Og and Moog. Travel with me back many thousands of years to early humans, or their ancestors. Imagine two of them, hunter gatherers Og and Moog, walking around hungry and seeing some wheat blowing in the breeze in a clearing they've come across. Imagine this is a day before anyone has ever thought of baking anything, except maybe wild boar on an open fire. Og stops and stares and has a creative moment, saying, and I translate here from cave man talk, "You know, some of that would make a nice loaf of bread." Moog replies, "Loof! Loof!" Then a cow walks by and Og says, "Yeah, a hot loaf smeared with ... butter." And Moog just looks at him, puzzled. My point of course is a simple one. We need in our time to be able to do the equivalent of looking at wheat grains and seeing for the first time bread, or at a cow and envisioning butter. It's much more than seeing an oak in an acorn, by a big leap. It involves the mystery of our own alchemy, the transformative creativity, the ability to make beyond what anyone else has ever imagined, that's sleeping deep in our souls most of the time. We need to awaken it in our day, more of us than ever before, and see the world around us not just as it is, but as it could be. And then get to work baking the bread we need. We need to be like Og. Amen?
In one sense, our highest achievements are like sculpting pyramids in the sand. The waves of time and change will eventually obliterate all the creations of our hands. So what's the point? Why all the effort at achievement? Why all the arduous endeavors to learn from our failures and finally get it right?
I've come to believe that what we become and help others to be as a result of our worldly efforts are spiritual things that will never be erased. A good deed for a friend, an innovation at work that improves things in some way, a social media post that informs or heals or encourages, those few minutes on Zoom or Face Time with a good person who needs your help can have ripples of positive consequence that never end. Plus, why should we think in the first place that impermanence itself drains things of all value? Perhaps it endows good things with a particular, zestful, concentrated value, however ephemeral in itself though lasting for us, to be fully savored as we can, and celebrated as the art we’re here to make. So build boldly in the sand, hear the ocean, feel the breeze, notice the little birds, and enjoy.
Remember: Don't mistake a frame in the film for the film itself, a chapter of the story for the whole tale, or a moment in your life for more than it is. We're all in some way the co-creators of what comes next and can make a positive difference to the outcome in the overall flow of things.
In many great stories, the hardest things happen before the most wonderful things come to be. And we tell such stories and love to hear them because they reflect the strange movements of our world in a way that we need to be reminded of, time and again. It’s always darkest at some point before the dawn. Things look hopeless for the hero when he’s down, and then there’s a great turnaround.
Courage. Faith. Hope. Love. Creativity. Openness. Peace. Positive Action. Many things can float our boat well.
What if every human life is of infinite value? What if the billions of the billionaire and the cultural accolades of the celebrity add nothing at all to his or her intrinsic worth? What if we're all here for creative love and loving creativity, and the results of each of our actions aren't to enhance our own value at all, which is impossible, but are meant to lift up the lives of those around us and add to the sum total of good in the human and animal earthly adventure? What if the deepest truths are after all spiritual, and that the small things can mean the most?
I'm on page 500 of my second reading of the classic and first modern novel, Don Quixote. It's a comic tale that's all about the deepest human delusions and our desperate efforts to win praise, glory, and honor. It's all about 21st century contemporary politics and business, and the various sicknesses of the heart to which we're vulnerable. Don Quixote was right that the knight errant wandering the world is to right wrongs and save the innocent. He was wrong not to see that this is the job for each of us, but guided not by the heated imagination of grandiose delusions, but rather by the wise imagination tutored by truth and goodness. What if we could all see this? What a difference it could make!
Get the best translation of the book here.
Elementary Weekend Thoughts.
The Four Elements: Earth. Air. Water. Fire. We have each in us. And one will most often dominate a personality. Which is yours?
Fire people are passionate. Earth people are solid workers. Water people flow forth to nurture. Air people convey new things. Which are you?
We need friends who range across the elements - fire people to inspire us, earth people to help us get things done, air people to bring us new insights, and water people to nurture and encourage us.
Nothing enriches us like good friends. Aristotle would say virtuous friends, because only the virtuous can be a true friend, and not a user.
If we pay attention, what we read and hear and observe changes us, however slightly, whether we can later recall it or not. We are moulded and grow.
Education doesn't depend wholly on conscious recall. It's about drawing out the best in us (that's the etymology of the word). It's alchemy.
I try to learn something new every day. New perspectives and insights build up my ability to think creatively and well.
Nice can be a superficial facade, a patina or laminate of manners hiding the ugly truth. But the currency of kind is accepted everywhere.
Wisdom brings compassion. Kindness brings wisdom. The end of the stick easiest to pick up is kindness. So be kind to become wise. It works.
There are two kinds of simplicity - the obtuse sort and the sagacious sort. Sagacious simplicity is one of the greatest powers on earth.
Forgiveness is a form of moral and spiritual judo that disarms negativity and renders it inert.
Danger comes in many forms and a multitude of disguises. The wise see it as what it is. The courageous know how to handle it.
How often do you have a new idea, an insight that's never before entered your mind? It can make your day. A relaxed consciousness allows it.
When you stay on your proper path, others will join you for the adventure. Stray off it, and you're often on your own.
The most wonderful things most often happen at the most unexpected times and in the most unanticipated ways. Be open. Be receptive.
Difficulty can lead to ease, defeats to victories. Life offers us a profusion of such turnarounds, if we keep the faith and move forward.
Wisdom is like anything else of substance. Small acorns can grow great oaks.
** More on The Four Elements and their application to life is to be found in my book The Oasis Within.
Ok. So. One day years ago I had lunch with Norman Lear at his vacation home in Vermont, formerly owned by Robert Frost, and then the famous abstract artist Kenneth Noland (look him up if you don't know his work). It's a beautiful place adjacent to a state forest. The photo here is Norman standing at one of the doors. We ate outside on the porch. Sunny. Perfect temperature of about 70 degrees, with a light breeze. I think we had sandwiches and various picnic salads fixed by his chef and staff. I could hardly focus on what I was eating. Because, hey, it was Norman Lear. Sitting two feet away from me. Maybe three. Creator of All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Sons, Good Times, Maude, and on and on, while also funding and producing movies like This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, and Fried Green Tomatoes. And in his spare time founding People for the American Way, among other organizations. I later had lunch with him at a Las Vegas hotel dining room, and later still at the Biltmore Hotel in Montecito, California. The food was always good, I think, but it's the talk I remember. And one day, walking through the kitchen in his Brentwood Hills LA home, The kitchen staff was cooking up something really great, but I had to be somewhere else. You know philosophy. Always something. Busy, busy.
But back to the vacation house. We had a nice little lunch party. Norman and me, along with the then Dean of the Harvard Divinity School and his wife, and Tom and Kate Chappell, married founders of Tom's of Maine, the eco friendly personal care products company. The six of us laughed a lot. I was pretty funny. Norman wasn't bad, either. I remember that Fed Ex pulled up with a package about every fifteen minutes, and he got a phone message about every five minutes, all of which he waved off until somebody important was "calling from the plane" and he had to absent himself for a few minutes. Hollywood.
After lunch, Norman invited me to take a walk with him, just the two of us, to talk. We ended up lying in the grass in his huge front yard and pondering life and creativity and the spirit. He said, "It took me a long time to realize the importance of ethics and spirituality in life, and that if you don't get these two things right, you'll not likely get anything else right." That was pretty profound, and deeply true. He also asked me if being creative ever made me romantically frisky. But he used other words. I said, "Hmm. I never thought about it, but I guess so. How about you, Norman?" He said, "All the time, Tom. All the time."
Ethics. Spirituality. Creativity. And other stuff.
I've got many more stories from that and other lunches, but I should sign off now. I'm feeling creative.
In my new book, The Golden Palace, Chapter 16, there's a discussion of the unconscious mind that's been revolutionary for my own recent thinking and work. I'd like to share it here. The setting is a beautiful sitting room in the royal palace in Cairo, Egypt. The year is 1934. King Ali Shabeezar is speaking to his nephew, Walid, and Walid's best friend, Mafulla.
Ali leaned back on the sofa cushion. He said, “Something just occurred to me. Have you boys ever heard of the unconscious mind?”
“Not really,” Mafulla said, “I mean, I know my mind’s unconscious when I sleep, and sometimes in class.”
“Maybe I’ve heard the expression once,” Walid said, as he smiled at his friend.
“Well, there are many things stored in our minds, like information learned in the past, of which we’re not at this moment consciously aware. It’s in our minds for retrieval, but is not now conscious. There are also habits and dispositions that exist in the mind beyond our introspective self-awareness. You can consciously gaze within and not see them. And this is true of many other things that we take in about the world around us but that remain beneath the sweep of full awareness. We have huge resources in the unconscious mind that are not always quickly or easily available to consciousness.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that, but this makes sense,” Walid said.
“What’s most important to realize is the perhaps initially surprising truth that the unconscious mind represents the vast majority of our mental possessions and abilities. Our conscious experience is like the very top few stones of the Great Pyramid. The rest of our mental ability is like the remainder of that huge structure, except that, in reality, the difference in the size and scope of those mental areas is much, much bigger.”
“I’d never really thought about that, Your Majesty,” Mafulla said. The king nodded and continued.
“Many things go on in our minds that we never consciously realize. There are patterns and indications picked up by deep processes of recognition within us that may or may not enter our explicit thoughts. But we can train ourselves to be more open to this deeper part of our mental activity. We can get to a point where we allow those otherwise hidden thoughts and hints to flow upward. That way, we become aware of much more than most people ever realize. Inventors do this. So do all great explorers and artists and scholars, and athletes. The most innovative scientists are very good at it. The best warriors like Masoon rely on it. Creativity in any walk of life requires it.”
Walid spoke up. “That’s connected to what we were talking about so much in the desert—the power of our minds.”
“Correct. And, Mafulla, in case you and Walid haven’t spoken of this, he and I talked much about the mind on our trip across the desert. Most people live in a terribly constricted and reduced circle of being. They’re in self-imposed exile from the best that life has for them. They can’t make the right decisions or even see the true possibilities that our world offers unless they access this deeper level of the mind. Exiles from their own greatness, they choose unhealthy relationships, pursue the wrong paths, and generally end up living in various levels of either misery, or emotional deadness. They exist on the most basic level as human beings, but they’re not fully alive.”
The king went on, as he looked over at Walid. “I’ve talked with you a great deal about the power of the mind. But it’s not just that our normal conscious awareness can be powerful. In fact, if it’s cut off from the deeper sources of thought and feeling, it will not be powerful at all. Only when we allow the deep parts of our minds and hearts to percolate upward into consciousness, and also directly touch our actions, can we tap into our true power. And only when conscious thought resonates with these deeper resources will it have its proper impact.”
He sat for a moment in silence, then said, “We have to get beyond the superficial chatter of our normal consciousness. We need to access all that’s available to us beneath the clutter, beyond the chattering voices and distractions of normal thought.” The king smiled. “We need to experience what I like to call the thought beyond thought. That’s where the deep power is.”
“How can we do this?” Walid asked.
“We calm our conscious minds. We relax our bodies and release whatever ordinary thoughts or feelings might be impinging on us. We then become open to allow deeper insights to appear. And they’re always near us, available to us, if we’ll just notice them and take them in. We’ll talk more about this in days to come, but for now, learn to listen carefully to any small thoughts that might seem to play about beneath the surface of your normal consciousness. When one appears, invite it to linger and develop in your mind.”
“This is what you do, Your Majesty?” Mafulla asked.
“Yes, it is. All the time. I want you boys to do this as well, to be sensitive to your inklings and feelings about the situations that develop around us. Never just dismiss these hints that sometimes fleetingly appear from the realm of the unconscious mind. Pay attention to them. They’re worthy of your notice. And then tell each other and me. That way, we can work together powerfully to resist and restrain those who have given in to the downward pull of evil. And that way, we can also make some very good and creative things happen.”
“Ok,” Walid said. “This sounds really important.”
“It is.”
“We’ll try to do exactly as you say.”
“Sure thing, Your Majesty,” Mafulla answered.
“As you seek to tap into your deeper potential, you’ll progressively grow in your ability to do so. It’s like any skilled behavior.”
“I’m sure you’re a master at it, Your Majesty,” Mafulla said.
“It’s very natural for me, and has been for many years. Just remember this. What we can know goes far beyond what most people suppose. And what we can do is just as vast.”
More than sixty years ago, Walt Disney looked at an ordinary orange grove and saw DisneyLand. Later, he gazed on some remote swamp in Florida and caught a glimpse of DisneyWorld. What are you looking at right now and not seeing?
Aristotle believed that the great oak naturally lives in the small acorn. It takes vision to see it. But that's not all. The alchemy of human creativity can go far beyond what's natural, and expected. The world is a warehouse of raw materials for our creative magic. It's not always easy to recognize the materials that are right for you and then to collect them together. But the right vision can help you to see how.
The great creators, like all artists, learn how to look, and how to see. Shake up your ordinary ways of viewing your surroundings. Try on a different perspective. Engage in "What if" musings. Stretch the borders of the expected. You may see things you've been missing - whether among the orange trees or in the swamp.
It could be that your very own DisneyWorld awaits, right now, lying magically within some setting that you've been seeing as just water, grass, mosquitoes, and gators that just is what it is, and that you can't do anything about. The people like Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs, help us to understand that the ordinary is all around us, just waiting to be transformed. The extraordinary can be yours.
One night at dinnertime, years ago, when my son Matt was at the ripe old age of thirteen, he walked into the kitchen, put a plate on the table, and said, out of the blue, “Dad, I've figured out that glass question.” I drew a total blank.
“What glass question, Matt?” I asked as I quickly searched my memory for anything we might have been talking about in the preceding hours.
He said, “You know, the one about the glass being half empty or half full.” Oh, that glass question. You know the famous scenario: A water glass contains liquid up to its midpoint. The question is then asked whether the glass is half empty or half full. Everyone then tells us that a pessimist will say it’s half empty, while an optimist will say it’s half full. The situation is supposed to be a test for inner attitude. It’s assumed that there's no objectively better answer. Either can be right, and yet neither is objectively preferable. What you say will be determined by what you are as an observer, not just by what the glass is as an item apart from you in the world.
Well, my son wasn’t about to buy that. He had heard the question somewhere, and apparently it had been bothering him. He now had his own take on it. “So, what's the answer?” I asked with real curiosity, wondering how someone his age would approach this old classic. And, in reply, he said something that proved to me again the simple truth that you can be a philosopher at almost any age.
He thought for a second and said, “It all depends.” Well, of course, when I heard these opening words, I thought that we’d be quickly going straight into the familiar and well trod territory of attitude relativism. But his next words surprised me and took us into a totally different direction. He said, “If you were filling the glass up just before you got to that point, it’s half full. If you were drinking from it or pouring it out just before that, then it’s half empty.”
Aha! “It all depends,” people have always said, but they’ve thought the answer depends on the attitude of the person looking at the glass. Matt couldn’t accept that as the final word. It does all depend, he was saying, but it depends on what real process had been going on previously, in order to bring the glass to its present state. What something is sometimes depends on where it came from, on how it got to be as it is, and maybe even on where it’s in the process of going. That’s a pretty profound insight.
There’s a lesson here for us all. How’s your glass these days? How’s your life? Is it pretty good, or pretty bad? If you’re like most people, you may think of yourself as somehow representative of roughly half-glass living. There are some good things in your life. And there’s a lack, or an empty space, as well. Well, then, if this is even remotely an accurate representation, the question arises: Is your life generally half full, or basically half empty? According to young Matt, it all depends. Have you been emptying it out, dissipating your energies, squandering your deepest self, alienating those who are closest to you, and as a result losing things of real value – or have you been filling up your life in the best possible way, adding elements of true value and deep worth to your daily experience? Have you been depleting or enriching yourself? What real process has been going on up until now, and is perhaps still presently occurring in your life, right now, or in your business? Where have you been, in this regard, and where are you now going?
You're in a rut. I almost know you are. At least a little. Because most of us are like that. You have lots of habits, ways you do things, and things you do, daily, or weekly. Most of our habits benefit us in some way or we wouldn't have them. But they can also tie us up and hold us down. And so I have some advice.
Get out of your rut. For just a little bit, in a small way, stick your head above the habits that define your normal stuff and catch a glimpse of what's out there. I often do this by reading a different kind of book, something I wouldn't ordinarily try. In the past week, I've read one by a famous movie producer, The Curious Mind, and a fascinating young adult novel that was surprisingly full of philosophy, The Fault Is In Our Stars. They get me out of my rut and spark all sorts of new ideas.
A few days ago I helped instal a fence. Now that's way outside my rut. And I really enjoyed it. I haven't otherwise done any fencing since 1982, which is a long time ago. I got outside my rut, and I had a new experience that was deeply satisfying.
Watch a TV show you wouldn't normally view, or go see a film that's outside your normal parameters of moviegoing. It's still good to avoid junk. But try something new. Talk to someone you've never talked to, or about something different. I meet people on airplanes all the time, and have conversations that I sometimes remember years later. It's all about the little act of stretching beyond what you normally do. You never know how a little rut-desertion, if even just for a few minutes, might spice up your day, and give you just that nudge of energy or creativity you need.
Have you noticed that advertisements are becoming more philosophical? I've blogged the noble sentiments of a recent Cadillac ad. Now let me post the content of an ad for Spyder.com:
Find what matters and free yourself from the rest. That's invincibility.
Why invincibility? Because when you focus on what matters, you really can't be defeated. All failures either feed you or take you out of the game. You won't stay in it to lose. What matters most, of course, are the matters of creative love, or loving creativity, as I explored in the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business, a book that was published in 1997, but that reflects what only now many leaders in the corporate world are beginning to realize.
Focus matters. A focus on the right things matters more. Freeing yourself from the rest is the most liberating act, and ongoing habit, that you can develop. And it's a key to your highest potential - the only route to the only invincibility there is.
A few days ago, I just finished writing a second draft of a little book about the philosophical underpinnings of the extraordinary success experienced by Apple founder Steve Jobs. Then I found out that this week a new book is being published about him, a biography that might correct some of the impressions we all had when reading Walter Isaacson's authorized tome. The new one is called Becoming Steve Jobs. And it promises a more rounded portrait of a man who didn't just scream at people, but was a more complex character who changed modern life for all of us. I look forward to it.
Then, hours later, I read an article about Elon Musk, the young developer of PayPal, Tesla cars, and SpaceX, a guy who's just started with his own entrepreneurial magic, and may be the real life version of comic book and movie character Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man. Elon has taught himself physics, astrophysics and many other things, while most of us where sitting on the sofa and watching The Voice or Modern Family.
I was once in one of Henry Ford's former homes right outside Detroit. The caretaker was talking to me about how Henry used to sit around with his buddies Thomas Edison and the tire guy Firestone and dream up new ways to change the world. What can we learn from such people?
We're not all world transforming visionaries. But we can all have visions for our lives and the world around us. We can accomplish more than we might suspect. And all that stands between us and the legacy we can create is habit, inertia, easy comfort, and distraction - all things that can be overcome with just a little effort.
We might not invent a new technology, or revolutionize industries, or fly people to Mars. But if we try, we can create more extraordinariness around us than we might ever have imagined. The magic is in us. That's why we're here. We just have to act like the pioneers we're meant to be, in whatever domain and on whatever level. Whether the results will get into the national papers and onto the covers of magazines isn't the test of our worth. We can feel whether we're doing what we're here to do. If you don't feel it, then give yourself the chance to dream and do. And then value your creative best by the right standards.
Are you lucky or unlucky? It just might be that this doesn't really matter - unless, of course, you're in Vegas, like I am today. Believe it or not, philosophy often happens here. Maybe even more often than good luck.
Let me quote Diane Ackerman, from her great book Deep Play, where she is exploring how even our hardest work can be undertaken as a form of play. While pondering the role of something like luck in the game of life, she refers to an ancient text and writes:
"In the Sanskrit Mahabharata, for example, we find men, who represent the seasons, deciding the world's weather and crop yield by rolling gold and silver dice. But, aside from luck or the favor of the gods, the player succeeds by his or her own talents."
What does she mean by 'luck' here? Maybe anything beyond human choice, the force or cluster of forces that brings things into our lives apart from our own contrivance. You could equally speak of fate, or destiny, or divine providence. But for the sake of understanding Ackerman's remark, let's stick with luck. Then, we can articulate what I take to be her insight. We can say it a number of ways.
Luck sets the course. We decide how to play it.
Luck arranges the obstacles. We figure out how to move around and through them.
Again, perhaps:
Luck paves the road. We choose how to travel it.
We all have challenges. Everyone has opportunities. Sometimes, one situation is both. And, viewed properly, the world presents much more of this duality than you might imagine. An opportunity turns out to be, also, and perhaps unexpectedly, a problem. A problem is revealed, in the end, to contain an opportunity. This happens all the time. I like to think of this phenomenon as a turnaround. Things that come into our lives can be, ultimately, quite different from what they at first seem. It's up to us how to react, respond, and rearrange our expectations.
Of course, luck is also often referred to as chance. And there's an ancient perspective on this. Chance favors the prepared mind, the skilled hand, the creative spirit, and the person with lots of great relationships.
We need to remember, the world isn't here to give us what we want, but to help make us into what we can be. And I, for one, could use a little help.
What luck!
Three things are needed, if you want to make an intellectual contribution in any field. That may sound daunting, and like an aspiration for the few, but it's really not.
In anything we do, new ideas can be useful. In fact, the right new idea can create a breakthrough. If your job involves working with your mind as well as with your feet or hands, or any other body part, making a real intellectual contribution to the enterprise you're engaged in will help any others who work with you, and, as a side effect, will help you to shine.
In my first life as a philosopher, in a university setting, my areas of expertise were the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. In all my work, three things mattered greatly to me. I like to think of them together as The Golden Triad for Intellectual Contribution in any field. They are:
Precision
Innovation
Simplicity
It's hard to make a real contribution in any domain of life or work unless you understand well what's already going on. You've got to know your stuff, and not just vaguely, or generally, but with precision. Sloppy thinking abounds, and it's up to you and me to do something about it. Precision is every bit as important as it is rare, and there's no better place to start in solving any problem, or assessing any opportunity, than grasping it precisely.
The Crowd tends to learn what's done, so they can go and do likewise. The Few master what's done so they can go and do better. But that means innovation.
I think that creativity is tied up at the core of the meaning of life. I have a whole chapter on that idea ("Business and the Meaning of Life") in my 1997 book, If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business. We're not here to be just replicators and copyists in every way. We exist to be creators. When you understand your field, or a problem you face, with precision, that positions you to be innovative as well. And you should never settle for anything less. Innovation is what sets people and businesses apart.
But a lot of people who understand the need for precision and innovation go on to complicate things needlessly. That's a common problem for, especially, anyone who is new to a field. It's even found among old hands who have never risen to the level of top mastery in what they do. They think that to be precise, they have to be complicated. And when they're innovative, their creative solutions can sometimes be convoluted and complex beyond belief.
Simplicity is not only a sign of mastery, it's a powerful tool, and, as science has come to understand, a mark of deep truth.
Some people purchase simplicity at the sacrifice of precision, or innovation. That's extremely common in the area of practical philosophy I work in now, seeking for new insight on life and work, and on such issues as success. There are a lot of writers and speakers completely sacrificing any real precision of thought in order to be catchy, clever and memorable. Other people pursue innovation or precision at the cost of simplicity. Even in my most complex contributions to academic philosophy, I always sought for a beauty of simplicity in the ideas and their expression.
With these three qualities, or ideals, you can make an intellectual contribution to anything you're doing that will be helpful and memorable. Indeed, why settle for less?
A book that's taken me eight years to finish, going through 24 versions, and six different titles, has finally become, perhaps, my favorite nonfiction book I've ever had the joy and honor to conceive and write. And, so far, it's been rejected by potential publishers, in one version or another, 45 times.
My record before this was 36 rejections, for my first book, one that I wrote when I was twenty-one years old. The 37th editor who saw that manuscript said yes, and so I was a published author at age twenty-two, because I didn't give up.
After that early stutter-start as an author, though, I've hardly ever tasted the disappointment of no. Instead, I came to enjoy a rare three-decade streak of unusual publishing success, producing twenty nonfiction books that launched me first into a great academic career, and then into a wild adventure as a public philosopher.
The new book that no one wants to publish is all about the wisdom of the great practical philosophers on how to respond to change, and especially, how to deal with difficulty. And with it, I've suddenly experienced a very big change. I've never had such difficulty with any project. But the nice irony is that I've been able to use the advice of the book throughout the process of dealing with publishers, and I've learned how well all the wisdom of the ages works. I've attained a level of inner resilience and sustained confidence through it all to make Seneca or Marcus Aurelius proud.
Remember the old adage: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Everyone says it, but no one says how to do it. The philosophers have great advice on this. So, the new book is called Plato's Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great. Editors at the major publishers have said that it's elegantly written, and that it contains important ideas. They've praised my past work, my present "platform" and the impact my books have, both in this country and around the world. They just worry that the new book would not be "big enough" for them, which in publisher-speak apparently means that it would not grab enough media attention and sell enough copies for all of us to retire and buy Kardashian-style Bentleys.
Only two editors, after various nice comments, added a clear concern.
One said, "It's a little too prescriptive."
The other said, "It's not prescriptive enough."
Here's what I do. I don't let a spate of difficulty or rejection derail me. And you shouldn't either. The gatekeepers of any industry or enterprise are typically most comfortable with what they already know. And they may not know you, or understand what you're doing with your new idea, product, or process. But that doesn't determine the value of what you're doing, or how you should do it.
Creativity sometimes has a long road to walk. Dust off your shoes and keep walking.
Have your ideas been rejected? Have you been shot down? Well, remember that the Beatles were rejected and told, early on, that guitar music was "on the way out." The Dixie Chicks were advised to give up. They'd never make it in music. J.K. Rowling was informed over and over that there would be no market for her books about a kid named Harry Potter. And just yesterday, I read a book about one of my favorite movies ever - The Princess Bride - and how every major studio turned it down for 13 years, until my old friend Norman Lear paid to have it filmed by his friend Rob Reiner, who persisted despite all the difficulties. And the movie barely sold tickets when it came out, a seeming rejection at the box office as well, before it went on to become a classic.
Just do like all these creative people did. Keep doing what you you think is best.
That's what I do.
Thankfulness is a perception, and then an attitude, and then an emotion. It’s first a form of awareness, or recognition, and then a sense of appreciation. It's a deep and layered thing. Thanksgiving is the act of expressing that inner recognition and gratitude.
We’re surrounded by blessings all the time, things to be recognized as such, and appreciated. At its best, thankfulness is a joyous response of gratitude to these things. It's a recognition of goodness that then makes more goodness possible. So it’s not just responsive, it’s also creative. Let me say that again, and with feeling.
Thankfulness is not just responsive. It's also creative.
In fact, it could be that thankfulness is the most deeply hidden source for creative love, and loving creativity that exists.
What do you have to be thankful for today? How many blessings do you enjoy?
Conscious life itself is the primal blessing - a metaphysically rare and wondrous thing. We had no claim on this life prior to existing. It's the ultimate product of grace.
Be thankful, then, for your life, whatever it may look like at present, for it is always a journey in transition and motion that makes possible great things yet to come.
Be thankful for your blessings. They help you to experience the nurturing side of love.
Be thankful for your trials. They help you to experience the challenging side of love.
Both blessings and trials can be doorways into a fuller life, if used properly.
And that just means that even our trials can end up being blessings.
Thankfulness can be spontaneous, or it can be a choice. Either way, it will enhance your life, and your day. It will also touch those around you.
If you don't feel it naturally welling up in you each day, choose to embody it. Choose that way forward. It alone creates the best.
We know what it is for a word to have a meaning, or a gesture, or even a look. But what is it for a life to have a meaning -- or for life itself to have one? We speaking of the meaning of life, but exactly what are we referring to?
Certainly, each of us is free to decide what shape our lives will take, in terms of our values and decisions, our aims and our actions. We can say, or think, such things as: The meaning of my life is to serve others. Or: The meaning of my life is to pursue pleasure. Or: The meaning of my life is to gain as much money and power and status as I can. We can choose goals and purposes. But what, if anything, can make those choices and purposes themselves meaningful? Are all such choices equal? Or are some such choices in better alignment with something objective, some contour of reality that our lives are best lived by, some principle that should guide us if we want truly meaningful lives?
When I was writing the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors, which, despite its business title, is just as much about personal happiness and fulfillment as it is about organizational excellence, I wanted to include a chapter on "Business and the Meaning of Life." To do so helpfully, I had to answer the question for myself as to whether there is an overall meaning of life, and if so, what exactly it is. In the sense of meaning I was pursuing, it would have to be something that would give purpose and sense to our choices at the deepest possible level. It would have to be congruent with some noble aim, or intent, that might have been recognized by the deepest philosophies and spiritual literatures throughout history, however obliquely. After monumental reading and thinking, analysis and imagination, I hit on what I thought, and still think, distills all the world's best wisdom on the issue.
The meaning of life is creative love, or loving creativity. A life that is organized in disregard of this objective requirement will, to the extent that it departs from this, lack full and proper meaning of the deepest and most positive sort. A life that aligns with it will be, to that extent, a meaningful and fulfilling existence.
There's a deep sense in which the phrase "creative love" is a redundancy, because I believe that all genuine love is essentially creative. But it's a useful redundancy, reminding us of something crucial. The phrase "loving creativity" is not redundant in this way, since it is certainly possible to be creative in unloving, cruel, and even sadistic ways. The creativity that is at the core of life's meaning is a type of activity that expresses love.
So. In my view, the meaning of life is creative love, or loving creativity. When we live in harmony with this eternal value, we live great, meaningful, and fulfilling lives. When we don't, we don't. Our chief challenge, day to day, is to be loving in creative ways, and creative in loving ways. And when we do that, everything else can fall into place.
For a further elaboration of this and what it means, you can consult the book, available in many libraries, or my more recent book, Philosophy for Dummies, available at almost every large bookstore.
We're called not to predict the future, but to create it. Uncertainty isn't an obstacle, but the canvass on which we all paint.
Will you, then, just copy what others have done, tracing the lines they've already laid down, and using colors long before mixed, in the hope that this will serve you well? Or rather, will you, perhaps, paint boldly something new?
What we learn from the past can help us to get past the past and move into the distinctive future that our present can best create.
