Regis and Me

Regis Francis Xavier Philbin was a really good guy. I was at a Notre Dame football scrimmage, the springtime Blue and Gold Game, when an older coach came up to my row in the stands and yelled out, "Professor! I want you to come and meet one of my good friends! Can you come down for a minute?" "Sure, Coach." I made my way across the seats to Coach George Kelly and down the aisle as he tugged on my sleeve and said, "I've been wanting you to meet an old friend of mine. We go way back."

We got down closer to the field, only a few rows up, and the coach led me across a row of seats. "Regis, Regis, I want you to meet my favorite professor, Tom Morris." George Kelly patted me on the back. "Tom, this is my old friend Regis Philbin." I got a big smile from the television icon. His show, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee was at the peak of its popularity on ABC. "Professor, come sit down and visit!" I did, and he said, "What do you teach?" I said, "Philosophy." He said, "Wait a minute. You're my daughter's favorite professor." What? "She's in your big freshman class." "Really?" And we talked on and on for a long time. Regis had no sense of self importance or celebrity. He was just a nice funny guy. The man wanted to know all about me and what I did and at some point asked me if I was thinking about writing a book for general audience. I said, "I just did and it's out next year." "What's it about?" "True Success for everybody. The wisdom of the great thinkers." He lit up even more. "Let me know when it's published and we'll have you on the show to talk about it!" Wow. Ok. "I'll do it!"

Regis was the ideal conversationalist. Nothing was about him. Everything was about me and whomever was around. He was engaging, and really funny. In fact, I was so taken up in the moment I forgot to tell him that a few years before, when Notre Dame had won the National Championship, I had written, recorded, and released a rock and roll fight song called "The Fightin' Irish Are Back!" And Champion T Shirts made up a special shirt for it featuring the Irish Leprechaun playing my Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, with my initials added to the headstock: TVM. Regis had played the song on his national show and danced to it. And it didn't even occur to me to mention that to him.

A little more than a year later, I was on the famous sofa with him and Kathie Lee, in front of the live audience in late August of 1994, if I recall, talking about kids having success going back to school, and listening to him pitch my book to his national viewers. He'd come backstage to the Green Room to talk to me and make sure I felt his personal welcome and enthusiasm for the book True Success before the show. But of course I was in the Men's Room. But he met me in the hall and we had the best chat. He was a real motivator. After that little hallway talk, I could have suited up and played with the team. Even at my age. After the broadcast, he grabbed me and pulled me around all the cameras to the audience and held up my book and said, "Everybody go get this book right away! You'll love it!" And they did. And then I saw him at a few parties in South Bend on game weekends, and he was always kind, generous, happy, funny, and just a joy to be around.

His daughter and my philosophy student JJ has created her own show Single Parent, and her husband is the creator of The Good Place. Good people. Good work. Regis will be missed by all. Gone too soon. A good, good man who did great things for other people, like me. And that's true success.

On Life, Age, Loss, Joy, and Learning

Oh, my. If you have 7 minutes and 44 seconds—and who doesn't, unless you happen to be on the wrong side of a firing squad right now, and if that's true, then get off this blog for crying out loud—and if you want a major blessing today—and who doesn't, including anyone facing that firing squad, especially given the fact that it could delay the dreaded action by 7 minutes and 44 seconds, PLEASE watch this short video on my old buddy Norman Lear, where you'll learn how dancing naked in front of a mirror at age 93 just might be the secret to longevity, you'll be delighted, and entertained, and made to think about television today, and age, and loss, and learning.

Click this: http://nyti.ms/29xbgRt And then come back here if you'd like.

I first met Norman when I was 39 and he was 69. I was just beginning to do philosophy beyond the classrooms of Notre Dame, out in the broader world, and we had made contact by telephone. Can you imagine what it was like for a kid who grew up watching All in the Family and debating the issues it raised around the living room to come back to my office one day after a class and press the answering machine and hear, "Tom! This is Norman Lear! Here's my home phone number. Give me a call!" I was just astonished.

Shortly after a bunch of great phone calls, he sent me plane tickets to come visit him at his beautiful vacation house in Vermont, an old home once owned by Robert Frost, then by the abstract artist Kenneth Noland. Its grounds are adjacent to a state forest and are as peaceful as you can imagine. I spent most of a day sitting on the big front porch with Norman and the Dean of the Harvard Divinity School and his wife, and with the co-founders of Tom's of Maine, one of the most ethically and environmentally sensitive consumer products companies of our time. We philosophized all day, and through a great lunch. Mid afternoon, Norman asked me to talk a short walk with him. We ended up lying in the grass on his spacious front lawn, pondering life and creativity. And we laughed a lot.

Then, a short time later, he brought a bunch of television producers to see me speak in front of my first audience of over 5,000 people—all convenience store owners at their national meeting in Las Vegas. We had lunch afterwards and since I was going to speak the next day to the top leadership of Merrill Lynch at a retreat in Santa Barbara, Norman invited me to fly to California with him on his plane, where the conversation continued. He got off in LA and let me have the G4 for the rest of the ride to my destination, and then came up the next day to hear that talk as well, on a different topic. I was due to go to LA for a third presentation the following day, so he offered to take me back with him. We talked and napped and talked more in the back of his limo. Then, after a visit at his amazing home in Brentwood, his driver took me to my next speaking event.

Norman played a big role in my life during those days, with his cheerful encouragement and belief in what I was starting to do as a public philosopher. He helped give me the confidence to leave university life and launch out on an adventure that was in its inception, and even now, nearly unprecedented for an academically trained philosopher in our time. Whenever I was with him, his assistants were taking calls constantly, and Fed Ex was delivering packages every few minutes, it seemed. But I never felt like I had only a fleeting sliver of his attention. His gift to me included full presence, full focus, and uninterrupted conversation of the liveliest and most probing sort. I try to remember that whenever a young person just starting his or her own adventure wants to talk—for advice, wisdom, or just encouragement.

We've kept in touch over the years, in fits and starts. He's called me several times about possibly getting involved in something he was doing. He's made me think, and made me laugh. I just love hearing his voice. Norman turns 94 on July 27. And he's still creating. He has a new show upcoming on Netflix, as well as a documentary of his life about to come out. Happy Birthday, old friend. Continue to learn and dance and create!

Where Are The Philosophers?

On Sunday, the New York Times Columnist David Brooks wrote an essay from the midst of his book tour called "What is Your Purpose?" He begins the piece by reminding us that there were times in this country, and around various parts of the world, when wisdom seemed to be readily available. A theologian or philosopher could appear on the cover of a major news magazine. The top publishers put out books that helped us reflect more deeply on our lives. The morning talk shows were visited regularly by psychologists, economists, historians, astronomers, serious novelists, and, yes, an occasional philosopher. Even late night TV surprised us now and then with a real thinker. I remember as a child enjoying the Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

In my own career, I've had the opportunity, many years back, to talk philosophy with Regis Philbin, at the height of popularity for his morning show (now Kelly's show), with Matt Lauer, on the NBC Today Show, on CNN, CNBC, and NPR's Talk of the Nation and Morning Edition. But that hasn't happened in a while, for me or any other philosopher I know of. It's not what the programming people are looking for, these days. We've left the big life issues out of the public square, squeezing them to the margins of the culture. And we wonder why we're feeling adrift.

I'm old enough to remember the golden days of TV talk shows like Donahue, and the early days of Oprah, when there were always intellectually challenging guests grabbing my attention, and helping me to think about some new, or old, topic that was relevant to my life. But then other shows came around where people yelled at each other and threw chairs, and the carnival had then come to town to stay.

I've almost come to believe that a superficial entertainment culture is just a subtle form of nihilism. People despair of meaning and purpose, and so, as Pascal said in the seventeenth century, they find diversions to keep from thinking about the deeper issues of life, death, and meaning. But when we engage these things, we can make great progress. We can actually get our bearings in the world. And we can change our lives.

I've got no problem with "Keeping Up With The Kardashians." When I go into the gym, and enter the back room where the really heavy lifting happens, I often turn the channel to E! to see what my favorite celeb family is doing. But the ancients had a principle that's deep and telling. I like to call it "The Functionality Rule": The value of nearly anything in our lives is dependent on how we use it. Entertainment is fine, as long as it functions in a positive and limited role. Our work, and other recreations can be even more fun than catching up on your favorite Bravo show, or watching the finale of The Voice.

David Brooks reminds us that in a cultural vacuum of reflection on real life issues - the proper territory of philosophy at its best - we all suffer. We have no great guidance on the big issues that loom in our lives and that people have confronted forever. My role model for being a public philosopher is Ralph Waldo Emerson, 150 years ago. I have to go that far back to find someone outside the university system bringing philosophy into people's lives where they live and work. We need to turn this around. Of course, early in the twentieth century, we had William James and John Dewey, and then later the existentialists and the ever irascible Bertrand Russell came along. Even the even more irritated Mortimer J. Adler made a splash in his time. I remember when it was a big thing, in all the papers, when theologian Hans Kung would publish his latest big book on God. It was almost like a Harry Potter publication day, but for everyday intellectuals. 

We need to bring back the wisdom. Where are the philosophers? Let's go find them. It can greatly help in our work and our lives.