When you’re out in nature and in a philosophical mood, it’s amazing how many moral and spiritual lessons you can get if you pay attention. I like to go out in the morning now and then and drop down on my hands and knees in the backyard to weed. It strikes me that the stuff we don’t want in our yards and gardens grows quickly and profusely on its own, and with no help or encouragement from us. That’s a lot like our personal vices: irritation, irascibility, lust, greed, pride, envy, laziness, and any form of harmfully addictive tendencies, to name just a few. We don’t decide to cultivate them, plant them in our souls and work intentionally to nurture them. They’re the weeds of the soul.
So, if we want a nice landscape, we weed. It used to be that when I noticed a stray weed in a place I’d worked hard to clear earlier in the day, I got mildly frustrated. Now I just get busy. Weeds grow. The ones we don’t uproot today, we’ll pull tomorrow. You rarely get it all done at once. And I used to be overwhelmed seeing how many needed my attention in certain stretches of the back. Now I simply know my coming days will allow me to get out into nature again and do something needed, something that’s good. Plus, the exercise itself is its own thing, and beneficial.
It’s important for us to realize that the garden of our hearts, the landscape of our souls, needs similar attention and work. Every day, try to weed a little. And while you’re paying attention, also check on the good stuff. A little water here, some organic fertilizer there, and it’s heartening what a bit of care can accomplish. But there’s always work to do, which is not something to be regretted, or to sprout new weeds in your spirit, but to be embraced as a reality of why we’re here in the first place. The inner exercise itself keeps you sharp.
The Garden is vitally important in the Biblical narrative, and it’s an equally crucial metaphor in our own stories.
TRUTH, BEAUTY, GOODNESS, UNITY.
We don't depend on others to bring these four transcendental ideals into action, day to day. We do it ourselves, wherever we are and whatever we're trying to accomplish. We lead the way. We seek to elevate our activities with them, and inspire others to embody them. We realize that the best ideas can make their difference only in us and through us. When we fail, we adjust and persist. We respect and nurture the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual dimensions of everyone around us and in everything we do. We know it matters. And we care. We make the world a little better whenever we get this right.
The most dangerous things in our time may be counterfeit wisdom and faux virtue. Without real wisdom and virtue, there is no peace, no authentic partnership, no true courage, no genuine friendship, and no chance at all for any deep and abiding happiness.
Wisdom and Virtue: Simple. Elusive. Vital.
Kindness is a connection that allows wisdom, virtue, and inner growth to flow in both directions.
When the powerful cease to care for the powerless, when the rich ignore the poor, the world has developed a malady of the very worst sort.
Kindness should be as natural as breathing. It should be our heartbeat, our DNA—not just a default, but a constant under all else.
Perhaps God made you big to help the very small. Or maybe you're now small to challenge and inspire the large. Either can be a blessing, and confer one, as well.
Only the confused are without compassion.
Love is giving more than getting. It can be wonderful, severe, and challenging. It's the work for which we're here. And it is its own reward.
There is a deep magic beneath the turbulent surface of the world. And in that underground stream, peace and power are to be found. The waters that flow there are those of love.
What you love will reveal you, and further form your soul. Therefore: Love the right things. Avoid the unworthy. Live with compassion.
When you love the right things, the right things will find you.
A friend said today that he works in a soul sucking environment. And I decided to pass on to him a paraphrase of some advice a guy named Boethius got in the year 524. He was also in a soul sucking situation, sitting in prison on a false charge, lamenting his fate, and Philosophy came to visit him—in the form of a beautiful lady. She brought him a great and useful perspective on his fall from wealth and political prominence into the small stark cell that now held him, as he awaited an unjust execution. And he wrote up the advice that comforted him in a small book that still speaks to us today, a book called The Consolation of Philosophy.
So here's my wild and loose paraphrase of the big picture advice for anyone who feels like they're in "a soul sucking environment," and working for hostile people.
If they've got a straw, don't be a soda. Don't even be a shake. Be instead, a thick steak. Don't fit into any straw. Your soul is not anyone else's to take away.
So, Ok, Lady Philosophy is a little more detailed. But that's what it comes down to. When we build up our own inner wisdom and virtue, no environment can suck away our vital spirits, or the essence of our soul. We become transformative instead. And then, perhaps the environment will stop sucking. At least, for us. But if they go for a knife and fork, take care.
"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not."
Measure for Measure, Act I, scene 1.
At the Sports Center gym where I workout every day, there's a cafe or deli. One day this week, when I was walking by the counter, the young lady who works there making sandwiches and ladling out soups, putting together salads, and handing out sports drinks, called out to me. "Mr. Morris, can you help me with something?"
I thought she needed help lifting and carrying something heavy. So I said, "Sure," and turned around to go heft whatever burden she had been struggling with. But she didn't move as if to show me what big box or sack she needed to have repositioned.
Instead, she said, "Can you explain to me virtue ethics?"
That gave me pause. It's not a request for help you often hear in a gym. "Yeah, no problem," I replied, before figuring out how the heavy lifting was going to be done on this one. What angle did I need to take? What leverage could help?
So I explained that Aristotle and a bunch of other ancient philosophers believed that we bring into any situation various personal strengths and weaknesses of character. The strengths, they thought of as virtues. Our word 'virtue' comes from the latin 'virtu' which meant strength or prowess. And that in turn came from 'vir' which meant man. The Greek word was 'arete' which itself could mean excellence or virtue. Aristotle thought it was worth figuring out what strengths or excellences would be universally good to have, and built his conception of ethics (from the Greek word 'ethos' or character) around these virtues.
He identified as virtues such things as honesty - a strong inclination toward truth - and liberality, a habit of giving to those in need what they could well use, and courage - an ability to do what's right rather than what's easy, even if it's quite challenging. He then came to see courage as perhaps the most crucial of the virtues, since you probably won't exercise any of the others in difficult circumstances without courage.
Modern approaches to ethics have focused on rules. Perhaps inspired by scientific laws, or the civic rules and legal regulations that make civilized society possible, philosophers began to hunt for the rules that ought to govern our conduct. The ten commandments are a start. But as important as rules are, you can never have enough, and paradoxically you quickly get too many. Something more is needed. Rules need interpreting. Every rule is general. Any situation is specific. We need discernment. We need wisdom and the habit of acting in accordance with wisdom, which may even be another nice general definition of virtue.
One of my colleagues during my days at Notre Dame decades ago, Alastair McIntyre, almost singlehandedly revived the ancient tradition of virtue ethics, a focus on character more than rules, as being what's at the heard of ethics. For a masterful and difficult account of it all, you might want to consult his book After Virtue.
There are now many qualities you can call virtues. I read an article today about positive passion as perhaps being one. The author mentioned also patience. And that got me thinking. Positive passion is a hot virtue. Patience is a cool one. Passion gets you started. Patience keeps you going. Passion can fuel a journey. Patience can keep it on track. Passion is a youthful virtue. Patience is a mature one. You have to wait for it, appropriately. If your passions bring you too much success too quickly in life, you often never develop the virtue of patience.
My friend at the gym cafe seemed to be sincerely pleased by our discussion. And I was equally pleased at the vigorous workout with weights that followed.
Whenever you're confused by anything, that means it's time to get out of Plato's Cave and get yourself to Plato's Gym. Give yourself the mental workout of thinking things through, carefully and clearly. Or if the issue seems too heavy, just elicit the help of a workout partner of the mind.
Do you need a work environment that pushes you relentlessly to be tougher and better at what you do? Is it good to have harsh feedback and to be pressured during all your waking hours? Will that make you dig deep and excel? Is it legitimate to treat a business as involving something even remotely like Navy Seal Training?
There's been a lot written recently about the retail giant Amazon and its company culture. A New York Times article unleashed the firestorm of controversy when it portrayed Amazon as a modern Darwinian jungle where there is survival only of the toughest and most ruthless. Some former employees have subsequently written their own accounts of how difficult and demanding an environment it can be, while others have taken issue with the portrayal in the Times and agree with Jeff Bezos that the brutal description there is nothing like the real environment of the company. I don't want to wade into the controversy over this one organization or its values, but simply to comment on the main issue I see the controversy as raising.
Aristotle, along with the tradition following his lead, long ago identified a set of virtues, or strengths for human life - characteristics that empower us in any challenging situation - that we benefit from embodying as we live and work with other people. Those virtues include the following, with the now old fashioned labels, and my gloss on what they mean:
Courage - A commitment to do what's right, in the face of risk
Temperance - Moderation and proper self-restraint
Liberality - A freedom in giving to others what can help them
Magnificence - A capacity for acting on a big, or grand, scale
Pride - A true sense of honor and worthiness
Good Temper - An inner calm displayed outwardly
Friendliness - The demeanor of treating others sociably
Truthfulness - A strong disposition toward honesty
Wittiness - The ability to see and express humor appropriately
Justice - A basic commitment to treating others well.
It's quite a list. And it has some initially surprising components, considering that the virtues add up to what Aristotle saw as good character. In my books If Aristotle Ran General Motors, and If Harry Potter Ran General Electric, I suggest that these are universally great qualities to have, in business and in life.
But prior to Aristotle, the ancient Greeks, joining people from most other early cultures, had their focus on another set of virtues, or strengths, what we can insightfully call "The Warrior Virtues" - qualities that empower us in times of physical warfare. Here's a representative list, that starts with the same quality to be found at the top of Aristotle's list:
Courage
Physical Power: Force, Stamina, Endurance
Mental Acuity: Perceptiveness, Clarity
The Ability to Adapt and Create
A Disdain for Mediocrity
An Intolerance for Weakness
Craftiness
The Ability to Deceive Convincingly
Fierceness: An Intensity just short of Brutality
A Willingness to Kill
We might also call these The Homeric Virtues, as in the west, we first encounter them, typically, in Homer's ancient poetry. It's well known, and has often been noted, that American business leaders throughout most of modern corporate history have very often had athletic backgrounds or military experience. Given the widely recognized fact that most sport in some way re-enacts warfare, it's then safe to say that most business leaders have had experience with, and a tendency to embrace at least most of the Homeric Virtues, the warrior virtues. And some very tough corporate environments are a lot like the military in times of war. The demands are high, excuses are not allowed, and everyone is expected to be utterly dedicated to the mission. In some circumstances, companies have risen and succeeded by emphasizing at least most of the warrior virtues. And at least some people in those companies can appear to flourish as individuals in such an environment. But I think we have good reason to question or reject the application of at least a couple of those virtues outside contexts of real physical battle. I hope you instantly join me in that rejection. In fact, I've argued in several of my books that the subset of warrior virtues that do apply in business endeavors need to be guided and constrained by the more Aristotelian virtues, as well as by such transcendentals as Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity - what I call The Four Foundations of Greatness.
The problem often seen in companies that exalt the warrior virtues in isolation from an Aristotelian framework and The Four Foundations is that the warrior mentality quickly and easily becomes a cloak for something very different than a quest for excellence. And, in fact, you begin to see what I like to call counterfeit warrior virtues:
Arrogance
Callousness
Vengefulness
Cruelty
Sadism
Rapacity
A Touch of Evil
And this is clearly not a recipe for a great company culture, to put it mildly. But this is exactly what you often get when people proudly focus on the warrior virtues as centrally ingredient in their enterprises. The warrior mindset outside any real battle field easily becomes a cloak for vices to pass as virtues, and the whole environment quickly turns poisonous.
When people say "Business is War" or even just that "Business is Sport," the danger is that they can easily break loose from the civic virtues of Aristotle, and stray into the realm of warfare virtues where counterfeits easily tempt people in any leadership or management position to create a thoroughly corrosive and corrupt enterprise that will eventually collapse of its own weight.
Again, I don't write this to point a finger at any particular company, but only to warn of something vitally dangerous that is often seen in corporate contexts where it can do only great harm. The war we do need to fight is to bring the Aristotelian virtues front and center, supported by The Four Foundations. Then greatness can be both attained, and sustained.
The New York Times Book Review recently asked two writers, Thomas Mallon and Alice Gregory, a question about characters in novels that's often been discussed before. It was posed like this: Can a Virtuous Character Be Interesting? The most common, received opinion is that a scoundrel, scalawag, deviant, or miscreant is much more interesting to read about than a normal garden-variety good guy. The argument usually given for such a view is simple. Imagine this story: A guy is born into a great and psychologically healthy family, he grows up around good friends, attends a fine school, is very nice himself, graduates from an ideal college, meets the perfect life partner, and lives happily ever after. It would not be the typical page turner. "Wait. I have to finish this chapter. Somebody just nicely asked our hero to pass the salt and I've got to see what form of graciousness he displays to comply!"
We're often drawn to flawed characters. For one thing, we may see in them, on full parade, various traits that we've felt in ourselves and rightly suppressed. It's instructive and sometimes even fascinating to witness them fully developed and on display. In a related way, truly despicable characters in fiction make us look not so bad, after all, by contrast - which is surely one of the reasons reality television shows are so popular. And then, in another way, we may enjoy the insight that such portrayals can give us into the souls of people we actually have to deal with now and then outside the realms of novels.
Most good writers can provide long lists of baddies who have been more interesting to read about in the history of literature than almost any of the goodies. But should writers aspire more, and work harder, to depict goodness rather than focusing on so many types of evil?
Alice Gregory has something worthwhile to say about it all. She writes:
A truly radical 21st-century novelist wouldn’t ask us to see ourselves in made-up villains, and then, hopefully, revise our opinions of the real ones in our own lives. Rather, they would ask us to see the arduous and often acrobatic effort that goes into living a life of common decency. They would coerce us into believing that virtue is interesting and fun to think about and far more dazzling to encounter than malevolence.
In her 1947 book “Gravity and Grace,” Simone Weil wrote: “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
I think that's well said, both by Gregory and Weil.
I've just finished the most unexpected adventure in writing, over the course of my entire life, A movie started playing in my head one morning about four and a half years ago, and I immediately rushed to write down everything I was seeing and hearing. It was the most amazing process of writing I've ever experienced, and quite different from the rational and heavily planned creation of a nonfiction book of philosophy. The movie kept playing, and an entrancing prologue book, recounting a trip across the desert in Egypt in 1934, quickly came into being, and has been followed by seven subsequent much longer novels, so far. The prologue, The Oasis Within, is a short book just shy of 200 pages, and is going to be announced here soon, as it will be published within the month.
The Oasis Within, and its novel series that follows, are all my favorite books I've ever written. And the main characters are all very good guys. They display everyday virtue in dazzling ways. They do confront evil, and great danger, many times, and in wildly varied forms, but they are themselves great people I'd love to know. And they're the opposite of boring. In fact, they may be the most fascinating characters I've ever been introduced to, in any story. But maybe that's just me. And they confirm richly Alice Gregory's point.
I'll announce it here when the first of the eight books laying out their story is available. It will be very soon. A twenty-first century novelist is about to do something very different.
For most of my life, patience has been a monumentally aggravating virtue. I like to make things happen. I like to dream it, do it, and then move on to the next thing. I work hard at projects, and pursue them with determination, persistence, and as much creativity as I can muster. And then I like to see my efforts come together and work, producing the fruit of achievement. I bask in the warm glow of a job well done and go looking for the next one.
When I get excited about an idea or a project, I become a curator of great energy. It seems to come to me from all directions, get inside me, and demand to be used. I surf on it, run with it, and even fly because of it. Then, occasionally, things don't go as expected. Not right away, at least. And sometimes, not even considerably after the "right away" phase has long gone. What's this? The world is not responding to my bright idea and hard work? I'm being made to WAIT?
Patience has a very different energy signature from striving and working hard. For most of my life, I had no real conception of how to make them go together. I was always pushing, running down hallways, making call after call, with almost a frantic pace that finds youth to be such fertile soil. But as I've gotten older, I've come to a bit more of an understanding of patience.
The world is an infinitely complex buzzing web of intersecting interests, energies, and events. It's hard to fit a new idea, or invention, or discovery, into the speeding traffic of what's already on the highway. You sometimes have to sit on the on ramp and patiently wait until the time is right. Then you can safely merge into the stream of ongoing things that are whizzing by.
Impatience doesn't want to wait - ever. But waiting can be just as important an activity as doing. A great baseball player doesn't step up to the plate and let impatience goad him into swinging hard before the pitcher even throws the ball. That would be crazy. And if he even swings a moment too soon, he can miss the opportunity and the ball. Patience is all about acting when the time is right. It's about waiting until the proper moment arrives. It involves the ability to be at peace and give the world time to get ready for your great new idea or project. It's most of all an attitude. And it's powerful.
Impatience is all about ego and that spoiled child inside that wants its way now. Its companions are frustration, irritation, and anger. Patience is a form of inner peace. It's about wisdom. Its companions are serenity and assurance, a confidence that doesn't require immediacy. It isn't in a hurry. It understands that great things take time.
I always wanted to have a better understanding of patience. But I had to wait a long time to get it. It was worth the wait. And most things of value are.
We're told that the holiest spot in ancient Greece, the Oracle at Delphi, had two inscriptions of advice chiseled into marble to welcome all visitors, who typically came for advice. They were:
Know Yourself.
Nothing in Excess.
The longer I live, the more I come to appreciate the depth and practicality of these two recommendations. Ironically, knowing yourself may be the hardest thing in the world. And why? Nothing is closer to you than your own self. But it's protected by layers of obliviousness and self-deception. Getting to really know yourself is like peeling back the layers of an onion. And it might bring tears. But nothing is more important for living a good, successful, and happy life.
As hard as self knowledge has been for me, avoiding excess has been even tougher. I'll eat too much, drink too much, work too much, exercise too much, and talk too much. I may even blog too much. But that's me. I'm lucky I lived through my twenties, with all the stupid excessive things I did. And I'm just coming off two months' worth of muscle strains from taking a perfectly good exercise in the gym, and doing an insane amount of it in an excessively short time.
Aristotle nailed it. Excellence is always somehow about identifying the too little and the too much and equally avoiding them both. Virtue, as he said, or strength, in a more modern idiom, is about finding what's just right.
And the two recommendations at the Oracle are of course connected. You don't know yourself unless you understand your limits and what counts for you in any domain as "excess." And you can't avoid excess unless you truly know yourself, what motivates you, what prompts you, and when you're most likely to make bad decisions that cross the line.
So here we are millennia later, and I can't think of much better advice than what was carved out of that marble so long ago. Maybe these ancient admonitions could be the basis for some 2015 New Year's Resolutions. Maybe they'd be good guides for the days to come. But, knowing myself as I do, I have to avoid implementing them ... excessively.
