A Dogged Pursuit

I love how a metaphor can help us think through some aspect of our lives. Sometimes, a verbal one tells a story that can be both illuminating and powerful. And occasionally a simple photo can do the same. I saw this simple picture today and was sparked to ponder a general feature of our existence.

For a new challenge, the first step is often the hardest, and as you struggle with it you may feel the frustration of being blocked from going any farther. But that's the nature of the new in our world. It's an experience we share with all those who now seem to be on top of the world, at the pinnacle of the highest staircase, to continue our metaphor, one they may even have had to build as they dreamed and did through their own struggles. But hope kept them going, or sheer persistence of will. If their intent was noble and for the greater good, we celebrate their grit, resilience, and alchemy. And we learn that the same qualities are available to us. So keep climbing, doggone it!

The Lessons of Dracula

“I vant to drink your blood.” No, that’s not in the famous Bram Stoker book Dracula, nor is it necessarily the subtext of a certain contemporary individual’s political rallies that, nonetheless, do feature the color red. If you haven’t ever read Dracula, you’ve missed out on a great experience. It’s an extremely well done story, and it’s not even very explicit or gory, at least to a modern sensibility. It’s just an engaging suspense story.

I’ve come to think of classic literary monster tales as great metaphors for the most difficult challenges we face. You can find deep insight in Beowulf, in how he pursues and takes on the monsters, and in Mary Shelley’s great novel Frankenstein, in how the title character creates one.

In all these stories, in one way or another, we learn about the power of partnership and collaboration. That would be my main takeaway from the account of Count Dracula, who represents a great evil that can’t be defeated by any one person working alone, but can be confronted most effectively by a team of likeminded people in partnership. for a shared purpose. Interestingly, that was Aristotle’s account of what it takes for the greatest human goods. And the morals of the story for us are simple. Be willing to face any challenge. Don’t go it alone. Gather support from people you trust. Then, no matter how daunting the odds, you stand your best chance of success. I recently reported throughout social media on my reading this week of The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas’ wonderful romp amid swordsmen of seventeenth century France. The same lessons came through it as well, loud and clear.

Dracula is cleverly written as entries from various characters’ journals and letters and telegrams. But it’s so well done as to read smoothly and without any confusion. You sample various points of view in a way that enhances the drama and suspense.

My favorite actual quote may be: “As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window.” (248)

Other notable reminders:

“We learn from failure, not success!” (129)

“Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles,; and yet when King Laugh come, he makes them all dance to the tune he play.” (188)

Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. (251)

“He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together.” (337-338)

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. (344)

“Friend John, to you with so much of experience already—and you too, dear Madam Mina, that are young—here is a lesson: do not ever fear to think.” (364)

And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used! (381)

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Breakfast with the founder of Whole Foods

One more in my accounts of memorable philosophical meals. So. It had been a long time since I had spent the night at anyone's house but mine. Yeah, dozens of hotels a year, sometimes scores, but no sleepovers at private homes. Before or after a big talk on a stage in front of however many hundreds or thousands of people, I like the quiet isolation of a hotel room. We don't have to go all the way back to bunny pajamas for my last sleepover at somebody's house, but still, it had been long ago. Yet, when John Mackie, the founder of Whole Foods, invited me to come down to Austin a day before I was due there for a talk, and stay at his house, I couldn't pass up the chance—just to see what was in his refrigerator. While he was cooking us dinner, we drank champagne and talked about life. And with the meal we had a nice red wine. He's a strict no oil vegan, so it was with some trepidation that I took my first bite of the baked potato piled with water-sautéed veggies that he had prepared. But it was surprisingly good. His wife had just returned from one of her frequent spiritual trips to India, and the three of us stayed up late talking about the top gurus there and the legendary feats they reportedly accomplish, through a mastery of the mind and its impact on the body.

But I was going to talk about breakfast. So, I got up the next morning in the beautiful book-lined home and padded down to the kitchen, where I think I remember various granolas, great breads and jams and juice and coffee. But I could be wrong, because it was early, I was still half asleep, and it was the conversation during that entire visit that stuck, including that morning. Here's an example.

John told me about his first little health food store in Austin. It was his dream. He and his girlfriend ran it, and lived upstairs, without a bathroom or anything. They were barely surviving. But they had a great idea for providing a place for healthy fresh foods, and they loved their early customers, and those people felt their care and responded with a special affection for the little shop. Then an unexpected flood nearly destroyed it all. Everything was ruined. They were devastated. It looked like the business couldn’t possibly recover. There was little or no insurance. But customers, neighbors, and friends spontaneously showed up the next day and voluntarily got to work, cleaning up the monumental mess, rebuilding the store, and giving us the foundation of what would soon become the national chain, Whole Foods. What had looked truly terrible was the prelude to something great.

In 1971, the night before the rock band Deep Purple was going to record an album in Montreaux, Switzerland, their venue burned to the ground. The musicians watched all their plans go up in flames as thick smoke spread over Lake Geneva. And yet, they didn’t get discouraged, give up, and go home, but instead wrote and recorded the classic hit song, “Smoke on the Water.” 

Scientist Percy Spencer was visiting the Raytheon Company and stood too close to a magnetron, a tube that released energy as a part of radar equipment at the time. A forgotten candy bar in his pants pocket melted, made a mess and ruined the pants, and yet got him curious and thinking, which quickly led to the modern indispensible marvel, the microwave oven.

Swiss engineer George de Mestral was on a walk in the woods with his dog. At some point, he realized that they were both getting covered with annoying burrs, sticking to the pants of one and the fur of the other. After painstakingly plucking the burrs off, he examined a few closely and, with what he learned, invented velcro.

Floods. Fires. Melted candy. Sharp, irritating burrs. The world is full of problems that come our way, large and small. But you don't have to be a guru in the mountains of India in order to use your mind and spirit to transform the situation, often with the help of likeminded people, friends, and colleagues. What may initially seem bad can be the doorway to something very good indeed. Even when it's vegan cooking.

Three Kinds of People

You may have heard an old proverb: There are three kinds of people in the world—Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who go around saying, "What happened?" I’ve always loved that distinction.

A different but related three-fold difference has been on my mind recently. There are lots of people who will run way from a building that's on fire; there are many others who, from a safe distance, will watch a building burn; and then there are a few brave souls who will actually run toward a building in flames—to see if they can be of help to anyone in there who might desperately need their assistance.

Most of us will go through a time in our lives when it seems that things are burning up, or burning down. An important business or financial opportunity has burned to the ground. A trusted relationship is being consumed by flames. An inner psychological or emotional conflagration has been sparked unexpectedly. And some people we thought we could count on will see it happening and run away. Others may choose to watch from a safe distance. And yet, there are a precious few who will run toward the fire, and into the building, to try to be of help. When there's someone like that in your life, you should be very glad. But what’s even more important is to try your best to be that person for others.

The late novelist Reynolds Price once wrote an amazing short book with the title, Letter to a Man in the Fire. It was a heartfelt response to a correspondence he had with a young medical student whose life and career were suddenly being consumed by the inferno of cancer. The young man had deep and personal questions. The writer ran to the fire and sought to bring him answers.

There are people in our lives who are in a fire. They’re in a burning building. Will you run away to keep yourself safe, or just far from the discomfort it might bring you? Will you watch it all burn from a distance? Or will you run toward the flames to bring whatever help you’re capable of offering? We should want and strive to be in that category. We won’t always succeed. We’ll sometimes fail our fellows and friends. But we can seek to embody that courage in all things to run toward the fire and seek to aid anyone who might be endangered by the flames and need, perhaps, such as we can bring.

Hemingway, You, and Me

Life coaches now tell us to believe in ourselves, organize our lives better, and remember to breathe. Medieval life coaches would whisper in people's ears, "You're going to die. Remember your mortality." What was up with that?

I just finished reading Ernest Hemingway's famous novel, A Farewell to Arms. An American has gone to Italy in the First World War, to help the Italians fight the Austrians and Germans. This man, the narrator of the story, drives an ambulance and other vehicles near the front. He's badly injured, meets a nurse, falls in love, receives a medal for heroism, and months later returns to the front. So far, the story tracks the life of the author. Then, through a series of unexpected small situations and accidents, our narrator becomes separated from his unit, and is wrongly suspected of desertion. He escapes an imminent execution out in the countryside only by diving into a river under fire. He reunites with his love and, now on the run, they manage with great difficulty to get to safety in Switzerland, where she goes into labor with his baby. Fortunately, they're able to enter a major hospital for the delivery. The story is full of twists and turns, ups and downs for the two of them.

At that point in the narrative Hemingway goes far beyond confronting us with the crazy and sometimes scary vicissitudes of life, as seen in the adventures of the soldier and his great love, and begins to rub our noses in the fickle inescapability of death in this world. The last pages of the book are so bleak in articulating the author's deepest attitudes, the whole thing could have been called, "A Farewell to Meaning and Hope."

This wasn't, of course, the only time Papa H took on the topic of mortality. Many months ago, I quoted here from his other novel, The Sun Also Rises. Just eleven pages into it, there is this brief conversation, worth repeating, that starts with Robert Cohn, Princeton graduate and amateur boxer, speaking to his old friend Jake, the narrator of the novel, in a bar – where, it seems that, interestingly, philosophical reflection about life often takes place:

“Listen, Jake,” he leaned forward on the bar. “Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

 “Yes, every once in a while.”

“Do you know that in about thirty-five years more we'll be dead?”

“What the hell, Robert,” I said,  “ What the hell?”

“I'm serious.”

“It’s one thing I don’t worry about,” I said.

“You ought to.”

As we all know, but, like Jake, tend not to think about very much, the life adventure we’re on right now is a limited-time offer. This is an interesting point of reflection for all of us who are already in mid-life or - like me - beyond. But it’s an important fact for any of us, however young or old. Are we making the most of our time? Are we using our talents in the best ways, and taking advantage of the opportunities that come to us each day? Are we enjoying the adventure that we have, to the extent that we can? Or are we letting ourselves be held back by habit and worn down by our own inner reactions to things that are outside our control?

The answers to these questions often turn on another one: How well do we handle change in our lives, day to day – the little, unexpected events, and the bigger disruptions; the challenges and the opportunities? Do we resist almost all change and regret it, or are we creative artists with it?

As the bluntly philosophical Robert points out for Jake and all the rest of us, there will come a time when further change in this world is impossible for each of us – maybe thirty-five years from now; maybe longer; and maybe much sooner. We never know. So why not make the most of this incredible journey while we can? Great things are possible for us, with the right approach to work and life.

Hemingway himself may have taken a very negative attitude toward the challenges of life,  but he did pretty well for himself in his chosen profession, despite the many ups and downs he couldn't control, until he chose exactly the wrong action on the day that ended his adventure.

We shouldn't follow his negativity of attitude, or many of his choices. But we do benefit from being reminded of the churn and fragility of our situations throughout this life. We don't find ourselves in an easy world, or with endless time. We're clearly in a place of challenge. But that just means we need to develop all our strengths and the most positive attitudes we can in order to flourish and prevail, within the parameters given us. Ultimately, that can provide us with a Farewell to Anxiety, and a Farewell to Fear.

Bouncing Back

A few years ago, I wrote a book called The Stoic Art of Living, which had the subtitle "Inner Resilience and Outer Results." The more I had read the ancient Roman stoic philosophers on the ups and downs of life, they more I had come to appreciate the quality of resilience as crucial to success in an uncertain world.

In a book called, Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, author Andrew Zolli defines this quality as “the ability of people, communities, and systems to maintain their core purpose and integrity among unforeseen shocks and surprises.” I see it as a psychological tendency to bounce back from challenges, difficulties, and obstacles. The resilient person absorbs "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as Hamlet put it, and bounces back with a positive attitude and renewed action toward his or her goals. 

We can cultivate resilience in our lives in many ways. The stoics had mental techniques a couple of thousand years ago that work today as well as they did then. One friend says that when big trees of misfortune fall across his path and block the way forward, he says to himself, "It's time to get out the chainsaw!" A Roman would have thought of his ax. A simple go-to image can make a difference, and turn around your emotions.

One particular ancient image can be helpful here. The debris of difficulty will at times fall like mounds of trash into almost any life. Many will feel smothered and give up. But if your spirit burns brightly enough with the fire of enthusiastic commitment, that debris is just more fuel for the fire. The amount of garbage that could smother a small flame will be consumed by a great one, which will then grow bigger. Difficulty can actually feed your determination. It's most often up to you.

The inertia of resistance typically pushes back against great new things, and creative people. A resilient individual lets this become a badge of honor, and uses it to fuel even greater efforts. So burn brightly, and enjoy the benefits of resilience that can result!

There's hardly anything in this world as satisfying as bouncing back from difficulty, challenge, and adversity, and attaining a level and form of success that can surprise and delight you.

Life's Lemons

Ten years ago, I realized I knew a lot of people who had trouble dealing with change in their lives. I would get asked over and over, "What do you do when bad things happen, or disappointing things, unexpected and difficult things?" People wanted strategies for handling challenges in their lives.

I had grown up hearing the old adage, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade," which pretty much sums up the attitude of the ancient stoic philosophers toward the problem, but in my childhood no one who repeated these words also explained how to do it. How do you turn lemons into lemonade? So I got to work, reading all the great thinkers on the topic, and writing my own book of advice. It was called "Lemonade!" Then I changed the name to "Lemons to Lemonade" and after 24 total re-writes, it became "Plato's Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great." Previous versions have been turned down by publishers 45 times, because they're not convinced that a practical book about the personal alchemy needed to turn something sour into something sweet will sell. I'm convinced they're wrong. And whenever I've done the ideas on retreats, people have insisted on having the book available. No one has seen the newest version yet. And I really, really like it. But I'm prepared for more lemonade making before someone in the world of publishing says, "Wait. People need this."

In the Sunday Business Section of the New York Times, Adam Bryant had a very interesting interview with the fashion designer and design mogul Diane von Furstenberg. Let me give you one Q&A:

Q. You’ve said many times that your mother was your biggest influence. What are the most important lessons you learned from her?

A. My mother was a Holocaust survivor and, having survived 13 months in the concentration camps, she taught me that fear is not an option. And no matter what happens, never be a victim. Life is a journey, and when you face obstacles the only thing you can do is accept them and embrace the reality. Very often, with things that are bad or not what you wanted, it’s your job to turn them into something positive.

I love the sentiment about accepting obstacles. Maybe the things that block your path can be taken up and assembled into just the bridge you need. That last sentence of the answer says it all:

Very often, with things that are bad or not what you wanted, it’s your job to turn them into something positive.

That's one of the enduring themes of the practical philosophers. And it's become something I believe deeply. So, when you face your next challenge, difficulty, or disappointment, get out a paring knife, some sugar, ample ice, and whatever additional spices you think you'll like, and make from the lemons that confront you some world class lemonade. Plato would have wanted it.

Socrates and The Two Big Strengths

Socrates had two famous students: Plato, of course, but also Xenophon (pronounced as if started with a 'Z'). Plato was more theoretical and literary. Xenophon was more practical, and was actually a pretty amazing leader. In fact, the great management guru Peter Drucker once said that one of Xenophon's books, The Education of Cyrus, was the greatest book on leadership ever written. And having read it now three times, I think he was probably right. But I have a different concern today. And so, let me get to it.

Xenophon explained that what made Socrates such an impressive person was, first, his amazing degree of self-control. Xenophon actually thought of that quality as the basis for all the other many virtues, or strengths, that Socrates displayed. Then, he said, the second most important quality his teacher exhibited was consistency - that he was always thoroughly himself, genuinely and authentically.

Self-Control. Think about it for a second. It's the action or habit of resisting any pressures not to be or do what we know to be right. It's the quality we need to exercise in order to stay consistent with our beliefs, values, and sense of self. It's the ability to stand up to the pull of pleasure or the push of pain when either of these factors threatens to diminish our lives.

Pain and pleasure play big roles in our lives. Most people fight serious battles, accordingly, with fear and desire. Self-control is what it takes to win those battles. Some pains are properly to be feared and avoided. Some pleasures are rightly to be desired and sought. Self-control keeps us safely on our path, helping us to face what we should and reject what would be inconsistent to embrace. It prevents the damage that could happen if we were to act in improper and self-defeating ways, outside the borders of what's right for us, as the individuals we are.

I'm not sure that there is any such thing as perfect self-control in an imperfect world. But I've learned that the more of it we have, the better and stronger we are as we face the challenges and opportunities of life, and as we continue to create ourselves through our choices.

Plato's student Aristotle, who spent a lot of time analyzing human strengths, seemed to think that the chief virtue or strength we have is courage, without which none of the other virtues will ever be exercised in difficult circumstances. And how does courage function? It aids us in self-control, in doing what we know to be right, regardless of the difficulties and dangers that might face us. And that, in turn, yields consistency. But then, when you're a generally consistent person in your habits and history, that aids you greatly in exercising self-control. Again, perfection isn't the goal. But practice is the key.

So, according to Xenophon, the two chief qualities of Socrates, the basis building blocks of his greatness, were self-control and consistency. Properly understood, they can be such building blocks for us, as well.