Aristotle's Recipe for Greatness

Aristotle's simple recipe for human greatness:

People in Partnership for a shared Purpose.

It's never put so briefly (he's Aristotle, after all) but it's to be found in his Politics, which is about how we best live well together. Oh, how we've drifted! Here he is sans pupils. But that's ok. We can be his pupils, even today. He reminds us that greatness is never a solitary achievement. It arises out of people working together. How? In partnership. And there must be a clear, shared purpose that brings the people together and makes the partnership possible.

I just finished my second reading of The Iliad a few days ago, as I’ve mentioned here before. It’s a great story about partnerships breaking down when there is no longer first and foremost a shared purpose. I had a great talk on the plane the other day with a fellow philosopher from the real estate world about how The Iliad can help us to be better in our organizations and to avoid or heal those breakdowns. The wisdom is out there. It’s up to us to find it and use it. Good wishes in your own wisdom adventures!

Sisyphus, The Rock, and the Roll.

Y'all may have to help me out with this one.

“I think of Sisyphus as a hero.” A great psychologist, top leadership expert, and a good friend said this to me the other day on the phone. Sisyphus is of course the guy who rolls a rock endlessly up a mountain, only to have it roll back again, and he has to repeat his task endlessly, with the same result. I had never heard him called a hero. “Really?” was my astute reply. “Yep,” I recall my friend explaining to me. I was surprised. “I’ll have to think about that.” And a day later I called him back to ask for a bit more detail.

Before I go on, I should give you the basic back story of the famous mythological figure. And I’m not making this up. According to ancient sources, a baby boy named Sisyphus was born into money and power that came from his father. He went on to become, like that father, a king. And he came to be known as a greedy, avaricious, self-aggrandizing and deceitful ruler, who often killed those who sought to come into his country. This may be starting to sound vaguely familiar. His only concern was to maintain his own power, and he devoted most of his time and energy to that end. He had a brother he hated and so he seduced the man’s daughter as part of a failed plot to kill him. Two children resulted from the sorry episode, and their mother, the niece Sisyphus had seduced, is said to have killed them both. It wasn’t a happy group of people.

The bad king also made another major error in later on betraying Zeus for his own intended gain. He wasn’t much for respect and loyalty to others. As a punishment, the chief of all gods sent Death to visit the man and put him into chains. But the slippery king was not to be so easily stopped, and he managed to trick Death into showing him how the chains would work, and the Grim Reaper himself ended up locked in place. Zeus, as you might imagine, was not to be thwarted so easily. So he took charge himself and bound Sisyphus to the endless task for which he has become famous. His new life was to push a large rock up a mountain to the top, but right before fully accomplishing the job, the rock would elude his control and roll back down the hill. So Sisyphus would have to start all over again, pushing it back up again fruitlessly, since it would always roll back down, and this would be repeated forever.

We can see here several patterns. One is the cycle of aspiration, striving, near success and ultimate failure. Rinse and repeat. We find it too often in life. Is this the dog chasing his own tail? Is it a metaphor for all of existence? What exactly is it?

When we think of the man now, we tend to envision only this endless end state. The rock. The roll. The return. The redo. And on, and on. The French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus saw this portrayal as emblematic of our condition, viewed as absurd. We strive; we fail. We try again; we fail again. We’re born, we work hard at an education, and then at a life, and when we finally get to the point high enough on this mountain to have some real wisdom, we roll back down and die. And of course, there are religions that tell us we’re then born again to roll that rock back up another hill.

So, I asked my friend, absent all the hideous background information on the mythical character that might these days qualify him as a certain political party’s next nominee for high office: How can he be thought heroic?

He quickly told me about Admiral William McCraven’s excellent graduation speech which has been turned into the book, "Make Your Bed." McCraven talks about Navy Seal Training, and how the first lesson is to make up your bed in the morning and to do it perfectly. That reminded me of a conversation I had with my college roommate many years ago. I asked, “Why don’t you make your bed?” He said, “I’d just have to do it all over again the next day, and over and over. What's the point?” I mentioned the conversation to my wife and she said, “With a lot of people, it’s cleaning the sink, an equally endless task.” Or else, sweeping the floor. Or, you-name-it. Consider for contrastive pondering a parallel: “Why didn’t you eat anything today?” Answer: “I’d have to do it all over again tomorrow. What’s the point?”

Some things are just going to need to be redone or repeated. There are very few actions in our daily lives that are “one and done" forever. But, let’s get back to Admiral McCraven. He says this about making your bed:

<<The wisdom of this single act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right.>>

With a lot of great football coaches, regular practice isn’t often about learning fancy plays and developing great strategies. It’s about blocking, tackling, running, and catching. “What are we going to do today, Coach?” – “Block, tackle, run, and catch.” – “What about tomorrow?” – “The same.” When I was an undergraduate, the UNC tennis team was often number one in the country and also known for how much they ran in practice, around and around the track and in wind-sprints. You’d think they were the track team. They’d run and run and run and run. And in a big tournament, near the end, when their opponents could barely move or breathe, they still had gas in the tank, from all that basic, simple, repetitive running.

So I thought about Sisyphus. Not mainly about his greed and deception and awful behavior as king, but about his endless task after those years. And then I saw the connection. Hubris. Pridefulness. Ego. There are endless mountains to climb for the undisciplined grasping ego. Nothing is ever enough. You roll the rock up the hill and then you have to do it again. You’re only as successful as what you’re doing now. Yesterday is gone. The world you always feel a need to impress has just one question: What have you got for me today?

Whether 100 days or 100 months or 100 years into his punishment, even Sisyphus may have gotten the message. The bloated ego can never be satisfied. The desperate quest of getting to the top of the hill never ends.

So let’s imagine our man has had an epiphany, a “mountaintop experience” on one of his trips up, or down. He realizes how foolish he had been, how evil, how duped by his own endless, self-defeating self-deceptions. And he takes a new attitude, maybe like a Navy Seal. Each day, making up the bed perfectly is a task worth doing. It’s a job in which you can take pride. It has a beginning and an end, each time. It doesn't have to lead to anything else to be worth your work. But it most often does, anyway.

But wait. What about rolling a rock? Let's get creative: Does Sisyphus do exactly the same thing every day? Well, on a superficial level, he pushes the rock up for the first time only once, and for the second time only once. He rolls it on Monday, then on Tuesday, and maybe from the front of the hill and perhaps then the side. He may angle it up like the stripe on an old Barbershop pole. It could be that he shoves it all the way with his arms once, then with his shoulder the next trip. He next uses his feet. Maybe he backs it up, inch by inch by foot by yard, or meter, depending on the metrics of Hades. He very likely becomes the best rock roller of all time. Those 10,000 hours are now ancient history. He's the Master. He can do it in so many different ways it’s mind-boggling. He zens out at some times, just feeling his breath and the feet in his shoes, and at other times he sings while he shoves, then maybe recites ancient poetry. He makes up stories. He prepares to sing again, or talk to the birds. You can even hear him at a distance saying, “I dedicate this roll to Hera, for putting up with Zeus.”

Maybe he rolls it because he has to, only until that magic moment when he rolls it because he wants to, and that’s a major change. Perhaps he begins to roll it as an object lesson for all the rest of us, as a cautionary tale on one level, and an inspirational story on another. You can imagine his thought, as he projects it out to us: "No matter how many times this stone rolls down, I’m on it. I’m pushing it back. I won’t be defeated. Ever. And neither should you. You’re as free as your attitude and your choice to persevere. And: So am I. We can push on, as often as it takes. And is it without meaning? Who says? I hereby give it meaning. Watch me."

So. Who is a hero? One who works for the good of others and never just his own narrow ends. A hero engages in arduous or dangerous activity for the sake of other people, for their good, for our benefit. And maybe after a life of the opposite as a king, old Sis finally got the message and changed his tune to do exactly this.

When I was talking to my wife about the rock and the roll, I said, “Can you imagine weeks and months into this business how amazingly fit and STRONG this guy would have become?” She said, “How about the pain?” Yeah, maybe he’d be sore, aching all over. But he’d have the chance to work through it, right? No pain, no gain. Maybe that's a part of it, too. So, yeah, he could have become a strange and powerful hero with the inner judo, the spiritual alchemy that we all often need.

For Make Your Bed: https://amzn.to/36rpE88

The McCraven video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBuIGBCF9jc

The Obstacle as the Way

The bestselling author Ryan Holiday recently interviewed me for his mega email newsletter and sent me gift copies of some of his books. Today I just finished his empowering short book, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. Ryan presents the essence of stoic philosophy for modern living. Every obstacle is an opportunity for something good. It's up to us to use that obstacle to find the way forward, learning and growing as a result.

We waste too much time on irritation, frustration, anger, despondency, and sadness when things go wrong. We're in a world where things often will go differently than we expected and hoped, but rather than this being something we should be mad about, it's something we should accept, explore, and use well. How? By developing a can-do attitude in the toughest of situations. There's always a way forward. There's something to be learned. There's growth to be had. Maybe there's a new path to your goal, or a new goal that will be even better.

On reading Ryan’s fun and useful book, I became aware at a deeper level that my book The Oasis Within, and the Egyptian novels to which that is a prologue, are a deeply stoic study in exactly how to implement the wisdom of the ages wherever we are, and whatever we face.

In this book, Ryan is a stoic cheerleader for any of us who feel burdened, or blocked, frustrated, or frantic. He will help you to calm down, focus on the right things, and take action that will matter. Do yourself a favor. If you don't already know the stoics, get this book (after reading my own on the topic - The Stoic Art of Living - Ha!). If you do, you'll still enjoy its breezy conversational cadences and reminders through lots of great stories of how we human beings can make things work for us well, even the toughest of things!

Find the book HERE.

Luck

Luck. The world is a kaleidoscope of constantly changing configurations. And I see a pattern within them. Those who develop some form of true goodness or excellence and persist in trying to do fine things are likely to get into a position where what's called good luck can meet and boost them. It can seem to happen to others, but that's appearance only. The corrupt, venal, and vicious have no truly good luck. In a sort of reverse alchemy, they taint anything they touch, and whatever may seem to come to them as a good most often ends up as a curse, not a blessing, until they themselves engage in inner change. But then, any curse evoking such a change ends up as a blessing, and perhaps the first of many that can now come.

The Most Surprising Way I Make People Mad

I post on controversial things across social media. I call out corruption, blast the worst forms of self dealing leadership, name and shame vicious behavior in all domains of human life, and dive into controversial issues with questions and distinctions and cautionary notes that many people don't want to hear. I don't intend to do it, but I sometimes make people mad. Some are merely irked. Others are enraged. How dare I? Well, I'm just following in the footsteps of Socrates. Yeah, and look what that brought him. I know. So I'm not utterly perplexed by this phenomenon.

But the thing that really does surprise me is that the posts of mine that seem to spark the most ire are often my recommendations of kindness. No, I'm not kidding: simple kindness. I often mention it here and on other social platforms, and in a very positive way. We should be kind. We need to bring more kindness into our work lives, our home lives, our politics, our simple daily interactions with others. And rather than everyone nodding and agreeing that we do need to be reminded of that now and then in our time, and maybe sending me a cute stuffed teddy bear for my efforts, I often see angry and offended people shoving these recommendations back in my face.

Kindness is a cheap perfume, they seem to say. Manners can mask monsters. Nice is syrupy and saccharine and utterly inauthentic. Some cynics will rail about Southern Hospitality and down-south friendliness as if it's always a case of some spider inviting a fly into her vast web of deception. Say WHAT?

There is plenty of counterfeit wisdom in the world, and faux virtue. There are false versions of nearly everything that's good and true and honorable. But should that for a second make us hesitant about what really matters? It's only an unkind view of the world and those of us in it that will automatically interpret a recommendation of kindness as a suggestion that people be duplicitous and false, when they're actually better off indulging the inner jerk and treating others awfully, or with disdain, or at least as if they don't matter at all. Here’s the real news: Not every appearance of goodness is a matter of hypocrisy and deception.

Kindness, by actual contrast, is the first level for applying the famous Golden Rule, treating others the way we'd want to be treated if we were in their place. And it's actually the first step in self care. It's only when we're kind to ourselves that we can improve ourselves in healthy and wise ways. I think that kindness is where morality and ethics all begin. It's a thing of the spirit, and is as powerful as it is simple.

I'm not the first to push kindness, and I hope I won't be the last. And if anyone reads this and you somehow feel your blood pressure rising, I would hope that you'll be kind to yourself and take a deep breath, and reconsider your irritation before you shoot me an authentically mean reply. As we say in the South, "Namastay!"

The Joy of Writing and Speaking

I love being a writer and speaker. When my wise friend Vinod Rangra read my book on Steve Jobs, Socrates in Silicon Valley, he told me that he drew from it an important lesson. He said something like: The problems that we confront and grapple with throughout our lives form us; the problems we choose to tackle along the way in part define us. Steve Jobs chose problems that were as big as his passions.

I remember thinking, "Wow." Vinod showed me something in the book I had not even been explicitly aware of. And he was right. That's a part of the joy of writing and speaking. I can put something out into the world to be pondered by wise people who may see a side of what I'm saying that I had never consciously recognized. It's almost like the quarterback who throws the ball downfield. A talented receiver has to catch it and often run with amazing moves of his own in order to get the touchdown that the quarterback alone could not have attained. And then Joe Montana, or whoever, celebrates it all, arms in air. And I can tell you that Joe isn't celebrating his nice pass, but what happened after the ball was out of his hands. I feel the same when the idea is out of my hands and some wise friend or reader or audience member takes it across the line to score a great insight or achievement as a result.

Of course, when you share thoughts with a smart friend, you can have the same sort of experience to enjoy. Wise partners help us understand the world better and more deeply. Write that note, share that thought, have that conversation, and you may end up celebrating a score you didn’t anticipate.

For the book, click here.

Courage and Cowardice in The House of Mirth

Wow. I just finished reading Edith Wharton's classic The House of Mirth. It follows a young woman, Lily Bart, through her energetic and often successful efforts to ensconce herself well within the most elevated echelons of high society in New York at around the turn of the previous century. The insights of the story about success, happiness, wealth, reputation, and status are deep and lasting. It's an incredible book. And, what an ending! But no spoilers here are to be feared. The main lesson I took away from it is how common and awful and damaging cowardice is in human life.

Many of us have times when we refrain from speaking up as needed, or doing the right thing, the hard thing, and the best thing, out of cowardice. But it's often terribly hard to admit that, and why? Again, cowardice. It's a quality that hides itself with itself. The word has such a demeaning negative connotation that no one wants to use it of themselves, even to themselves. But sometimes, the first spark of courage is the frank recognition of cowardice.

When I've been courageous, most often great things have ensued. When I've been ... the other thing ... events have not tended to go so propitiously. And that's just a way of saying that the fears ingredient in cowardice tend to be self defeating in their unintended consequences, a matter which is both ironic and noteworthy.

Cowardice is just the momentary state of being overcome by the feared consequences of an action that we believe to be right, or demanded of us. The problems with it go even beyond its self undermining tendencies. First, it typically depends on an overheated imagination, an inner mental vision of consequences that's often very wrong in its projections, either about what would happen if we did the brave thing, or about how we'd make it through those troubles that we envision as following from it.

Second, individual instances of cowardice, moments of failure in this regard, tend to create a habit of allowing its fear nature to hold us back. And with a strong enough habit, you have a disposition or an ongoing character trait that you don't want to have. No one seeks to be a coward.

The morally preferable alternative of courage isn't about doing dangerous things, or living on the edge. It's only about being able to do what's right, even when it's challenging or difficult, or when it may have some personally unpleasant consequences. Courage is guided by higher values. Cowardice is never the path to happiness or success. Courage often is. And that's a deep lesson in many works of illuminating fiction, including The House of Mirth.

Don Quixote and Our Job Daily

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.

How To Do Things With Words

I called my wife's cell phone and she answered "I'm at Rhodes Jewelry with Wayne Rhodes, negotiating …" (for all non-Wilmingtonians, it's a top high-end shop, and she was with the owner). I didn't know if I should respond like 90% of the men I know and say, "Uh, Oh," or simply, "Oh, No!" - or whether to go the way of wisdom represented by the shrewd 10% who know what they're doing and respond, "That's great, honey, really great! Say hi to him. I hope you have a wonderful time there!" Instead, I told her to tell him that, depending on how the negotiation worked out, I could just bring him my car as a trade and walk home.

"Uh, Oh," versus "That's great." Our words matter. And they send signals beyond their obvious content.

I've begun this post with a title that reflects the name of a famous little book in linguistic philosophy, by the British writer JL Austin, that was one of the classics of its time, many decades ago. Austin wanted to remind us that linguistic acts, or speech acts, can do more than one thing at the same time. And it's good to remember this in our fraught political time.

When my wife ways, "It's hot in here," I know not to just agree with her and perhaps lament the truth of what she says. I know to get up, walk into another room, and turn down the thermostat. When I say, "It's hot in here," she may simply remind me that I know where the thermostat is. Our reactions are different but both show we understand that more can be going on in such a statement than the mere declaration of fact or perceived fact itself. There is an implicit request or suggestion for an action or series of actions that underlies the saying.

Politicians and their words do that all the time. Journalists talk of "dog whistles" when a political figure by his choice of words or retweets means to be signalling someone of something that's best unsaid. But those same political figures are also most often seemingly unaware that their other words and statements in other contexts send multiple signals beyond their propositional or clear linguistic content. Austin and others have called this "conversational implicature" to distinguish it from logical implication. The lesson for us all is to be careful in what we say and how we say it, for many listeners may hear things we never intended, and before we know it, things are happening that we may or may not have invited with those words, and we're on the way to turn down the thermostat.

Yesterday, The Beatles, and Me

The Movie Yesterday and My Very Own Beatles Story. No. Really. Well, sort of. "Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to, Irish Green Fields ... [Sing along now]." So. I had a great relationship with the Notre Dame Marching Band. I had taught lots of its members Intro to Philosophy, where we had tons of fun. In fact, one semester, I was worried about the second exam in that huge class. Lots of students had done poorly on the first exam, and I knew they'd be nervous. I had to change the atmosphere. So, once the hordes had taken their seats in the large auditorium and we were ready to hand out the hundreds of exams, lots of doors suddenly banged open in the back, scores of young thinkers swiveled around to see what was going on, and the Notre Dame Marching Band came into the room, playing the famous fight song! The Freshmen jumped onto their chairs, yelling and clapping and singing along. The song ended in a thunderous ovation and the band left. It was shocked, happy pandemonium. And everyone scored higher on that exam. Everyone.

But that's not the story I want to tell. I had just written the first rock and roll fight song for a university, called The Fightin' Irish Are Back, to celebrate our new coach Lou Holtz turning the team around and returning it to its legendary greatness. I had talked to previous championship coaches like Ara Parseghian and Dan Divine to get the lyrics just right. Champion sportswear had decided to make up a special T Shirt to celebrate the song, with a big version of the mascot Leprechaun on the front, playing my sunburst 1964 Fender Stratocaster rock guitar with my initials on the headstock: TVM. The front of the shirt would say The Fightin' Irish Are Back. The back of the shirt would announce: Bringing Back the Rock and Roll. I would assemble a studio band and record it soon. An NBC Affiliate would do a music video. It was all planned out. But then that October I got a call from the famous Coach Holtz himself. He had heard about the song. He asked me to wait a year to release it. I asked why. He said, "This year, we'll have a winning season, but next year we'll win the national championship, so if you can hold it for a year, it can be our celebration song." I said, "I will if you will." And that was football history. National Champions: 1988.

But that's not the story I want to tell. I had written out the song and decided I wanted to start it with a guitar solo borrowing from the classic Notre Dame Fight Song. I'd call the Band department and get permission. They were my buddies. It would be no problem. So I told them my plan and that I probably needed written permission to use part of the famous tune they played all the time. "Boy, Professor Morris, your song sounds great! But we don't own the rights to our fight song."

What? "Who owns it?" The band guy said, "Paul McCartney." Whaaaaaaat?

He had bought it as an investment. So I had to talk with his lawyer in New York to get the permission I needed. A Beatle owns the rights to our fight song. Notre Dame has to pay him every time it's played in the stadium. Yep. SIr Paul's attorney turned out to be a nice guy. He said to me, "We'll give you seven bars of the song for free. But if you use one note beyond that, it will cost you more money than you can even imagine." I used exactly seven bars. I sang and played the guitar part and we had great musicians to fill out the band. When it was mixed in my absence, another musician had come into the studio and listened and said, "How the hell did you get Boz Scaggs to do a Notre Dame song?" Yeah, that was me. Boz Tom. And so we released the recording just in time for the championship season and the song was launched with the T shirts and Regis Philbin played it on his national morning show and danced to it, and whenever you went to a game you could hear it on the radio and on boomboxes around the stadium in lots of the tailgate parties.

And so, I know from first hand experience how utterly remarkable it was for Paul and Ringo to give permission to the new movie Yesterday to use SO MANY of their songs. MUCH more than seven bars. There's a reason you never hear Beatles songs in movie, soundtracks or on tv commercials. The rights are that dear, that controlled and pricey. But then, one movie comes along and does the impossible and uses song after song after song. Paul and Ringo loved the concept and made it happen. Relationships do rule the world. The seemingly impossible can happen. After all, the Beatles did. So if you see it or have seen the new film and agree with me that it's a remarkable movie, I wanted you to know how remarkable it really is that it got made at all. The gang who wrote and produced it had the luck of the Irish for sure. And, there's only one thing left to say.

Hey, Dude: Go Irish!

PS: Someone just posted on FaceBook a low tech digital conversion of the original tape, with its cover and liner notes pictured. Just so you guys will know that I'm not just making this up. Ha! So for The Fightin' Irish are Back, go here and turn on your speakers loud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnO3awjlFi4&fbclid=IwAR3VlLIUPNjqPeIM0ylICixMM5PB3wq243oD5QMoge81AWRMW0572CoW3II&app=desktop

Yesterday

My workout partner and his family treated me to a movie last night. When we got to the multiplex, I realized I was really tired from not enough sleep the night before. I was dragging. We showed our tickets and were told go to to Theater 3. There it was, down the hall. Here's how tired I was: When we got to the door, the sign above it said, "6:40. Yesterday." And I promise I actually thought: "Wait. We're a day late???"

So yeah. Yale PhD. Philosopher. Idiot.

The Movie Yesterday (now in both senses of the word) was amazingly good. It woke me up fast. And I was enthralled. Forget the 2.5 stars you may see. Go to it. Let yourself experience it. It's an incredible thought experiment on culture, ambition, morality, music, business, and life. It's vivid, well acted, and chock full of great tunes, as you might imagine. It's a love story, a buddy caper, a meditation on happiness and success and so much more. And don't worry, it's actually showing Today and Tomorrow at a theater near you.

Main Life Regrets

Main Life Regrets:‬ Buying too much stuff. Believing too many people. Being an idiot more than once. Often mistaking appearances for realities. Rationalizing. Confusing the easy way with the right way too many times. Saying yes to things deserving no and no to things deserving yes. Working too much. Not speaking up. That pair of bell-bottomed pants in 1970. Not bringing my own inner calm and joy to enough situations needing it. Thinking I looked dapper in a bow tie in 1990. Second and third servings.‬ Believing for even a minute that it's possible to live well with no regrets whatsoever. Thinking I could convince any other person to avoid completely any one of these things.

We can redeem our mistakes by learning from them. My philosophical conclusion is that it’s not just Ok but good to have regrets, as long as you don’t have them in a way and with an emotional intensity that you’ll … regret.

If you think a friend would benefit from my own little blush of honesty here on this issue, please pass this on to spark him or her. It’s never too late to adjust course and learn. Those who are wise do now what those who are otherwise never think to do.

My Father's Advice

My father was a country boy who didn't act or sound like one, and a high school graduate who read all the time. The few books he owned were mostly by philosophers. He led me to believe that there’s more to life than meets the eye, and that we cal all know more and do more than we think. He gave me some great advice about life that has helped me every step of the way. Here's a small sample.

Do a job as long as you love it and you think you have something distinctive to contribute. If either of those things changes, you need to make a change.

Life is supposed to be a series of adventures. Each one is preparing you for the next one in ways you sometimes can't even imagine. Be open for what's coming.

When you learn how to relax your body, you'll learn how to relax your mind.

Never forget the small joys of childhood. Never outgrow your eagerness to play. Try to have a little fun every day.

The Power of your mind is greater than you know. Learn how to use it. Quiet your racing thoughts. Turn down the volume. Then, the deeper areas of your mind can percolate upward and tell you what you need to hear.

Nature can be our best classroom. We can learn from its ways. But to do that well, we have to get outside and pay attention to what we see in the smallest natural things. And we have to remember that nature is not just around us, but also in us, too.

Take your time. Patience in your work allows your art, whatever it is, to grow and reach its capacity for beauty and usefulness.

Go fly a kite. Skip a stone across some water. Use a Yo-Yo. Try target practice with a sling shot. Build something just for fun. Your childhood is still inside you and needs a little care and attention now and then.

You never have to ask "What do I want to do for the rest of my life?" You just have to ask "What do I want to do next?" The rest of your life will take care of itself.

Read good books. Life is too short to read bad books, and too important and challenging not to read books at all. Invest in yourself. Read good books.

In the Face of Indifference: Thrive.

Do you remember the comedian Rodney Dangerfield? “I don’t get no respect” was his slogan, and it was a signal that he was about to tell us a very funny story in a sentence or two about his latest humiliation in the ongoing history of his ill treatment by the world. Hootie and the Blowfish may have been the rock version of Rodney. An executive at their own record company called their hit album that sold millions of copies and shot them into fame and fortune, “unreleasable.” Coming between grunge and the biggest wave of rap, critics panned them as uncool and worse.

Let me quote today's New York Times:

<<Even in the years before Hootie, an earnest and deceptively easygoing roots-rock band, became a global pop phenomenon, there were indignities. The South by Southwest festival turned them down, year after year. Record labels sent stiff rejection letters.>>

And now the sentence I love:

<<Still, Hootie persevered, thriving in the face of indifference.>>

There’s our sermon for today, brothers and sisters. There’s our slogan. You feel like Rodney and Hootie? You don’t get no respect? Persevere. Thrive in the face of indifference. The world ignores you? Persevere and thrive. You’re viewed as so very uncool? P&T. You’re different, you don’t fit in? You're trying something new? You're going against the grain? As my friend David Rendall says in his fun book The Freak Factor and now proclaims from stages around the world, what makes you weird may just make you wonderful, whether everybody else recognizes that or not. As one of the band says, “We didn’t wear the right clothes, we didn’t have the right look, we didn’t portray the right thing. And when you do that, you’re just going to get dogged.” Then he adds the magic: “We didn’t sell out. We were true to ourselves, you know?”

They had some hits and were big for a while and got plenty of criticism and then the world moved on. They pretty much disappeared. And now they’re back. And the New York Times is celebrating them with a huge article and proclaiming them always to have been very underrated. I think that’s right. And, as a philosopher, I’m sure that their distinctive inner attitude is underrated. Be yourself. Persevere. And in the face of indifference, yeah, that's right: Thrive.

For the article, click HERE.

Small and Great

Small is Beautiful: One of the most important insights any of us can have is that it's possible to live a truly heroic life on a small scale utterly outside the glaring, blaring global media complex, and to do lasting good for many of our fellow human beings, not in massive numbers and all at once, but over time, one by one.

There can be a special purity, a nobility, a distinct glory in the life of the small fish in the small pond who brightens up the prospects of each day and shows those in his or her proximity the wonder of greatness that can be and can thrive amid the ordinary run of things. This is where the real magic is.

One of my favorite characters in George Eliot’s deep and engaging novel Middlemarch begins the story full of promise, lives through various disappointments to her dreams, rises above the slings and arrows of her changing fortune, and finally, in the end, living in outwardly diminished circumstances, does her own form of wonderful good for her fellows in small and constant ways and clearly becomes the ultimate hero of the story. Eliot writes:

<<Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.>>

For Eliot’s magnificent novel, click HERE. Then, go do your own good in small and lasting ways on this precious day we’ve all been given.

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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The Three Musketeers

Wonderful! Amazing! Incredible! Why did I not read this book DECADES ago?

I just finished a first reading of Alexander Dumas' great book The Three Musketeers. And as I read the last word on page 700, I was like the early young Harry Potter readers who wished the book could be twice as long! Friendship. Honor. Courage. Intrigue. The Unknown. Strategy. Unsheathe your swords, my friends! All for One and One for All!

In this story of nonstop action and insights into human nature, you'll be astonished at how well political machinations and tactical deceptions are portrayed. As a reader, you'll come away armed in a new way against the devious schemes of others. In fact, toward the end of the book, we find almost a novel within the novel depicting what may be the greatest villain I've ever come across, and this embodiment of evil is a woman with every physical and spiritual advantage apart from goodness. What burns within her soul makes her powerful beyond anyone's expectation. And you come to wonder whether she can ever be defeated.

The greatest wisdom of the book is in the story's many insights about dealing with Machiavellian characters. How do you protect yourself? How do you prevail? First, with friends, partners, confidants you can trust. And second, well, read the book to find out. I think of it as vastly superior to the thin swill too often published nowadays on navigating the difficulties of a sometimes harsh corporate culture.

Throughout the book there are nuggets of insight to spark your own thinking. I'll append a few below. My pagination is from the Barnes and Noble Classics Edition.

Of one thing I must warn you. Be careful in your comments, here, friends, for one untoward word or careless gesture may require the response demanded by the honor of a gentleman. En Guarde!

For the book, click HERE.

Some sample passages:

Obstacles

A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to overthrow a great design. (20)

Fragility

 “I was just reflecting on the rapidity with which the blessings of this world leave us.” (337)

Difficulty

“That is rather difficult, but the merit of all things consists in the difficulty.” (338)

“Eh, gentlemen, let us recon upon accidents! Life is a chapelet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink.” (526)

Fortune

“Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back tomorrow.” (410)

Opportunity

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured, the more we gain, when we know how to wait.” (465)

 Philosophers

“But then, philosopher that you are,” said D’Artagnan, “instruct me, support me. I stand in need of being taught and consoled.” (325)

Advice

“People in general,” he said, “only ask advice not to follow it; or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given it.” (387)

Grandiose Ambition

“I am at the age of extravagant hope, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan. “There are no extravagant hopes but for fools, monsieur, and you are a man of understanding.” (441)

On Too Many Public Speakers

He not only talked much, but he talked loudly, little caring, we must render him that justice, whether anybody listened to him or not. He talked for the pleasure of talking and for the pleasure of hearing himself talk. (91)

Wisdom and Energy

Toward the end of Thomas Hardy’s wild and wonderful story, The Mayor of Casterbridge, the title character reflects on what he’s come to think of as a trick the gods play on us: When we’re old enough to have the wisdom to do great things, we no longer have the energy it takes to do them. And thus the big things we need most rarely get accomplished by us.

We can call this phenomenon the principle of “Wisdom-Energy Age Reversal,” or WEAR.

In our youth, we’re full of energy, or what Hardy refers to as “zest,” but we have very little worldly wisdom to guide our abundant capacity to act. Then, by the time that many decades of experience may have schooled us well in the ways of wisdom, we lack our early measure of energy to achieve the things we have come to see would be great. This is why so many of the big things that do get accomplished in the world seem to lack an appropriate measure of wisdom, and why the old and wise among us are much more apt just to critique and complain than to actually rectify the many wrongs around us. It's a principle that indirectly counsels us to enter into partnerships and collaborations that span the spectrum of age.

I love Hardy’s books, largely for his characters and his masterful storytelling. But he’s often thought of as a pessimist, and this principle on wisdom and age can explain at least a portion of that worldview. Given the fact that he wrote a century and a half ago, I’d say that this part of his philosophy at least might be said to WEAR well, on into our day.

For a truly enchanting story that displays the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as food for thought and that shows, among many other things, how secrets and lies never provide a sound path in life, read this delightful book.

To find it, click HERE.

The Wrong Road to Success

A Sentimental Education.

Decently smart people can do indecently stupid things. An intelligent and attractive young man from a country town near Paris moves to the city to find wealth, fame, and love. But it never seems to occur to him that he might have to do or be something of merit in order to deserve any of these things.

Frederic Moreau becomes a clever manipulator of others to further his own aims, and demonstrates what a life is like with no inner core or reliable sense of what’s right. He’s fickle, undependable, and greedy. He falls in love with a married woman more than once and finds himself living parallel secret lives with his various lady friends, all in his efforts to advance his own interests in fortune and status. Revolutionary events begin to swirl around him and it’s never certain who can be trusted. Ambition drives everyone else in his circles as much as it does him. Lust and despair alternate in his life, causing giddiness one minute, and grim hopelessness the next. When he does come into money, he wastes it on showy extravagances to impress those around him as he seeks to heal an inner need that can never be satisfied in such a way.

At the end of the story, he sits with his one remaining friend, the companion of his youth who had become a lawyer in order to prevail in politics, and they reflect on their lives.

<<They'd both been failures, the one who'd dreamed of Love and the one who'd dreamed of Power. How had it come about?

"Perhaps it was lack of perseverance?" said Frederic.

"For you maybe. For me, it was the other way round, I was too rigid, I didn't take into account a hundred and one smaller things that are more crucial than all the rest. I was too logical and you were too sentimental."

Then they blamed it on their bad luck, the circumstances, the times in which they'd been born.>> (462)

Frederic never came to realize the inner man he had neglected to his own great detriment. He never understood the role of character or true commitment in life or love. And in that blind spot, he prefigures many in our own time.

The Ambiguities of Language

I was googling something about top public speakers today, focusing on various popular keynote speakers (my competition), and came across a Google question on my screen that gave me pause:

<<What are the best small speakers?>>

I thought, "Really? That's a thing?" I had instant visions of little people on stages all over America. I remembered one five year old boy in the news years ago who was a fiery gospel preacher.

Then I suddenly realized I had transitioned into the audio/stereo section of Google Results. Oh, Ok. Speakers. Yeah, I see. Klipsch. JBL. Sony.

And of course, this happens all the time in business and life. We hear something different from what was intended and then we keep running down that path without checking to make sure we heard it right or interpreted it as it was intended. Natural languages are useful tools, and are among the most useful we have. But we have to be aware of how we're using our words, and of how others might be using theirs. Context can be misleading. Perhaps even the smallest of speakers would urge caution as another useful tool.