Limits

We typically talk about limits as if they're always a bad thing. Because of this, I've seen lots of organizations and even corporate and association meetings given names like "Without Limits" or "Limitless" or "No Limits!" It's the ultimate cheerleading motto. Abundance. Infinity. Ultimate Expansiveness. The World is Yours. No, the Entire Universe - And Infinitely Beyond!

The problem is that we all have limits. And if we don't know them and respect them, we get into deep trouble. The great Anglo Saxon epic Beowulf, one of my favorite books, is about a guy who bought the "no limits" hype in his own time, and thought he was immune to failure. And that, ironically, set him up for his ultimate demise.

In Mary Shelley's classic cautionary tale of success and failure, the novel Frankenstein, Dr. Victor Frankenstein doesn't know his limits, either, and a world-class mess ensues.

Consider the oldest human epic story, from 2,700 BC, Gilgamesh. It's only when King Gilgamesh - handsome, powerful, narcissistic, and insatiably hedonistic - discovers the most basic of his limits that he's transformed into a good leader and king.

The wise thing to do is to live creatively within your limits, and at other times, at your limits, or even on them, in something like a high wire existential balancing act. But to pretend they don't exist is both wrong and dangerous. Our limits give us form, and without form, there is no substance, no distinctive, individual existence. We can rhetorically dismiss limits or deny them, but we're impoverished and even imperilled if we don't know and navigate by them.

How about you? What are your limits? How can you recognize them, respect them, even embrace them, and act with them in mind while you, nonetheless, dream big, aim high, and accomplish the seemingly impossible?

I'm a fan of outrageous greatness. I believe in the extraordinary. We should reject and blast through any unhelpful and artificial limits. But I think that knowing our real limits and wisely working within them can alone get us to where we most need to be.

And any philosophy that doesn't see with this is far too ... limited.

The Power of Old Books

If you read what everyone else is reading, you'll tend to think what everyone else is thinking, which can lead you to do what everyone else is doing. And that certainly won't set you apart.

We've all noticed the way best selling-books on business or life can change what's on people's minds and their to-do lists. Fads develop and sweep the world of business, until the next one comes along. And at each stage, at some point, you come to realize that what you thought would give you an advantage and make you stand out has been adopted by all your competition, and your new trick has become the standard used by all, leveling the playing field just when you thought you'd be summiting the mountain.

As C. S. Lewis once said, the only way to break out of the thought patterns of the present and get some truly novel ideas would be either to read the books of the future, or the books of the past. The books of the future are, inconveniently enough, not yet available to us. Therefore, we should read books of the past.

In an era where everyone is trying to make the leap from good to great, there are a few who attain the status of legendary. And that never happens by just doing a little better what everyone else is doing. It requires some revolutionary twist. And how does that get sparked? I've found that it's often people who feed their minds on something different, whose own thinking then becomes interestingly different, and, on occasion, even revolutionary.

So, my advice, on this Sunday morning, is to go find a book of the past to read. Some that have meant a lot to me recently are Gilgamesh, the story of a rich, powerful, handsome king in 2700 BCE who went from being an exploitative tyrant to becoming a good leader, building things to last. How? The old epic tale tells the story. Then, there's Beowulf, a great classic cautionary tale about a powerful achiever and slayer of monsters who made one crucial and all too common mistake that cost him everything. You want to avoid it? Read the book. Or try Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's amazing tale of goal setting gone bad. Who knew that Dr Frankenstein, through a turbulent mix of classic hubris, outsized ambition, self-centeredness and fear, could create a nightmare which he tried to solve, not by doing the right things, but by becoming a motivational speaker!

If you have more time, Don Quixote may be the greatest novel of all time. Is he the ultimate paradigm of the ideal visionary now beloved by the tech world and VCs everywhere, or a stark raving madman to be avoided at all costs? Or look at Moby Dick. If you can stomach all the whale blubber, you get a tale of a captain who is supposed to steer the ship to profits for its owners, but takes it over for his own purposes and ruins everything. Short of time to read?  The great Roman stoic Seneca has some of the greatest advice ever in his letters and essays.

Then, there's the Manual of Epictetus, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and Xenophon's captivating and amazing book on leadership, The Education of Cyrus. 

I could go on. But I have to go read something old. Meanwhile, have a great day.

A Philosopher's Blog

Welcome to my new website and new blog! I chose the address TomVMorris.com for several reasons. First, there are other people on the web named Tom Morris - the pretenders!. One likes philosophy and writes about it now and then. I think he's a brit. There are also several people named Thomas Morris. There might even be another Thomas V. Morris, the name I used for my academic writing years ago, abbreviating my middle name of Victor. In my various social media experiments, I've been tomvmorris. So, I thought I'd stick with that. But you can call me Tom. I hope you'll enjoy this new blog, which will be a place where I talk about what I'm thinking and reading and doing. And, at every step, I'd love your comments, your interaction, and your own thoughts.

Whenever the mood strikes, I blog for The Huffington Post. Here's my homepage there. On my other website, MorrisInstitute.com, you'll find longer essays than are normal for contemporary blogs, under the Weekly Wisdom section. I'm going to launch a new venture by blogging here at least a few times a week. Before now, I've spent most of my writing time researching or composing books. The question I have is this: Books last. Will blogs?

A new translation of the classic book Beowulf has just been published,  a project that J.R.R. Tolkein worked on in his youth, but never with the idea in mind that it would be printed, or made available to the public. He just wanted to understand our oldest and most famous Anglo Saxon epic poem, and what he accomplished in his work on that text as a young scholar laid the foundations for his own famous Hobbit adventures, along with, of course, the great trilogy The Lord of the Rings.

Will any current blogs endure like Beowulf has? Probably not. Most books don't. But positive impact doesn't depend on centuries of reading and study. If I write anything here that can give you a needed new perspective on your work or life, I'll feel like blogging is a useful thing for a philosopher like me to do. But I want this to be a two way street. So, please, give me your comments!

On, Beowulf, by the way, I wrote about the previous big translation by Seamus Heaney on my Institute website here. The story of Beowulf is one of the great inspirational and cautionary tales ever told. Beowulf himself was a great warrior, and a supremely accomplished individual, who became a leader, and in that new role, didn't realize that he needed to develop some new competencies. His position of responsibility demanded in important ways that he learn how to teach others and partner up with them, collaboratively. But his pride and habits prevented it. Though his circumstances changed, and so did his strong body, as he aged, he never changed in the way he did things, and because of that, he set himself up for his own demise, in a battle with a dragon he could not overcome alone.

Beowulf was extraordinarily strong and incredibly skilled. But one of the most important skills of all ends up being the skill to change. And one of our greatest strengths is our network of collaborative partnerships. The fearsome warrior missed out on both these important things.

For a vivid cautionary tale that's highly instructive, snag a copy of the book, Beowulf. Many good translations are available in paperback. You may be amazed at how this classic speaks to you.