Hearing No: Some Advice that Sticks.

This past weekend, I came across the story of Vera Stout. She was working at an ammunition factory during the second world war - not the safest of jobs - while her two sons were serving in the Navy. One day, she had an idea about how ammo boxes could be sealed with a cloth based tape that would allow them to be opened more quickly, ripped right off, and maybe that would save time and lives for troops under fire.

She took the idea to her bosses. They said no.

That happens a thousand times a day, or maybe an hour, around the world. Someone has a new idea about how to improve things, or a conception for a new product or business, and the gate keepers say no. The boss, the manager, the supervisor, the agent, isn't impressed. It won't work. No thanks. Sorry.

Too many people then just meekly give up. Vera wasn't the sort, so she wrote a letter to the president, not of her company, but of the United States, telling him about her idea. And within weeks, she got a letter from the Navy thanking her and saying that her invention would be rolled out right away. And many claim that it did save lives. Plus, what would the rest of us do without her creation - duct tape?

When you hear no, it's often more about the person rejecting your idea than the idea itself. Sometimes, the best thing to do is stick to your dream like the sturdiest duct tape.

The Breathtaking Joy of Existence

Check out Albert Einstein musing on the faith of his birth and how he expands out from it:

Judaism appears to me to be almost exclusively concerned with the moral attitude in and toward life. […] The essence of the Jewish concept of life seems to me to be the affirmation of life for all creatures. […} There remains, however, something more in the Jewish tradition, so gloriously revealed in certain of the psalms; namely a kind of drunken joy and surprise at the beauty and incomprehensible sublimity of this world, of which man can attain but a faint intimation. It is the feeling from which genuine research draws its intellectual strength, but which also seems to manifest itself in the song of birds…

That one clause made me smile: "a kind of drunken joy and surprise at the beauty and incomprehensible sublimity of this world, of which man can attain but a faint intimation."

Here's what's both humbling and exciting to ponder: We can sometimes have a huge, intense, soul enlarging experience of that beauty and incomprehensible sublimity, a mystical realization coming to us unheralded, and stopping us in our tracks. I recently wrote on one such experience I had during a daily walk, some weeks ago (click here). And sometimes, like Saul, on the road to Damascus, it's a life changing experience that reorients everything for us, opening us up anew and turning us onto a path we hadn't really seen before.

Just like the Psalmist, we can feel that "drunken joy and surprise at the beauty and incomprehensible sublimity of the world." And yet, however great and overwhelming the experience might be, Albert E considers it merely "a faint intimation" of the true reality that encompasses us. Just think about that, and its implications.

Wouldn't it be great to carry with us every day that sense that we're living and working amid immensities whose grandeur and scope are so great that our highest mystical experiences capture only a glancing glimpse of the hem of its garment? Then, perhaps, we'd really have a new moral attitude, and an affirmation of all life that would make us lights in the darkness that so sadly seems to engulf many in our time.

Truth is a wildly blazing sun. Carry with you at least a small candle in its honor. Cast light in the darkness wherever you go.

Fame and True Success

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote long ago about fame. He said, "Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: It is an accident, not a property of man."

Fast forward to now, when fame bears almost no relation to merit. You can be an instant celebrity online with no more than a knack for getting people's attention. What's the relationship, really, between widespread attention and what we know, deep down, to be success?

True success resides, first and foremost, in who we are, not in what other people say about us, or even in whether they know we exist. The deepest form of success is always a result of three things: (1) Discovering our talents, (2)  Developing those talents, and (3) Deploying them into the world for the good of others as well as ourselves. I call this “The 3-D Approach to Life.” It's first about being, second about doing and becoming, and only third about getting or having.

We live in a culture obsessed with fame. It's the famous who get our attention and too often fuel our imaginations. But back in the nineteenth century, Tom Carlyle saw more deeply. Fame may or may not signal real accomplishment of substance, and even when it does, it does so accidently.  A person’s real properties, the accomplishments they truly own in virtue of who they are and what they’ve done, are always distinct from any recognition they’ve received. 

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with fame, however heavily it may weigh on many shoulders. Like most things, it can be a resource or an obstacle. But it should never be pursued in absence of worthier aims that are more intrinsically within our control. In fact, the world is full of good things done to no acclaim whatsoever. And they are often the things that make the most difference. 

Today, think about doing something good anonymously, with no thought about how it makes you look, and however small it might be. There, as Carlyle might say, is where you'll find true merit, and a small piece of true success.

Are You Wise, or Otherwise?

Questioner: Are you a wise man?

Answerer: I'm only a few short steps down the path, and it's a very long road.

Questioner: You respond in the best way.

Answerer: And you.

Making Your Difference

The spiritual writer Thomas á Kempis once wrote, "At the day of Judgement, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done."

Reading can certainly be one of the greatest roads to life wisdom. When we read the distilled thoughts and reactions of other fellow travelers on the human journey, we broaden our own perspectives about life. Reading calls on the imagination. And it can be done at our own pace. It is a unique and powerful form of discovery. 

But traveling any road requires action. A book or magazine, a newspaper or website or email, is, at best, a tool to be used for better living. In an age when the pace of life seems to crowd out those quiet stretches of time required for extended reading, we all need to be reminded of its importance.  But Kempis reminds us even more powerfully that our reading should affect how we live. Our ultimate calling is to make a difference in our world. Today. And tomorrow.

Make sure you're doing your best to make your difference, day to day.

What Few Understand About Wisdom

Through the millennia comes a recommendation:

"Make wisdom your provision for the journey from youth to old age, for it is a more certain support than all other possessions."

That's a quote from the ancient philosopher, Bias of Priene. But maybe he was just biased, you could be thinking, if you're cleverer than it's good to be. No, he was simply right.

And many people these days don't quite get the importance of wisdom because they misunderstand what it is. It isn't the memorization and mental retention of catchy aphorisms or epigrams. The wisest among us isn't the person who can come up with the most quotes, like that one above from Bias of Priene. Wisdom isn't the same thing as recitation. A bird can be taught to recite quotes. It isn't even a matter of theoretical knowledge at all, as if there's a certain number of insights about life, a discrete number of wisdom facts, and to have wisdom is just to have learned them all.

And, most of all, wisdom isn't the ability to think and say obscure sounding things that can be interpreted by others as profound. What then, is it?

Wisdom is a skill set involving perceptive discernment, healthy emotion, and appropriate action.

It took me a while to come up with that, which is probably the wisest thing I've ever said about wisdom.

That's why it's impossible to come across a wise man or woman who always acts like a fool. If a person is foolish, then, to that extent, he or she isn't wise. But again, it isn't an all or nothing matter. It's not like the proverbial light switch, either on or off. It's more like a spectrum. You can grow wiser. When we call someone wise, we don't mean to imply perfection, only a preponderance of insight and appropriateness in judgment, emotion, and action.

The fact that wisdom is a skill set is good news. Any skill can be cultivated. Some people seem to be born with an innate endowment toward such skilled behavior, but hard work and practice can bridge the gap. And it's important for us all to cultivate this skill set throughout our days, because a fully good and happy life is impossible without it.

Wisdom, then, is not to be found just in words, but in lived insight. The words that best convey those insights are merely markers pointing to the skills we all need to acquire through their help. The sayings of the wise are our breadcrumbs along the path of full living.

Shocking News About Wisdom

There's some important news to share. I've blogged recently about wisdom. And, because of something that's pretty astonishing in recent science news, I wanted to highlight an important side of it today, or maybe a way of getting more of it into our lives.

Wisdom doesn't just come from sitting and thinking. And that's a good thing, because few people seem to want to do that now. Even the fact that you're quietly reading this blog post makes you a pretty remarkable person. In fact, the prestigious journal Science recently reported an experiment where people were given the choice to either sit quietly and ponder their lives, or else administer electric shocks to themselves, and a surprising (I should say shocking) 64% of men and 15% of women chose the voltage. Pain over pondering. Sit and ponder that for a moment. And, please, especially if you're a guy, fight off any urges to go stick your finger in a socket instead.

I'm not kidding. This is a problem. But, fortunately, to gain wisdom, you don't have to turn off the phone, put down the pad, and just sit alone and meditate on your life.

Wisdom is embodied insight about living, a form of deep, practical knowledge that will guide our paths in good times and bad. If we keep our eyes wide open, if we truly pay attention, and ponder a bit what comes our way, as we're out and about in the world, we can accumulate a bit of wisdom almost every day.  And especially on those days when we share a thought, a musing, a perplexity, or a question of wonderment with a friend. And here's the good news.

We often have our deepest insights in conversation with others. That's the way we're made. We're intended to share this journey of life together with fellow travelers. We're meant to learn from each other and with each other. So make it a point today or tomorrow to ask someone a question about something that really matters to you. Listen carefully to the answer. And then share your own thoughts. You may find yourself with a new insight, a new angle on an old insight, a bit of wisdom that will light your path, a possession of the heart that costs nothing and yet may pay great dividends for the future. 

Any day that you've accumulated a new piece of wisdom is a successful day, the most certain support there can be for a truly successful life.

In Praise of Hard Work. No. Really.

Ok. First of all, I have absolutely nothing against having a new idea go viral overnight and waking up to discover I have a new reality TV show, 5 million Twitter followers, a private jet, and a seven figure endorsement deal from the Library Association. That would be my definition of sweet (as defined also in dictionaries available nationwide in your local public library - I'd get 10K just for adding that little factoid. But I digress). Instant success has its charms. But, there is a nubby weave behind the smooth tapestry of most outsized success. And that, right now, is my concern.

Let me read to you from the actual paper version of today's New York Times Book Review. Turning through it, I came across a page entitled "Devilish Audacity" where John Simon reviews a new biography of Sir Lawrence Olivier (Olivier, by Philip Ziegler), who was said by many to be the greatest actor of his time (in addition to "the most dashing of actors" and "the most seductive of human beings" - among many other superlatives). Simon helpfully summarizes an important point in the new book about Olivier:

He was a tireless worker: It took him two years to learn how to move onstage, and another two, how to laugh.

That got my attention, and I would have laughed aloud, aside from the realization that I may not have worked hard enough as of yet on that particular vocal and facial expression of astonished surprise. Then, this:

On stage and on screen, he could give an impression of openness, brilliance, lightness, and speed. In fact, he was the opposite. His great strength was that of the ox. He always reminded me of a countryman, of a ... peasant taking his time .... Once a conception had taken root in him, no power could change the direction in which the ox would pull the cart.

Impressive. And suggestive. Behind many forms of flashy, flamboyant success, there is a lot of dogged, ox-like, hard work. Two years to learn to move on stage? Two years to learn to laugh? Yes. And as we go out onto our own dramatic stages, at work, or at home, or in the community, we should not allow ourselves to forget the hard work that alone will lift any performance to a distinctive level of power. In an age that celebrates the fruits of work without equally honoring or encouraging the work itself that typically makes those delights possible, we need to remind ourselves that the greatest never get that way without a lot of hard, hard work.

But if you love what you're doing, you can enjoy even the greatest efforts. The hard work itself can be a suitable and satisfying outlet for your energy. And - who knows? You can't really rule out that reality TV show.

Worth Dying For? Worth Living For.

Socrates was given a choice: Stop talking philosophy with people, or die. He chose the surprising option. He said, "As long as I live and breathe, I will never stop philosophizing."

Wait. What?

In a broad survey of people today, and given two choices, you would probably find most checking the box that said, "As long as I live and breathe, I will never start philosophizing." How could so many have lost sight of something that, in the opinion of one great and wise person, is worth dying for?

Well, what is philosophy, anyway? The word's etymology, from Greek, simply means, "Love of Wisdom." Philo - Love of; Sophia - Wisdom. And wisdom, in the last analysis, is just insight for living, the deep understanding that alone can guide us well through the adventure we're on.

Think about it for a second. An object of love: When you lack it, you pursue it. When you have it, you embrace it. Philosophy is just the pursuit and embracing of wisdom - insight for life.

How important is it? The book of Proverbs claims its worth is beyond that of gold and jewels. Socrates himself said that the unexamined life - the life without wisdom - is not worth living.

How then do you pursue wisdom? How do you embrace it?

Socrates believed that every day we're given the choice - to philosophize, or to die. If we make the wrong choice, if we're not growing in wisdom, we're not really living, we're just fading away, however active and full our lives may seem. Appearances, as he also taught us, aren't always the best guides to reality.

Choose well, then. Choose philosophy. Pick the life worth living.

Novel Insights: Part Two - The Life of Pi

One more day of insights from the novel, The Life of Pi, before I either donate my copy to the local library or find a more permanent place for it on a shelf here. I'm glad I looked at it before dropping it into a donation box! It's been nice to see my markings and annotations throughout. Let me share just a few more insights from it today.

Pi Patel, as you may know, the narrator, was going through a harrowing experience. He writes:

I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said, "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into a routine. The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary ..."

Too often, the voice in our heads give us worries, problems, and obstacles. It's unsure. It's highly anxious. It doubts. But the voice of the heart can be another thing, altogether. The heart is the most ancient metaphor for the inner core we all have, where perception, reason, intuition, and resilience reside. Listen to your heart, and you will often get just the message you need to turn the rare miracle into routine, and see the amazing every day. 

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease.

Pi then goes on to describe how often fear begins with a small doubt in the mind, which grows into great anxiety in the emotions, and then moves farther into the body, gripping us in all ways. Reason itself is no match for it. He says:

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

What can we do? He doesn't say much, only characterizing fear as, in the end, a wordless darkness, and giving us this advice:

You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it.

Pop psychologists talk a lot about the power of positive self-talk. It's easy to dismiss this as simplistic hokum. But the deeper we go, the more we understand the power of words, well used, to counter the irrational. Speak to yourself in the quiet of your mind in positive ways, and you can dispel the fog of fear. It's not easy. But it can work.

The book is full of other insights, but these are probably enough for our purposes.

Why do we read? For entertainment, certainly, but also for wisdom. I'm always deeply gratified to find real wisdom in an entertaining book. It's rare enough. But when it comes, we can delight, and we can learn.

Hope and Action

I've often been asked what I think the single most important quality is for success in life. Sometimes, I'm posed with the question of what is the distinguishing feature of highly successful people. And, in both cases, it comes to the same thing. To express it, let me quote a passage from the novel, The Life of Pi, page 168.

I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.

There was much I had to do.

The worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. That is one of the most common mistakes in our time. We hope that a ship will come and rescue us - or a talent scout, an agent, a producer, a business builder, a venture capitalist, a friend with contacts. And in the meantime, we do too little.

There are many qualities involved in success, and several characteristics shared by highly successful people. But if I was forced to pick just one, it would be the tendency or proclivity toward action - an action orientation to life and work: taking the risk, trying that one thing, talking to that other person, putting in the extra hours.

Of course, we've all heard about the importance of working smart and not just hard. But what do they both have in common? Working. Action.

And it's especially important, as Pi shows us, when you've got a tiger by the tail.

What action can you take today, to move closer to your goal?

Ideals and Obstacles

Kindness. Mercy. Encouragement. Generosity of spirit. These are all moral ideals that I've written on recently. But there's an interesting thing about ideals. We never embody them perfectly. They may be perfect. But we're not. We fall short.

The value of ideals in our lives is in how we use them. They should be inspirational and aspirational - they should remind us, encourage us in the right direction, and often correct us.

The proper response to an ideal is to remember it and seek to live it. But we all encounter obstacles to the perfect embodiment of any ideal. We have our own psychological quirks and wounds, and some are buried deep beneath our conscious awareness. We have drives, and ticks, and sensitivities, and felt needs that can make it difficult to satisfy the strict guidance of our highest values. Something you went through in your childhood, or much more recently, could make it difficult for you, in some situations, to act in accordance with the golden rule, or your own best aspirations, in your treatment of another person, in action, gesture, or tone. 

Does that make you a hypocrite, for not always living what you might espouse? No, it just shows that you're a normal, fallible human.

Some people get all tied up in self-recriminations and guilt because of this problem. And those things then can become further obstacles.

How then should we respond to our own failures?

The first and most fundamental applications of kindness, mercy, encouragement, and generosity of spirit are always to yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be corrective and yet merciful toward your own failings. Encourage yourself along the path laid out by your ideals. And be generous to yourself as you seek and struggle and stumble along the road of improvement. Accord your own spirit the high value that you want and need to accord to others. That will create the conditions within you by which you can, increasingly, be these things to others, in even the most difficult of circumstances.

Love yourself properly, and you can then love others properly.

That's the real ideal.

The Philosophical Selfie

In our Age of Selfies, the most important kind, not to be overlooked, is the philosophical selfie.

Inscribed in marble at the holiest spot in ancient Greece, the Oracle at Delphi, was the advice: Know Thyself. It's probably the most famous piece of advice ever given, it could be the shortest, and it might even be the hardest. But it's the central key to living well in the world, and becoming the people we're capable of being. It's hard to get where we need to go if we don't know where we are now. And self-knowledge is the starting point for any GPS of the Soul.

Consider your soul, the deep you. Pick one of the options in each of these questions, and say why:

Are you solid, liquid, or gas?

Are you animal, vegetable, or mineral?

Are you straight-lined or curved?

Are you still or moving?

Are you music, painting, sculpture, or lit?

Are you mountains or sea?

Are you heart or mind?

Are you a stormy day, a gentle rain, or a sunny blue sky?

Are you summer, fall, winter, or spring?

Are you forever young, or mature beyond your years?

I've given you these questions, silly on the surface, but deeper as you probe them, almost as an act of stream-of-consciousness on my own part. I could have come up with others. You can, too. But these will do to make my point.

Self-knowledge doesn't just grow like grass, or hair. It's not a naturally occurring phenomenon, or we wouldn't have to be encouraged to make it happen. It requires reflection, examination, contemplation, and that can all take forms that are both serious and silly - as long as you're genuinely trying to dig a bit deeper in your own self-awareness.

You may come up with your own questions, or you can play with these. What do they tell you about you? Any serious answers you arrive at can help with your journey now, and next.

Knowing yourself may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it could be the most productive.

So, take that selfie now.

How We Treat Others

How we treat others is really, in the end, how we treat ourselves. Our outer conduct always has inner results.

In a great little passage from Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, the Prince addresses his colleague Polonius about some theatrical players who are visiting, and we get this exchange.

Hamlet: Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Polonius: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet: God's bodkin, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Notice the evolution of the reasoning Hamlet uses with his friend. At first, he asks Polonius to "use" or treat the players well, and appeals to his self-interest in a fairly superficial way, pointing out that these are people whose job is, in part, to broadcast news and gossip far and wide, and that they'll certainly tell tales of Polonius, depending on how he treats them. If he treats them well, he will be well spoken of everywhere they go, and if the opposite, then his reputation will surely suffer. But Polonius objects, on what look at first to be moral grounds. He won't treat them well just because he'd benefit from that - he'll hold to higher ground and treat them the way they deserve to be treated. Duty, from this point of view, is always related to desert.

Hamlet feigns shock at that declaration, and jokingly points out that, on this principle, any of us would be lucky to escape a public whipping. He then suggests that the better course is not to treat others in accordance with their character or merits, but rather in accordance with our own honor and dignity.

The high path of moral action is to act well toward others because of who we are, not just in response to who they are.

Our actions should express our higher nature, and there are four distinct benefits from that.

First, by acting out of honor and dignity and treating others well, we set a high moral tone of kind action, rather than just responding to others in kind. We are moral leaders, rather than just reactive puppets who allow our own conduct to be dictated by others.

Second, by acting well, we reinforce our own ideals and higher tendencies. Whenever we act, we never just do, we always become. Third, kindness, generosity, and mercy do, in fact, more often than not, generate the good report of others, and this reputation indeed will serve us well in the hearts and minds of other good people.

And, fourth, we should be reminded of the words once spoken by Goethe, when he said:

Treat others as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they're capable of being.

By treating others well, we make gains, however small, in surrounding ourselves with the sort of people who are good company and good partners in making great things happen.

When we do well, things tend to go well in many ways.

What is Bling?

Is bling a crude, tawdry exhibition, an aggressive socio-economic and cultural statement, or merely a simple and joyous celebration? Is it ironic? Or aspirational? Is it innocent? Or hostile? Is it playful? Or serious? Immature? Or artistic? Obnoxious? Or Fun?

Is it spiking the ball in the end zone, or could it be singing because you're happy?

How, exactly, is it related to glamour? Where is it situated within the realm of the aesthetic?

Is it a neighborhood within the province of luxury? Or is it on another part of the map?

Is it inherently visual, or could even the blind enjoy some bling?

I've blogged recently about the broad concept of luxury, a couple of times. And it suddenly occurred to me that I should ponder the contemporary phenomenon of bling.

Why not?

So I began today's post with the philosophical question, or set of questions. What exactly is it? Is there one answer? And here's a follow up question: Is it bad, or is it good?

And if it's bad, then how bad? But if, by contrast, it's good - how good?

Can it be either? And if so, depending on what?

What do you think?

And if you're the rare individual who has to go to Bing and type in Bling, then maybe this is just not ... your Thing.

In case you'd like more than questions today, maybe I should venture my own answers to what's already been asked. I'd say, "Yes" to almost all the queries that allow for such an answer, however apparently opposite, and to the options within the questions, and simply explain that it all depends on the individual, the intention, and the context. But then again, that's true of lots more, as well.

This is an interpretive guide to many expressions, actions, and displays: Consider, if you can, the individual, the intention, and the context. That's usually all it takes. The intention is always the toughest to know, and sometimes, even in your own case.

What's your bling? How would you define it for yourself?

My bling is a bright yellow watch on a matching yellow band that I wear to the gym most days. When people say, and it happens often, "Whoa! I like that watch!" I enjoy responding, "Thanks! Four dollars and ninety five cents," and relish seeing the reaction.

It's just my own little transmuted bling with a bang.

What Story Do You Tell?

One of the most important things about us is the story we tell ourselves, the overarching narrative within which we embed our daily actions. What story are you telling yourself? Is it helping or hurting you?

We love movies, and great television shows, and amazing novels so much because we each live a story, our own story, and these are media where stories are told. We viscerally understand other people's stories because of our own. That's why nothing touches us like a story.

Hollywood producer Peter Gruber wrote a book a few years back called Tell to Win. In it, he recounts that every business meeting he ever went into armed with facts and statistics was a failure, and he never got what he wanted, while, by stark contrast, every meeting he went into and told a great story was a stunning success, sometimes far beyond what he could have imagined. Stories have power.

The story we tell ourselves about our own lives has great power for good, or for ill. Do you empower and embolden and encourage yourself by the story you tell yourself in the quiet of your own mind, as well as in your words to other people? Or do you weaken your own prospects by a narrative that isn't right? Have you let other people or circumstances hijack your story? No one can know you as well as you can, if you're completely honest with yourself and relentlessly strip away the little self-deceptions that can so easily creep into any life. No one else is in a position to write your story for you - not in this world. So, make sure that you're the one who tells your story, and tells it powerfully, to open up the vast possibilities of the future that lie in wait for your particular talents, experiences, and sensibilities.

There is no other you. And there is no other story exactly like yours. Be sure that your story is worthy of you, at your best and your finest. Then, you can become what you're meant to be.

When a Sip of Wine is Much More.

Oh! The unexpected depths! The intense aromas! The rich bottomless structure, and yet ethereal smoothness! The mouth feel! The surprise of its all-enveloping engagement of the senses! And: The perfect match for a small burger. Or two.

I opened a bottle of wine this past weekend that practically jumped out of the glass. Or maybe what happened is that it almost pulled me into the glass. We had a mystical experience together, in any case, the two of us - and that's for sure.

I was just cooking hamburgers and wanted something good to go with them. I had no idea.

I really didn't know anything about the Schrader 2006 Beckstoffer To Kalon Vinyard pictured above, except that I'd had it squirreled away for a long time, and basically forgotten about it, but when I happened to come across it, I sort of vaguely remembered having really enjoyed another of their bottles years ago. So I picked it up, carried it into the kitchen, and popped it while the bacon was still sizzling in the old black, cast iron skillet, prepping the surface for the burgers.

Oh, man.

Have you ever had a well-made Napa Cab that you almost didn't have to drink? The nose enough was sufficient to engage you down to your soul, not to mention your toes? You just breathe deeply and say, "Oh, My! Oh Gee!" Or some more colorful linguistic equivalent thereof. And then you go running across the room or down the hall to share it:

"Hey! Take a Whiff of This! Can you believe it? Yeah! Take a Taste! Go ahead!"

And then you delight in the look of ecstasy on the face of your spouse, friend, neighbor, or whomever you handed the glass to.

Down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, behind the wardrobe and into Narnia. Mr. Tumnus! You make an incredible cab!

Quality counts. Passion, care, and world-class expertise pay off.

When something stands apart in an immensely crowded field, you take notice. It evokes a rare sort of respect, and genuine admiration.

Whenever I come across anything of such excellence, it makes me redouble my own commitment to quality. It reminds me of the difference that makes. And it makes me grateful once more to share the planet with some other people who care about what they do.

I can be inspired by almost anything that displays excellence of the highest caliber. In fact, I was inspired by the first moment of aromas wafting forth from the glass. Not even the bacon in the pan could mask the magic that leapt up to my nose and reeled me in like a fish on a line.

Inspiration.

What, recently, has inspired you?

For those who are reading this here at my website, rather than on LinkedIn, I have an extra word or two. This Schrader was like a recent Futo and my first really great cab, a 2001 Shaeffer Hillside Select. Also in this category are a Colgin I had a while back, and a few Herb Lamb Cabs. Tell me what you like! In Vino, Veritas.

What Is It To Exist?

Today, let's just get wild. Let's be spooky. Let's dig deep.

I just got this email, which I quote with a big blush, since it's so nice, but it asks a very deep question, and asks it well. It will also give you an idea of the sort of emails I get that don't fit into the "how to run a company, build an exceptional career, or deal with daily life" genres, but that can keep someone awake at night.

Dear Dr. Morris.

I am a joyous follower and admirer of you and your work, both philosophical and otherwise. I think you are a wonderful human being, and a great philosopher and writer. As such, I am led to ask you a very deep and pressing question, and share with you a problem I've encountered dealing with it.

Questions: What exactly does it mean for something to exist? What is existence itself?

I asked thus because yesterday I was in a conversation with a friend, and he proposed that the only things that actually exist are those that meet these criteria:

1. Occupy space and time,

2. Be detectable by natural means,

3. Have some energy signature of sorts.

I tried thinking of objections to those criteria but was blank. The only such I offered was God, and abstract entities, which he said were the only things his criteria ruled out. (He's an atheist). So the question is, should existence be limited to things that meet those criteria, and if not, why not? And can you please provide a substantiative working definition of the term.

Thanks for sparing your time. Regards,

Shawn Wilson

MY ANSWER, PART ONE:

Hi Shawn! Thanks for your kind words! Let me get back to you later today.

But a quick initial consideration: My first thought is that your friend seems certainly adamant that, among the realities of the world, among the things that exist and with which we have to do are his own Three Criteria for Existence - for, surely, if they didn't exist, we wouldn't have to worry about them! But then, for them to exist, in accordance with their own demands, they must:

1. Occupy space and time,

2. Be detectable by natural means,

3. Have some energy signature of sorts.

Oops. There's an obvious problem here. Understanding that we're dealing with criteria, or requirements, which are intellectual things, rather than ink on paper, words in the air, or pixels on a screen, they seem to fail their own requirements for existing. And that's quite odd, isn't it? It's what philosophers call self-defeating, and therefore not possibly true.

More later! Tom

SECOND REPLY, HOURS LATER:

Hi again, Shawn.

One definition, from a theistic perspective would be this:

(A) To exist is to be an absolute creator or a creation.

Simple. But of course, your friend won't like that. Yet, that's no criticism of the definition itself, is it?

A more abstract philosophical conception would be this:

(B) To exist is to participate in causal or other metaphysical relationships.

An even more abstract definition could be this:

(C) To exist is to be differentiated in some way from nothingness, where that differentiation consists in something more than a mere contingent and fanciful conceptual configuration (ruling out such things as magic blue dragons in my backyard and kiddie-story unicorns  existing in the same sense as cars and dogs, and just by being conceived).

Clearly, these are tests that even current members of Congress could all pass with flying colors. And none of these definitions confines existence to the ordinary physical entities with which we're familiar, like tables, chairs, cars, dirt, and shoe laces. They don't rule out God, or spiritual beings, or abstract objects like numbers, or qualities, or intellectual conditions like themselves.

The challenge to your friend is to show how his criteria are superior to all of these. And he'll face a simple problem: He can't. Moreover, none of these criteria suffers the self-defeating problem that his three-fold standard confronts. They satisfy their own demands. They are generous and yet not vacuous. They're intuitive, and not prejudicial as to what wonders there might be that we have not yet even imagined. I hope this helps.

I want my ontology, or conception of what exists, to be, in principle, as broad and inclusive as this amazing, surprisingly rich reality in which we live. I want to acknowledge that love exists, and opportunity, and potential, and the soul - not just material things like grass and rocks and atoms. And no one has ever given me a sufficient reason to shrink my philosophy to fit the view that natural science alone gives us the inventory of reality.

Existing ... in your debt for a good question, I am

Your Philosopher,

TVM

My Most Embarrassing Book Signing. Ever.

A major bookstore event to herald a new publication can be an interesting experience.

I was telling one of the staff members at our largest local bookstore yesterday how much I loved Donna Tartt's new tome The Goldfinch. I had come back to buy her first book, The Secret History, which I'm now reading and also loving. He asked what it's like for me, as an author, to read other people's books, and in the end, he told me that when my new novel series is published, I should launch it at his shop, with a big book signing, and with lots of local publicity. At my last event there, eight years ago, they told me it was the first time in the history of the store that they ever sold out of books in the first hour of an author signing. It was great. I felt like a local version of J.K. Rowling, only male, and a philosopher, and publishing a nonfiction book, except it was indeed about Harry Potter.

But, in retrospect, I couldn't help but think of other book events past, all over the country - some with huge crowds, in places like Manhattan, and Kansas City, and Boca Raton, and others with small and yet very interesting turnouts.

My most embarrassing book signing wasn't the one in Washington, DC, long ago, where only one person showed up, and he told me he was the father of one of my students at Notre Dame, and then asked me for a $20,000 loan. No, that didn't come close. The cosmic nadir, the ultimate bottom of the vortex, was when I was at an independent bookstore somewhere in America, and had spoken to about fifty or so people regarding my newest effort, and had signed books for most of them, and then had talked to the manager of the store for nearly an hour afterwards, standing near the register, and signing lots more books for the shop to keep in stock with those little stickers that say "Autographed By the Author."

Right before I was going to leave, I saw an elderly lady walk up to the cash register and put down a stack of books - bird books, dog books, gardening guides, and … there it was: my new book about philosophy and life. As her other selections were being rung up, she picked mine out of the stack to examine. With a glow of pride, I watched her face as she thumbed through it, starting at the end and flipping backward. She finally got to the first page and stopped in shock. She looked up at the bookstore employee who was ringing up the sale. And, in a voice of supreme irritation, she said, "Some fool has written in this book!"

He stopped and looked at the page she was pointing to and said, "Oh, yes, that's the author's personal signature! You have an autographed copy!"

She contemplated it for a second and looked back up and said, "Well, I don't want a book some fool has written in!"

He got her a clean copy, and I went home, suitably humbled.

But I still sign books when I can, assured by my wife that, surely, it doesn't detract too much from the value of the item.

Best Book of the Year

The best book I’ve read this year was a total surprise. I hadn’t seen the author’s two previous books, although the first one got a lot of attention. And it was only noticing the “Pulitzer Prize” sticker on the front cover of this one at my local Barnes and Noble that got my attention. I was intrigued. There was a picture of a bird. And it was a big book, nearly 800 pages. The thought ran through my head, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

But some strong instinct, some irresistible intuitive urge, made me buy it. It was almost like I had no choice. And it may actually be the best, most completely involving novel I’ve read in at least five or ten years.

The Goldfinch, by Mississippi-born Donna Tartt, is named for a famous painting, done in 1654, but the book takes place in something like present-day New York, mainly, but also in Las Vegas and Amsterdam. It follows the adventures of a precocious but academically uninterested thirteen-year-old boy through a suddenly traumatic period and then into the subsequent years of his life, up to his late twenties.

The book is, first of all, a real page-turner. And, at its core, it’s an extended reflection on the power of our actions and inactions in a sometimes-crazy world. The main character, Theo Decker, does something, early on, you could say, instinctively, that has implications he doesn’t at the time fully grasp, and as he begins to understand the potentially damaging consequences, he hesitates making the choices that alone could undo, or at least mitigate, those very big problems. In the initial instance, it was almost like he had no choice but to do what he did. And yet, when opportunities later develop to possibly reverse the course of things, his failure to take the obvious action and do what we wish he would do, seems on one level mysterious, and yet on another level understandable, in context, at each juncture.

Further circumstances beyond his control intervene, and we see him hide from the realities he faces by indulging in various forms of self-soothing and self-medicating behaviors, mostly involving more drugs than you would ever imagine, all throughout his teens, and then into his twenties, rather than grappling as he should with the things that confront him.

But this sketchy, high-level abstract of the tale can’t possibly convey the nature of the richly realized story, the fully imagined settings in which Theo’s problems grow, or the fascinating characters who come into his life along the way. I don’t think I’ve ever been so involved with the characters in a story, since my very different experience of Harry Potter and his friends.

Then, within the last hundred pages or so of the book, we get major philosophical payoffs from the story. And some of these reflections are almost worthy of Blaise Pascal in their vividness. Beauty, truth, meaning, chance, depth, choice, consequences, and surprise: It’s all there. And the ultimate results of Theo’s actions are so strikingly different from what we have come to expect that musing on them will keep you philosophizing for quite a time to come.

I just finished writing a series of novels – eight, as a matter of fact – totally well over two thousand pages. Entering that fictional world has involved the most intellectual excitement and fun I’ve ever had. And, if you might still be looking for some great summer reading, I’d love to be able to recommend these to you. But they exist only inside my computer. I haven’t even shown them to a publisher yet. So, shhhhh.

That, however, leaves me free to urge you to get your hands on The Goldfinch as soon as possible. I think you’ll be amazed.

But don't read any reviews. They give away far too much. Experience it all as you should!