgettable. Don’t believe me, go read them. As if since the big bang a year has passed. What happened in each month or minute. But better than ever has been said.

Pietro sleeps and dreams:

Our lives here are inexpressibly trivial and momentous at once, it seems he’s about to wake up and say. Both repetitive and unprecedented. We matter greatly and not at all. To reach some pinnacle of human achievement only to discover that your achievements are next to nothing and that to understand this is the greatest achievement of any life, which itself is nothing, and also much more than everything. (184)

And there is much more.

https://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Samantha-Harvey/dp/0802161545/?tag=tomvmorriscom-20&ref_=pe_584750_33951330

Hair Raising Ideas

After a rock and roll philosophy talk/performance for the amazing students of NC State University this week on True Success: The Art of Achievement in Times of Change, I woke up to find my hair still excited! Like Socrates, I look forward to the great HairAfter. No products or processes were used in the making of this photograph. I put on my glasses, got up, looking in the mirror and had to share the vision that greeted me.

I get excited about great ideas. I hope you do too. One hour at NC State turned into nearly three, and after my sixty minute spoken word celebration of philosophical wisdom around life success, I loved hearing people’s questions for the next two hours, first in the plenary session through the means of microphones, and then in the front of the room, in the aisle, and outside the auditorium. Seven universal conditions for success, The 7 Cs of Success: Conception, Confidence, Concentration, Consistency, Commitment, Character and a Capacity to Enjoy the Process along the way. Digging deep, reconciling paradoxes, and seeing new sights. It was indeed for me an uplifting and hair-raising experience. I hope you and I have it together some time!

Come Join Me at our New Beach Retreats!

Wisdom Weekend Retreats for early 2025. About 10 years ago, I did a number of retreats on Wrightsville Beach here near my home bringing to the beach great people who had read one or more of my books or heard me speak to a corporate group or big convention and wanted a weekend rather than just an hour or two to ponder the insights of the ages on things that matter to us all. The retreats we held were really super experiences for everyone involved. Those who came from around the country got along great, loved meeting fellow philosophers, and enlightened each another with amazing perspectives on the life wisdom we all need in our time.

It's been a while but I’m feeling the urge to start up those retreats again. If you love philosophy, or the path of practical wisdom, hearing new perspectives on life, and enjoy a great beach, I can now officially announce some retreat dates that will restart this experience in 2025, on the weekends of:

 January 31-February 2,

March 14-16, and

April 4-6.

The first two weekends are scheduled to be new versions of “The Extraordinary Life Retreat,” the range of topics I did a decade ago focused on true success, real happiness, and the challenge of change in our lives, among other issues of personal wisdom and the role of virtue in our endeavors. The April Retreat will be EITHER a second personal topic retreat, likely on issues of courage, faith, hope, and love as they appear in a new book I’m writing called “The Gift of Uncertainty,” or it will be a focused leadership and life retreat based in some classics like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Frankenstein, and one or two others, soon to be chosen.

Each year, we hope to have a cycle of retreats for those wanting to come back, as happened ten years ago when we last hosted these amazing experiences. At the peak of his popularity Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits guy) and I co-hosted a weekend retreat at Notre Dame for 50 CEOs and their spouses. He insisted I start doing retreats of my own at the beach in North Carolina. And he was right. They’re needed and they’re immensely enriching for all of us. I hope you can come!

For more information, email me any interest ASAP, as there will typically be only 15-20 spaces in each retreat, give or take, and we’re setting the retreat fee well below the norm this year. Our great resort hotel, recently renovated to have the aura of a high end beach house, Lumina on Wrightsville Beach, is offering crazy low water view room prices for all retreat participants, and is a place you’ll love. We’re working to see if a couple of partial fellowships can be offered this year, so if that might be desired, let me know. Retreat fees will be $975 per person, rooms at the resort will be $129-149 a night, depending on sound view or ocean view (2 nights usually needed for those coming from afar) and food is reasonably priced and good. When the group is complete for each weekend, I’ll send you a link for hotel discounts and our registration, along with other details.

Retreats will start on the respective Friday evening at 6 or 6:30, will go to 8 or 9PM and will continue in sessions on Saturday 9AM to 12 Noon, and 2 PM to 5 PM, then reconvene for more informal conversations Saturday evening. And We’ll conclude with a session Sunday morning 9 AM to Noon or a bit earlier, then we all exchange contact information with our new favorite people, hug, and depart.

Wilmington International Airport (ILM) is about 10 miles from the hotel and there should be hotel van service available. We have direct flights many times a day with American, Delta, and United, among other domestic airlines. And of course, Myrtle Beach and RDU have airports within a 2-hour drive.

Come meet amazing people, enjoy deep dives into wisdom, and expand your community across space and time in a way that will support your growth for years to come. I’ll lead most sessions, joined by friends like my near neighbor Dr. Gary Bradt (global spokesman years ago for the famous book by his friend Spencer Johnson, Who Moved my Cheese?), and other luminaries on occasion like the great executive coach and all-round good guy, Jay Forte (The Greatness Zone), and one of my favorite fellow philosophers in the world, the Furman professor and still able rock drummer Aaron Simmons (Camping with Kierkegaard). Shoot me an email through the contact page on my website, listed above, or just reply at the world’s oldest email address, TomVMorris@aol.com with subject RETREATS. I look forward to philosophizing together if your schedule allows!

And if I can’t entice you down here now, keep this in mind for the future! In any case, whether here or on social media (links on my “about” page), let’s keep philosophizing!  All Best! Tom

Philosophers

Philosophers: Good, bad, and fake. Beware the false philosophers who trumpet their wisdom. And seek the company of the good.

Philosophy - philo/sophia is etymologically the love of wisdom. With that definition, we’re all to be philosophers, though few seem to be on the path. Among those who are, and among the adepts, there are to be found good practitioners of philosophy, good teachers of philosophy, and good original philosophers. All are good philosophers but in different ways, though some combine all three modes, and yet perhaps with different strengths.

A good practicing philosopher uses wisdom well in her day to day life. She loves wisdom enough that it forms her emotions, attitudes, and actions, what she notices, what she cares about, and what she does. A good teacher of philosophy has to be well informed, imaginative, clear, and passionate about the wisdom uncovered historically and in his or her own life. A good original philosopher ideally needs some measure of all these things, but also needs a very logical mind to an almost extreme degree, an attention to detail beyond even the exceptional, and a strong intuition for creative thought. There are always many people in our society now who present themselves in more than one of these ways, but we should examine their real credentials of heart and mind in so far as possible before we take them seriously as good guides and appropriate their ideas.

And by the way, a shout out to the faculty, staff, officers and cadets of The Air Force Academy where I had a great experience this week, bringing philosophy to the great students and future leaders. Philosophy got a long, loud standing ovation from the hundreds present and it was a great thing to see. We have great young people here and around the world who can help bring wisdom to life in new ways. Let’s cheer them on. I’ll close with a picture of the stage and podium where I philosophized, but this is Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense at the same podium a while ago.

Ego or Enthusiasm?

A very creative friend was talking to me yesterday about his reticence to promote his work to the world. He said something like "It just doesn't seem right." He's a writer and poet and produces amazing books that people need to experience. I told him I had an instant image of a potter come to mind, as in the picture here, but she's surrounded out of frame by thousands and thousands of beautiful finished pots. Someone walks in and says "What's all this???" She replies, "I'm a potter, not a marketer." Well, my friends, that's the life of too many creative people, doing their art and afraid that promoting it to the world would be unseemly, a form of tooting your own horn. But I pointed out a distinction to my very smart friend. The egotist says "Look at ME!" The enthusiast says "Look at THIS." It’s a small distinction but very important. You can be enthusiastic about your work, immensely excited over it, without a hint of ego crowding in and crowing. As long as you're promoting the product, the good, the service, and not featuring your ego in blazing flashing lights, you're good. And the world will be better off in knowing about your work. So do great stuff. Then tell us all about it!

And by the way, this is the sort of stuff we will be reflecting on at our upcoming Wisdom Weekend Retreats. If you're interested in learning about them, shoot me a line. It's not of course about me, but about an amazing time together exploring world wisdom about success, happiness, change, and other vital life issues.

Working Together for Great Things

I just saw this poster picture online and thought “Other than the dangling preposition at the end, this is great,” but of course in modern times we dangle all sorts of things. So I present it for your contemplation.

You've heard the old story. Three guys at a construction site independently asked what they're doing. One guy says, "Hauling stones, can't you see?" The second answers, "Putting up a wall." The third says "Building a cathedral." That's the attitude we want for ourselves and our partners. Many people attribute to the author of The little Prince the sensibility that we shouldn't just teach others to build boats but to long for the vast adventure of the sea. The quote that circulates on social media is this:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

And it's apparently just made up but summarizes a lesson in St. Exupery's Citadelle, a part of which says in English translation:

Building a boat isn’t about weaving canvas, forging nails, or reading the sky. It’s about giving a shared taste for the sea, by the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a community of love.

That's our aspiration in anything we do: A shared taste and vision of something great and noble sought in a community of love.

Retreats Starting December 13

Friends! I haven’t blogged for a while here because I’ve been finishing 3 new books and that’s taken all my time. I do post really short things on social media, but have come back to this blog today to invite you to a retreat coming up soon. I'm excited that our favorite local beach hotel near my home has green lighted a first retreat weekend for us in a new cycle of retreats. It’s scheduled to be at the great Holiday Inn Lumina Resort on Wrightsville Beach, outside Wilmington, NC from Friday December 13 (Dinner)-Sunday December 15 at noon. Things will start with a Friday dinner session and go through the weekend, assuming we can get a quorum of people for this first, soon upcoming date in a busy time of year. A reasonable retreat fee helps pay for the dinner and snacks and our meeting rooms, whose use reduces the cost of overnight rooms, which are already great with off season prices, and will help promote the mission of Wisdom/Work, the book imprint and overall enterprise I'm engaged in to bring more practical wisdom to the culture. The topics of this first retreat will be true success, happiness, fulfillment, and change in our lives. More retreats on this cluster of topics and others will be scheduled for early 2025. Let me know at TomVMorris@aol.com if you'd like to come to this first retreat or be put on a list for future retreats! And I’ll send you more info. I'd love to host you and dig deep into such vital aspects of a deep life philosophy. When I last had time to do retreats, ten years ago, they were amazing, and people often bonded incredibly. Let me know if you're interested!

Reading Phi-Fi: My Philosophical Fiction

Friends! I have to tell you, I'm having a great great time with my 2024 international book club, now underway! Smart people of many ages and professions from various spots across the globe reading my novels with me and diving deep into the philosophy in new ways. Thanks to all who are participating! You are my teachers. Maybe we'll do it again.

For those of you who may not know of these books, they came to me as a mental movie starting in February of 2011, a story set in Egypt in 1934 and 1935 that soon became a rollicking adventure of mystery, philosophy, romance, intrigue, and deep perspectives on life in the world. It was the most unexpected intellectual adventure of my life. Last year, I did a book club on these novels, reading one a month and meeting by Zoom at the end of each month. I was amazed at how much I learned from readers who were deep diving into the books and recommending them to friends. I decided to repeat the process and it’s been another incredible experience this time around as well, full of new insights, novel questions, and deep thinking together. If you get to see these books, I’d love to hear what you think. They’re fiction but “based on a true story” - the human adventure in this world!

Wonder and its Questions

Wonder and Its Questions

Both Plato and Aristotle believed that philosophy begins in wonder. That mindset, attitude, and activity represented by the Greek “philo-sophia,” meaning “the love of wisdom,” has no other origin. Wonder is the source.

But that explanation can use some clarification, because we typically speak of wonder in two different senses. First, there is wonder as awe. Your first look at the Grand Canyon up close, or a first experience of the Northern Lights undulating in the dark night sky, may evoke a cosmic sense of wonder as an overwhelming awe. You are entranced, and perhaps even speechless. You may feel very small in the immensity of things. But in each case, you might subsequently wonder what caused such a phenomenon, and that’s wonder as asking. it’s an interrogatory mode, a quest for discovery and illumination. So there is wonder as an awe and as an ask. I believe the early philosophers had both senses in mind. A deeper experience of life, and perhaps of your work, can begin only through a sense of wonder as a real awe and as a deep asking.

Both Plato and Aristotle had learned from Socrates, and he was the individual who launched philosophy into the broader world by relentlessly posing questions about things others assumed they knew. He had the curiosity and courage to interrogate reality in new ways and to involve others in his endless quest to understand.

In this connection I want to recommend heartily Walter Isaacson’s new massive biography of Elon Musk. Poor Elon (the only context in which you’ll ever see these two words together in reference to the world’s richest man) had a truly terrible childhood of massive emotional abuse at the hands of his own father, and of physically violent schoolyard bullies along the way. But he was a survivor, and went on to found company after company that he successfully steered through impossible challenges, largely by a relentless asking of questions: Why are things done in this way? Why is this a rule or regulation? Who made this a rule? How can we do things differently? What can we eliminate from the complexity of this product or process? How can we make things simpler, faster, cheaper, and more efficient?

Musk has overcome incredible odds over and over again, despite many self destructive emotional tendencies coming from his harsh childhood, by asking childlike questions where others take things for granted, or as givens in the world. He uses the tool of relentless questioning to turn industries upside down and make new things happen. He seems to have next to no empathy for other people, and near zero emotional intelligence, but his entire business history is driven by his remarkable capacity to ask the right questions over and over again, demanding real answers and not accepting the common prejudicial opinions that result merely from long-time habit.

This is a trait Elon Musk shares with the late Steve Jobs. Both of them have managed to launch world-changing enterprises by asking questions about things everyone else just assumed. Why do we need this? Can we do without it? Why don’t we try this another way? Can we take a risk here? Who says it’s impossible? What’s the worst that can happen if we give this a try?

Questions are powerful tools, and this particular type of tool is vastly underused because it’s under appreciated in our time. The great discoverers and inventors have always wondered what there could be beyond the known. And they have acted on their wonder, bringing the tool of asking to their awe and both then to action in the world.

Young people wanting the success of a Musk at Tesla or Space-X, or the world changing impact of a Jobs with his i-world wrongly ape their dress or darker manners, thinking that minimalist cool or hot anger and rage can give them the achievements they seek in their own lives. But if they were to really ask what has made Jobs and Musk able to pioneer new things, they would quickly discover that it’s the power of asking questions well and relentlessly, and thereby stripping away illusion and false necessity that is the art standing behind their accomplishments, as well as nearly any remarkable success. And it’s a tool each of us can use. If that goads you to ask how, then you’re already well on your way.

For the Musk book, click HERE. And if you’re curious, which is good, I have a book where I explore all the philosophical tools Steve Jobs used to attain his extraordinary success. It’s called Socrates in Silicon Valley and is HERE.

The Difficulty of the Climb

Good morning, friends! I just did my morning post across social media and wanted to share it here because it’s an insight that’s become very important to me. I just had a new and unexpected project come my way. At first it was a major surprise and challenge over whether to say yes, then I realized it was a wonderful opportunity, and it very quickly turned into a tremendous challenge that slowly revealed itself to be one of the most amazing adventures ever. I’ll say more about that later. But here is my post today for you to ponder. I’d love to hear what you think.

There are days when this is how it seems. A vertical ascent, the hardest of environments and difficulties. But ponder this guy’s likely mindset. Focus. Determination. A strong sense of purpose and a goal. An exhilaration at the very difficulty. An easy climb can’t bring the deep satisfaction of the all out commitment and complete engagement required by the extreme challenge. So, climb on. One finger hold and foot hold at a time. Inch by inch of progress. Alert. Aware. Relishing the process as the deep adventure into yourself that it always is. The summit awaits and is as patient as you and I are learning to be. #difficulty #hard #adversity #focus #determination #grit #success #wisdom #mindset

Consciousness. Awareness. Mindfulness.

A good friend just asked me last night by voice mail: What’s the difference between consciousness, awareness, and mindfulness? By the time I heard the message, it was late and I was on the verge of losing my grip on each of those things. So I’ve waited until this morning. You all want to take a crack at this one? My first thoughts are that consciousness is the base level of what we all experience except when we’re sitting through a long and boring lecture in a warm room. It separates people and animals from plants, maybe, or all three from stones, maybe. Or. It’s an awake visual surround sound sensorium of perceptions, memories, and thoughts, whenever they’re present, and lively, or “brought to mind.” We all know what the opposite is like, to be unconscious, except of course while it’s going on, which is odd in its own right, right? And then there’s the subconscious that takes over and drives your car in way that Tesla software can't when your conscious mind decides to take a break and wander in warm trustingness that this other part of you can make do just fine, most of the time, unlike Tesla's CEO.

Awareness is just another name for what distinguishes consciousness from the totally oblivious unconscious, or what strangely attaches both conscious and subconscious states to a greater reality beyond the individual mind. It can take such forms as the immediacy of sharp visual seeing or keen concurrent hearing, or else the indirectness of merely realizing.

Mindfulness is by contrast a particular focus of the conscious, aware mind. It’s about paying attention and keenly noticing in an undivided and nondistracted way. It’s a purity of being there, or here, and now. It’s a spiritual attainment, whereas consciousness and awareness at least begin as among our most basic, given equipment, our starting points for active participation in the world. I may be wrong, but I’m not yet conscious, or aware, of how, and yet I’m mindfully open. You?

Decisions

One more this week for those of you who aren’t with me on social media. I’ll not usually do back to back posts here but today, I decided to do so!

Decisions. How many decisions do you make in a given day, week, month, or year? Sometimes they can seem as numerous as a big sky full of migrating birds, and much less likely to make their intended destinations. It can feel overwhelming at times. We walk through a fog of the unknown and radically unpredictable. And yet, we want to get each decision right. But in an uncertain and dynamic world, we should know that’s impossible. No mere human has done it yet. None of us will likely be the first. And so that provides a different perspective on the challenge. Maybe the practical point of decisions isn’t to get them all right, but merely to be fully responsible in them all. We do our best, and this is all that’s asked. The world then takes over and we await the results, which most likely will present more decisions. It’s less like a test a school room exam, but parts of a journey, an adventure forward, where we’re exploring and perhaps building, but it’s all a bit tentative. Our learning and growth is foremost. Our curiosity, creativity, and courage are to be developed and deployed into the world. But perfection isn’t even on the horizon. And to worry about it is wasted energy. We’re here to fly. And the sky is indeed big, with lots of great stops along the way. #growth #building #creativity #learning #courage #decisions #choices #wisdom #life #leadership

Comment: Many people find themselves frozen by decisions, as if so much turns on each one. Once we frame them differently, we free ourselves from most of that pressure. Sure, there are some decisions we have to do our best to get right, but if we’re resilient and creative, if we’re alchemists or what I can lemonade makers, we can adapt and adjust when we see what the world has done with our input. As long as we seek to mitigate risk so that no decision is so bad as to take us out of the game of life altogether, we have the chance to rebound and redirect, change and do that thing everyone mentions these days, pivot. It’s Ok to be even a little bird brained now and then, as long as we’re agile enough to recover and relaunch. And, yeah, we have words like pivot and agile because they name things we need to be able to master. So I try not to be tired of them or irked with their repetitive ubiquity. At least they give us a chance to use phrases like ‘repetitive ubiquity.’

It's Up to Us

It’s ultimately up to us how we experience this moment. We bring a sensibility to every situation, a predilection, a perspective or disposition. And we forget that fact all too often, giving the circumstance much more power than it inherently has. Part of a happy and fulfilled life is taking that power back and using it properly, for the good of others as well as ourselves. This little trick can even allow the welcome visitor of joy to come our way.

This is what the great practical philosophers and their wisdom traditions seek to remind us. It’s an inner game. It’s a soul journey. We’ve been given much more power than we use, resources we ignore or forget. When we reclaim our inheritance and use it in healthy ways, we flourish together and as individuals. May you flourish more today than yesterday, and tomorrow even more.