On Being Open: Adventures and Maps.

One of the greatest human qualities is a genuine openness to new ideas. Socrates perhaps pioneered the view that wisdom could consist in knowing how much you don't know, and being open to explore and learn.

Our problem, typically, though, is that our openness is limited and very temporary. I'm open to learn until I think I have, and then I quickly close down that particular aperture of openness and draw a map that I henceforth use to chart my way forward, with much less of a readiness to being further corrected or educated on the matter I now think I know. Maybe that's just me. But I suspect it's also a tendency in many other people. And when we have a map, we hold on to it tightly.

The problem is that pioneers have often been terrible map makers. The first explorers of any continent or island typically drew up very inaccurate maps of the new territory. It took other people, later on, to get things straight. And that gives me a nice metaphor for my own intellectual exploring. I shouldn't be so quick to think that the first map of a territory that I draw up mentally is just fine, and fully accurate. I shouldn't let it block further openness. A map is fine, and useful, but maybe it's better thought of as a place to start than as a place to end. Perhaps it shouldn't shut down my eagerness to learn and even change my mind, but rather spur it on.

Just a thought.

The Two Keys To Great Leadership

Today, I want to share a word on what makes for great leadership. I've discussed this topic before in the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors, but it comes up in a quick distinctive way in a novel of mine that's to be published next fall, The King and Prince. This is to be the fourth book in the series Walid and the Mysteries of Phi, which have recently been seeing publication after the prologue, The Oasis Within.

The students from the palace school in Cairo are on a class trip down the Nile to visit Alexandria. They're about to come into sight of the Mediterranean Sea. Thirteen year old Walid speaks.

“Uncle Ali, I mean, Your Majesty, we were just talking about the fact that the sea we’re about to glimpse and shortly to set sail on for at least a brief time is big and yet, at the same time, relatively small in comparison to other oceans.”

 “Yes, you could say that,” the king replied. “But it’s just as true to say that the various named oceans and connected seas are all part of one vast ocean encompassing the globe, and that when you see one of its parts, you’re seeing it—whether your vantage point is at the edge of the Mediterranean, or the Caribbean, or perhaps the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, or Arctic Oceans, as they’re called. But in reality, there is simply one ocean spread around the world, in addition to many smaller bodies of water that are in most ways bounded by land. And yet, even they are indirectly connected with the larger expanse.”

 The students were all impressed with this perspective and listened intently as the king went on to add, “There is an ancient saying from the Tao Te Ching that captures this singularity, and more. The text says that the ocean is the greatest of all bodies of water, because it’s lower than all the rest. They empty themselves into it.”

 “That’s pretty interesting,” Mafulla commented.

 “Yes. And this is, of course, alludes to the keys for great leadership.”

“What do you mean?” Mafulla asked.

 “The best leadership requires a vital combination of nobility, which is a sense of greatness and vision, with humility, a counterbalancing proper sense of self that maintains a deep respect and eager openness to others. These are two qualities that must be cultivated together in all our personalities.” He paused to let this idea register properly, and then went on. “The Taoist wisdom is a wonderful statement about leadership. The ideal leader combines the nobility of the ocean with its humility, or open lowliness. Others are drawn by both these qualities to feed their time and talents and commitments into the projects that the leader with such balance brings to them. The leader’s followers are those who help make the leader great, as he or she in turn guides them to worthy pursuits of excellence and their own forms of greatness.”

Glory

The word 'glory' is interesting. It's old-fashioned. But it's important. Maybe it's even a key to our deepest fulfillment. And it's a word that's rarely used in our time.

I knew a man twenty-five years ago who brought it to work every day. He was a janitor, a custodian in a building of a hundred PhDs. He vacuumed up, emptied trash cans, and washed windows. But really, he was a custodian of souls. And when any of those PhDs was having a bad day, they went looking for him, for just a chat. To maybe feel, for a moment, something that could turn around their heart, and their day. It was something that shone through that man. And everyone felt it.

Glory. To me, it connotes a dazzling fullness of greatness and love. With that in mind, here's a thought. Maybe our highest calling is to bring glory into whatever we do. But we can't accomplish that when the smallness of a swollen ego gets in the way. Again, humility and nobility work together. Then you get, sometimes, glory. And everyone is lifted up. Amen?

Humility, Nobility, and Leadership

There was a great article in the New York Times the other day, with an eye-catching title:

“A Humble Pope, Challenging The World.”

The Times ran this teaser and explanatory line under the title:

“Francis, the first Latin American pope, has drawn from his life in Argentina to try to create a humbler papacy, albeit one with lofty ambition.”

It’s not often that we see humility and lofty ambition mentioned together. And that’s too bad, because they’re perfect partners. In fact, lofty ambition is closely connected with a fundamental quality that is, together with humility, crucial for great leadership. The best explanation I know of has come from the mouth of a character in my new book, The Oasis Within. He’s seventy years old. His name is Ali. And he’s just said something about humility and nobility to his thirteen-year-old nephew Walid, as they sit and talk under the stars in the vast desert of western Egypt. The year is 1934. The boy wants to understand what nobility and humility really are. Ali explains it all better than I can, so let me quote this short passage. Ali speaks.

“Nobility is a sense of your own greatness, and the true greatness of what you rightly value, along with the importance of what you’re doing in this world. Nobility comes from inside you. It arises in your soul. It’s an attitude and a sensibility that you bring to everything you do, every action, by caring about little things, knowing they’re actually big, and attempting big things, knowing that they’re never bigger than your calling, your quest, and the adventure for which you’re here.”

“That’s a good answer.”

“Thank you.”

“So: What about humility?” The boy was entranced by these ideas and suddenly found himself wanting to understand more.

“Humility is a sense of our smallness in the vast sweep of things, and a recognition of the greatness in other people, along with a realization that we need each other in order to accomplish our best dreams. Absolutely anyone and anything can teach us, as I’m teaching you on this marvelous night.”

“I see. This makes sense to me. But it’s also strange. I’m big and I’m small.”

“Yes. And so are we all. Each of us is of inestimable importance. None of us owns all the wisdom and virtue of the world. You need others. And they need you. Humility recognizes our wonderful limits. Nobility embraces what is also ours and is limitless.” This was a lot for Walid to take in all at once. But he could feel that these words resonated with truth.

The old man continued. “Humility means being open to learn from everyone and everything that crosses our path. The camel can teach us. The storm can teach us. The viper can teach us. Our mistakes can teach us. The stars can, too. If you’re humbly open to learning and growing, then you can become everything you’re meant to be, in the fullness of your inner nobility. In addition, a proper humility allows you to serve others eagerly and well, and there is nothing nobler than that.”

“So, nobility and humility go together.”

“They’re meant to walk arm-in-arm. But, unfortunately, each of these qualities often wanders along without its intended mate. When they work together, there’s magic, and there’s tremendous power for good. Combined, they lead to extraordinary things.”

This was important for the boy to grasp well. The old man thought for a moment, and then continued. “The greatest kings and leaders on earth are both noble and humble. One who is noble and not humble is presumptuous and arrogant. One who is humble and not noble is hesitant and lost, and never in possession of his full power. To be the great regent you’re here to become, you must embrace both these qualities, my friend. Nobility and humility together form the path of true greatness.”

This is important for us all to remember as a new presidential political season gets underway. It’s not just the Pope who benefits from blending these two great qualities. Any leader should embody them, and keep them in proper balance.

There's a lot more on this topic and related issues in the new book. If you have a chance to read it soon, I hope that it speaks to you, and that you will enjoy it deeply. Please let me know what you think. It always helps me as a philosopher to hear the perspectives of other thoughtful people.

For more, go to www.TheOasisWithin.com.

We Know So Little

We don't know one tenth of one percent of anything. Who first said that? I think it was Thomas Edison who, at least in that remark, knew one hundred percent of what he was talking about.

It's easy to think that our best science already basically understands the world and those of us in it, until you talk to real scientists, or at least the ones who are the pioneers at the cutting edge of their specialities. Human history is a series of misguided certainties. People have always thought that they basically knew what was going on in the world around them. And people have been so very wrong so many times that it should give us pause and instill in us a little humility, along with the measure of confidence that we also rightly need.

Modern medicine is at the brink of discoveries and changes that will so deeply revolutionize everything that it's hard for us now to imagine what health and healthcare will be like in a hundred years. And it may come much sooner than that.

Robotics will drastically alter manufacturing. Bigger, better, and much faster computers - even different sorts of computing - will reinvent business in many ways, only a few of which are already evident.

I suspect that psychology will even make discoveries that will transform our self understanding. And philosophy may make inroads that have been hitherto unanticipated. We're moving into the unknown at a faster pace than we can even guess on our wildest days. The cosmic and epistemic wind is strong at our backs, but we don't always feel it.

There are times on board a plane when it can seem like you're just sitting still in a nice leather armchair. But you're moving at hundreds of miles an hour. I see this as a nice metaphor for the human condition. It can sometimes feel like we're sitting still, when we're all moving forward much faster than we can sense.

When I was in middle school, and even high school, I'd ride for an hour in the family car to visit my grandparents, my father's parents, on their farm. They didn't have indoor plumbing or an electric stove. To wash my hands for lunch, I'd first go out behind the house to a dark metal pump. I'd put a basin beneath the spigot and grab the old rusty handle and pump a couple of times, before the cold, clear water began to flow. With the basin full, I'd take it back into the house and wash up in it, using soap someone had made, and then I'd go eat whatever had been cooked on the wood stove. Later in the day, we'd find leftovers stored in the unrefrigerated white wooden "pie safe" and have a snack. The "bathroom" had no walls, roof, or floor, and was out back behind some bushes. Things have changed, to put it mildly, at least for most of us. But the changes we've seen are nothing compared to what's around the corner.

So, when you're tempted to think you've got it all figured out, remember our kinetically kaleidoscopic context. We all could use a little Socratic self-realization about how little we truly know concerning the most fundamental mysteries of existence, and even the mundanities of everyday life. We need to open our minds a little more than ever before, with genuine curiosity to learn. The pace of change won't slow or stop, apart from a technology ending global catastrophe. The only way to dance with change well is with a humble spirit, an open mind, and insatiable curiosity.

I'm a philosopher who believes that we know many deep truths about life already. But I also think we have much more to learn yet ahead. And this sense impels me to explore, and seek more avidly than ever before. I hope you feel the same.