Eating a Fry Off The Floor in Public

There was a lone french fry lying on the carpeted floor almost under a table in the busy Sports Center Cafe. I pointed it out to my exercise partner. And I said, "There are people who would offer you money to pick that up off the floor and eat it, but I'm not one of them."

"Five dollars."

"What?"

"I'd do it for five dollars," he told me and sipped his coffee.

Of course, he surfs in the shark infested waters of North Carolina every day, for hours, and for fun.

Later that day I recounted the situation to my wife. "A million dollars," she said.

"Wow," I replied. "I was thinking more like a thousand."

That's a big gap, I thought, between five dollars and a million, or even a thousand.

Disgust and desire. We're all different in how we react to each. But we all do react. We find certain things disgusting, and others desirable. Disgust is usually associated with an underlying perception of risk, and desire with a lure of reward. A fry on the floor, I'd prefer to avoid. Money, I can always use to good effect.

Now, let's take a big step back from disgust. There's another, lesser, and much more common negative category - dislike. There are many things we dislike that don't in any way disgust us. We just find them unpleasant. They hold no intrinsic attraction at all. In fact, to the contrary, we'd rather not do them. But the problem is that we often have to, for the sake of some related need, or a greater good.

Suppose, for example, that you don't like to travel. But a job that could pay very well demands it. Is there a number, a salary, a financial scenario, that will make you take that job, despite its involving what you dislike? Or consider another possibility: You have an idea for a new business. But starting up a new company will demand almost all your time. You'll hardly see your spouse or your children, for at least the first two or three years. Is there a number that would motivate you to do it? Do you think there's a number that would motivate them to want you to do it? Your answers will tell you something about your values, and also how you think of theirs.

We make choices all the time. Life is just a string of choices. How do you make yours? What are you willing to do to get what you want? What would you give up? What would you take on? Do you decide and choose wisely? Do you consider the costs? The risks? The downsides? Or are you more typically just fixated on the positive possibilities? Too many of us get so mesmerized by what we desire that we take on far too much of what we dislike. And some people who make a life of doing that end up with a situation the eventually evokes their own disgust. Let's try hard not to be among them.

My friend sees a french fry on the floor and sees an easy five bucks. I just see grossness and germs. My wife apparently sees the Bubonic Plague. How you view the challenges and opportunities of the world says a lot about you. And considering such scenarios can be a path of new self knowledge.

I'd like to recommend that path. But I just have one question: Would you like fries with it?

Life While-You-Wait

Today I just want to share a powerful and profound short poem by Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012). It comes from her book Map: Collected and Last Poems. I came across it on www.brainpickings.org, one of my favorite websites. Read it twice if you can. The last two lines are particularly striking, in the context of the poem, and of our lives. I do grieve for some of what I will forever have done. Perhaps you do, too. But there is an alchemy that can redeem and reweave even our worst into a different and never expected best.

LIFE WHILE-YOU-WAIT

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play’s all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can’t conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can’t take back,
stars you’ll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run —
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage).

You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I’ve done.

Kindness and Respect

What's more important, kindness, or respect? Are they equals, or is one subordinate to the other?

Ok, in case you're thinking "Who cares?" or "What difference does it make?" consider this: When you prioritize kindness in your dealings with others, you may act differently from what you would do if you prioritized respect. For example, many people often withhold what they consider to be difficult truths, or facts that might upset, frighten or worry a friend, or family member, or coworker, in an attempt to be kind. Late in the Harry Potter stories, Albus Dumbledore pretty much admits to Harry that one of his greatest mistakes was to do this and keep certain things from the young boy that he should have told him much sooner.

When we withhold difficult truths from someone who might genuinely want to know them, however hurtful or disturbing they might be, we are not respecting the other person as a mature spirit, or soul, capable of dealing with difficulty. We might say we're doing it to be kind. But we're not showing the ultimate of respect. When we truly respect another person, we tend to be more forthright and honest. We'll also certainly try to do this, to be truthful, with kindness, so it isn't a matter of choosing one rather than the other. But it's a matter of which guides which.

Think for a moment about the relationship of these two qualities, kindness and respect.

Kindness without respect is either paternalism, or is the mere outward appearance of the caring virtue and not its reality, but rather more a form of manipulation, or else a mere cultural habit to smooth out the bumps of human relations.

Respect without kindness can be a sort of formal and almost grudging sense of at least rough and partial equality in some crucial regard. But without the warming influence of true care, it's by itself rather cold.

The ideal, in my thinking, is to pair respect and kindness in our treatment of others, but with respect always being the senior partner, so to speak, or the priority, overall. Kindness is of infinite value, but is always to be felt, and shown, as a way of respecting another person. Respect is, in this perspective, always in the lead. So, if I'm right in this conclusion, and you think that withholding some crucial information from another person is indeed an act of kindness on your part, you should ask yourself whether it also, first and foremost, shows full respect to the other person, as an equally valuable and autonomous decision maker with a right to know anything that would impinge importantly on their lives, and able in their own way to handle their emotions and reactions to the truth.

At least, this is what I got in my last dip into a swimming pool. Sometimes, first thing in the morning, before the heat of the day, I'll get into the pool and move slowly back and forth in three to four feet of water, in a sort of zen walking meditation, and the other morning, while doing so, these were the thoughts that at one point spontaneously emerged. I hope they're right. Because of the priority of my respect for you, dear reader. Thanks for your own reflection on the matter.

You Got To Want It

What's necessary in order to be really good at something? Well, the right talent, or set of talents, for one thing. And lots of work, or practice, for another. But still, there's something else.

Let's ask a really different question. How should you react when someone wanting to help you suggests or even recommends you for a new job, position, role, opportunity, or goal that doesn't strike you as quite right? Your friend/fan/helper/coach/mentor/agent is excited about the new possibility, but you're uneasy, or unsure. You don't feel an inner fire. Sometimes, it's great to stretch outside your comfort zone. And yet, you should always listen to your heart. Here's an example. A Hollywood agent in the 1950s has discovered an attractive young woman he wants to put in the movies. Good things are happening for her already. A prominent man in the community, a bold-faced name in the papers, someone having his picture taken all the time, wants to marry her. The agent is himself relating what happened next, out in Los Angeles:

Then wham! The Story of Dr. Wassall. You see that picture? Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper. Jesus. I kill myself, it's all set: they're going to test her for the part of Dr. Wassell's nurse. One of his nurses, anyway. Then wham! The phone rings." He picked a telephone out of the air and held it to his ear. "She says, this is Holly, I say honey you sound far away, she says I'm in New York, I say what the hell are you doing in New York when it's Sunday and you got the test tomorrow? She says I'm in New York cause I've never been to New York. I say get your ass on a plane and get back here, she says I don't want it. I say what's your angle, doll? She says you got to want it to be good and I don't want it. I say what the hell do you want, and she says when I find out, you'll be the first to know.

That's O.J. Berman talking to our narrator, the upstairs neighbor of Holly Golightly, in Truman Capote's short novel Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Holly's words ring true: You got to want it to be good. It's true of acting, and of almost anything else. In considering a new opportunity or possibility, you have to ask yourself, "Do I really want it?" Can I envision it happening? Does it stir me up? Would it be fulfilling and fun? If not, it's probably not right for you, at least, not now. But if so, if you do want it, if it lights a flame in you, then you have one of the main conditions for success - an emotional commitment.

Life is too short to concentrate our energies on things we really don't care about. Find something you want, and pursue that with your whole heart. And if you're like me and are already doing it, keep at it!

Deeply Connected

We're all deeply connected. So, how did we get so far apart?

The news is always full of anger, hatred, murder, and theft, not to mention war and threats of war, and to read it every day, you'd come to think that the most common mindset in the world is the adversarial stand: Me against you, us against them, ours versus theirs. And yet, as all the deepest thinkers across the most profound sciences and religions tell us, we're all connected at the most fundamental level imaginable. We blossom from the same roots. We've bubbled up from the same soup. We're also touched by a common spirit, and inhabit a common home. We need to appreciate these deep connections more. We need to put aside false division and live our unity.

I came across an odd little story recently. And it stuck in my head. We have a lot of great writers where I live, in Wilmington, NC, both novelists and nonfiction types. And among our local magazines is a great monthly celebrating the arts and culture, called Salt. In the most recent issue, the great novelist Wiley Cash (A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy) tells some stories about southern writers on book tour. This one tweaked my attention. Wiley writes:

When my friend Tom Franklin left Mississippi on book tour, he told his wife that he was taking along his copy of Cold Mountain just in case he ran into Charles Frazier on his stop in North Carolina. "You're crazy," his wife said. "North Carolina's too big. What are the odds?" Halfway through his tour, Tom realized he needed a new pair of blue jeans, so when he arrived in Raleigh for his book signing at Quail Ridge Books, he headed first to the Crabtree Valley Mall, where he ran into Charles Frazier. "I saw him in J.C. Penney," he said. "I told him I had a copy of Cold Mountain out in my car, and he said he'd be happy to sign it."

Ok. How strange is that? Think about it for a second. In a state with millions of people, scattered through hundreds, and maybe even thousands of cities and towns and hamlets, all moving around here and there, or sometimes, if they're writers, staying inside their own homes while writing all day, what's the probability that this one guy visiting a few cities in North Carolina for a book tour will personally see a particular famous author he admires, and has prepared to see by bringing along a book to be signed, in a J.C. Penney - not in a bookstore, or library, or public radio station lobby, or Apple Store, where writers sometimes go to get their Macs fixed? And yes, of course, I know that coincidences, minor and major, happen all the time. But really. My life has been chock full of such things, and it's almost like I've been destined to hear other people's stories of the like, so that I'll think hard about what these marvels may indicate, or mean, far beyond just the real but still odd fact that even the immensely improbable is probably going to happen now and then.

I've come to suspect that our deep connections, at the most fundamental level, give rise to a form of potential informational access, and knowledge, for which we don't have either clear categories, or any solid understanding. And yet, our understanding has never been a requirement for reality. Throughout human history, we've failed for long stretches of time to understand many things that were nonetheless real. Sometimes our understanding catches up with the experienced realities that have formerly eluded us, and sometimes the mysteries continue. But their actuality does not depend on our conceptual grasp.

Are there then connections and ways of knowing that we could, in principle, be using to enhance our lives and positive impacts on the world around us? A psychologist friend once told me that he thinks the single most important quality for human beings to have is open-ness. Are we open enough to the strange and potentially fruitful interconnections that we may enjoy with others?

In a world of obvious and noisy divisiveness, perhaps we should think about such things more. Pay attention. Listen. And when you feel a nudge that maybe doesn't make sense, on the surface, and that might even elicit an "Are you crazy?" response if you mention it to someone else, maybe you should show it some respect, and act on it. You just never know. Or maybe you do.

Crafting Your Own Story

Who are you in the story of your life? What's your overall narrative? How do you cast yourself as the hero of your story - or at least one of the heroes? It can make a big difference in how you live.

My friend Clancy Martin has a very nice review essay in today's New York Times, discussing the new book with a clever and ironic title, Keep It Fake: Inventing an Authentic Life, by Eric G. Wilson. The lead idea is a simple one. A guy went to his therapist depressed, and wanting to be a better father than he thinks he is. The therapist demanded that he go home and construct a new narrative for his life, in which he wasn't a bad, depressed father, but something else altogether. The author took up the challenge with vigor and began viewing himself as "Crazy Dad" who would do all sorts of outlandish and fun things with his kids. He began acting a new role, revamping the Book, or Reality Show, that is his life. And things got much better, right away.

We're always told to know ourselves and be true to ourselves. But isn't it just as important to invent ourselves well? We're all artists. Our selves are works of art that are created and crafted day in and day out by our thoughts and actions. Who are you in the story of your life? Do you allow someone else to define you, at work or at home? Or do you take on the responsibility and hard joy of self creation, self definition, and becoming that Aristotle thought is so important?

What story do you tell yourself about who you are? Is it working? Or is it time for a creative redo? Should you be playing a different role in the way you see yourself and approach your day? Or would that make you somehow fake, or inauthentic? Perhaps, done right, it's all about making, and not faking. We're challenged to create and take on roles in life that will work. My philosophy buddy Clancy Martin, and the author Eric Wilson, give us all something worth thinking about.

Hemingway, You, and Me

Life coaches now tell us to believe in ourselves, organize our lives better, and remember to breathe. Medieval life coaches would whisper in people's ears, "You're going to die. Remember your mortality." What was up with that?

I just finished reading Ernest Hemingway's famous novel, A Farewell to Arms. An American has gone to Italy in the First World War, to help the Italians fight the Austrians and Germans. This man, the narrator of the story, drives an ambulance and other vehicles near the front. He's badly injured, meets a nurse, falls in love, receives a medal for heroism, and months later returns to the front. So far, the story tracks the life of the author. Then, through a series of unexpected small situations and accidents, our narrator becomes separated from his unit, and is wrongly suspected of desertion. He escapes an imminent execution out in the countryside only by diving into a river under fire. He reunites with his love and, now on the run, they manage with great difficulty to get to safety in Switzerland, where she goes into labor with his baby. Fortunately, they're able to enter a major hospital for the delivery. The story is full of twists and turns, ups and downs for the two of them.

At that point in the narrative Hemingway goes far beyond confronting us with the crazy and sometimes scary vicissitudes of life, as seen in the adventures of the soldier and his great love, and begins to rub our noses in the fickle inescapability of death in this world. The last pages of the book are so bleak in articulating the author's deepest attitudes, the whole thing could have been called, "A Farewell to Meaning and Hope."

This wasn't, of course, the only time Papa H took on the topic of mortality. Many months ago, I quoted here from his other novel, The Sun Also Rises. Just eleven pages into it, there is this brief conversation, worth repeating, that starts with Robert Cohn, Princeton graduate and amateur boxer, speaking to his old friend Jake, the narrator of the novel, in a bar – where, it seems that, interestingly, philosophical reflection about life often takes place:

“Listen, Jake,” he leaned forward on the bar. “Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

 “Yes, every once in a while.”

“Do you know that in about thirty-five years more we'll be dead?”

“What the hell, Robert,” I said,  “ What the hell?”

“I'm serious.”

“It’s one thing I don’t worry about,” I said.

“You ought to.”

As we all know, but, like Jake, tend not to think about very much, the life adventure we’re on right now is a limited-time offer. This is an interesting point of reflection for all of us who are already in mid-life or - like me - beyond. But it’s an important fact for any of us, however young or old. Are we making the most of our time? Are we using our talents in the best ways, and taking advantage of the opportunities that come to us each day? Are we enjoying the adventure that we have, to the extent that we can? Or are we letting ourselves be held back by habit and worn down by our own inner reactions to things that are outside our control?

The answers to these questions often turn on another one: How well do we handle change in our lives, day to day – the little, unexpected events, and the bigger disruptions; the challenges and the opportunities? Do we resist almost all change and regret it, or are we creative artists with it?

As the bluntly philosophical Robert points out for Jake and all the rest of us, there will come a time when further change in this world is impossible for each of us – maybe thirty-five years from now; maybe longer; and maybe much sooner. We never know. So why not make the most of this incredible journey while we can? Great things are possible for us, with the right approach to work and life.

Hemingway himself may have taken a very negative attitude toward the challenges of life,  but he did pretty well for himself in his chosen profession, despite the many ups and downs he couldn't control, until he chose exactly the wrong action on the day that ended his adventure.

We shouldn't follow his negativity of attitude, or many of his choices. But we do benefit from being reminded of the churn and fragility of our situations throughout this life. We don't find ourselves in an easy world, or with endless time. We're clearly in a place of challenge. But that just means we need to develop all our strengths and the most positive attitudes we can in order to flourish and prevail, within the parameters given us. Ultimately, that can provide us with a Farewell to Anxiety, and a Farewell to Fear.

The Unencumbered Life

Are the things we own blessings or burdens? Actually, do we own our stuff at all, or does it own us?

The New York Times ran a wild story this weekend about a French tech entrepreneur living in the US who has had a very unusual mid-life crisis. With an estimated net worth of 100 million dollars, Fabrice Grinda came to feel that all the great stuff he owned had become a burden that was actually keeping him from the more important things in life. So he decided to downsize radically and experience an unencumbered existence. He moved out of his huge mansion that sits on 20 acres of land in New York state, got rid of his $300,000 McLaren sports car, released his $13,000 a month apartment in the City, gave away tons of stuff, and kept only what he could fit into a roller bag suitcase and a backpack. He decided that he'd simply be a free spirit nomad and go live with his friends, one at a time, enjoying their company, rather than all that stuff. Having shed his physical burdens, however, he quickly became a major burden to each of those friends.

It seems that the wealthy man didn't do his own laundry, or make his own bed when he stayed with friends. He liked to talk loud, stay up really late, and eat everything in their refrigerators. He ended up giving all of them their own crises and learning as a result that the unencumbered life wasn't as easy as he had imagined.

This past week, I read several short novels by John Steinbeck, including the very funny Tortilla Flat, and the almost equally amusing Cannery Row, both of which are about groups of poor but festive characters in and around Monterey, California, in the early days of the twentieth century. They had no regular jobs, often slept in the woods, or in old, run down buildings that others provided, and managed to "find" food and wine on a fairly regular basis. They were scoundrels with hearts of gold. They lived off the generosity of their neighbors, but somehow thought of themselves as the real community benefactors. Their unencumbered lives gave them a special freedom, at least in their own minds. As you read their stories, you can't quite decide whether they present an extreme yet attractive ideal of the free spirit, or are really just completely irresponsible social parasites, living as slaves to their own peculiar instabilities and passing appetites, while depending on the charity, or gullibility, of others to support them. 

Both the stories of Steinbeck and the peculiar tale of Fabrice Grinda raise the question: Are the things we own indeed blessings or burdens? Do we actually have possession of them, or do they have possession of us? Are the many responsibilities of ownership to be avoided or embraced?

You may not be surprised to hear that most of the great practical philosophers have said, "It depends." On what? Attitude and intent. Your proclivities, enjoyments, and tolerances. I've known people with four or five big houses. They seemed unburdened by the responsibility. They knew how to manage the complexity. They thoroughly enjoyed what they had. And it didn't at all appear to constrain their freedom. There are, of course, also big  moral issues deep in the background, behind all lavish lifestyles, matters of global scope and existential perplexity, but my friends have seemed unburdened by those, as well. We can't solve all the world's problems. But we can solve some of our own.

The point of responsibility is to grow us as souls. Our commitments, to people, endeavors, and things, form us. We can make bad commitments or good ones. How do they function in our lives? That's the central question. It's all about functionality. Can we do great and valuable things with the people, endeavors, and things in our lives? Do they serve to enrich us, or to burden us? The things we own need to be maintained, repaired, protected, and, of course, used. And we all differ as to where the point is that this becomes a problem rather than something we can enjoy. We typically don't discover our limits in such matters except by crossing them and finally seeing them from the other side. That's part of what keeps fantasy alive for those who haven't reached their limits, yet.

Throughout history, ascetics have believed that the path to salvation lies in ridding ourselves of all our stuff and then opening ourselves to the spirit. But as a philosopher, I believe that the second, and ultimately important, activity does not depend on the first. Physical things can become a spiritual obstacle, but they need not be, in proper measure and with the right role in our lives.

The Oracle at Delphi proclaimed, "Nothing in Excess." What counts as excess for you? Are you living on the far side of it, and suffering from that? Do you need to make some adjustments? Fabrice Grinda came to believe he needed to make a radical change. But like many, he went too far, and has been schooled, as a result, in moderation. I guess that's hard when your finances tell you anything's possible. But regardless of what our net worth might whisper to us, many good things are possible, and they depend on our own discernment, a function of wisdom. It's the path of wisdom to choose properly. Don't let a culture of materialism dictate your life and put you in chains. And it's just as important to avoid false fantasies of freedom. Pick your own proper way. And that, ultimately, depends on the Oracle's second main injunction, "Know Yourself."

I Wish My Father Was Alive

I wish my father was alive. I lost him decades ago, when he was only about six years older than I am now. As Father's Day approaches later this month, I have some thoughts to share.

I wish my father was alive today, and for many, many reasons, but one is so that I could ask him lots of questions. What was it like to grow up on a farm, as he did, and roam the woods? What were his inner thoughts as a boy living in a small house without a bathroom or running water on hundreds of acres, isolated in the sand hills outside Cameron, North Carolina? What did he do to occupy himself on those solitary days in the pine forest, or walking along the big stream bordered with huge boulders that ran through the land? Did he have a creative and lively inner life? Did he populate an interior world with friends and exciting adventures? How did he imagine his future? Was he a dreamer or a worrier? Was he eager about life, or afraid? Did he in those days have a dog to be his companion? I don't even know that about him.

He worked hard when I was a boy, and was away long hours each day. But when he was around, we did great, fun things together. We built toys, made sling shots from the limbs of dogwood trees, and flew kites so high we could hardly see them and their decorative tails as they rode the warm summer breeze of the day. We took long walks, full of wonder, through the woods around my little childhood home on the outskirts of Durham, NC. We played basketball, or threw a baseball back and forth. My dad taught me how to do a Yo-Yo and a Hula Hoop. He showed me how to play a harmonica, and the way to make a pretty decent drum out of an Oatmeal box.

He built me a real wooden club house in the backyard, an impressive structure, at least six feet by six feet square inside, with maybe an eight foot ceiling, and a real roof and a door. He found somewhere an old short wave radio, with a large dark wood cabinet, and put it in there for me and my few neighborhood friends. I remember helping him to string thin wire around the back yard as an extensive antenna system. We'd turn on the radio, and slowly turn the dial through static that we knew was from outer space, and then we'd hear a faint broadcast of something we were equally sure was from China.

My dad and I built bright red scooters, and rubber band rifles that shot huge thick bands that would tear through newspapers we'd hang on the outdoor clothesline as targets. We'd lie down on the floor and play marbles. We'd spin tops, and play cards and watch television together on the old black and white set. We built a "jumping board" in the back yard, like a see-saw but only about a foot tall. I could leap onto one end, as my friend stood on the other, and would then be launched up a foot or two in the air. He'd land and shoot me into the air, in turn. And this could go on for hours.

My dad was a master badminton player, and even better at horse shoes. He'd do either with me as long as I wanted. And he once set up a high jump in the back, and promptly broke his leg leaping over it.

He also sat and told me stories, now and then, about the farm, or the second world war, where one day, he was walking toward enemy territory carrying bands of machine-gun ammunition strapped across his chest, and he noticed a rut in the dirt road, and stepped in it for no reason, and as his body tilted left, he  heard, and thought he even felt, a bullet whiz by his right ear. If he hadn't stepped into the rut, he would have been killed, he told me, and I never would have been born. He thought the reason for that step was so that I could come into the world. The concept filled me with the miracle of existence.

I heard about places like Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Saipan. One night out in fox holes, he was on guard duty and under strict orders as to what he had to do if he heard a sound in "no man's land" between his position and the enemy. Late into the moonless evening, in pitch dark, he did hear a noise. "Halt! Who goes there?" Nothing. "Halt! Who goes there?" Silence. By now, some of the other soldiers were awake, and mentally preparing themselves for something bad. Their adversaries were close. An attack could happen at any time. Then there was another sound of movement, or rustling. Once chance more, by the designated sequence of things. "Halt! Who goes there?" And then his orders had a final step. He had to shoot into the dark, in the direction of the sound. And he did. 

After the echo of his shots, there was no further sound. Tense minutes passed, and then hours. And when the sun first began to rise, he could see that there was a body, dead on the ground, some distance away. It turned out that it was his best friend. That was a story he told me only once. It ended with silence as thick as that night was dark, I imagined in the moment.

His sister, a sweet, greatly loved friend and childhood playmate on their lonely farm, had suddenly grown sick, and just as suddenly died. So, before his teens, he had lost his first best friend. Then he lost his second one.

He was in many ways, in the years after that, a quiet person. As a teenager, he had left the farm and gone to Baltimore, Maryland, and applied for a job at Martin Aircraft. The interviewer asked, "What do you want to do?" He answered, "Everything." The man looked puzzled. My father said, "Start me in any department. As soon as I'm as good as anyone else in there, move me to another one. I want to learn everything." And he did. By age nineteen, he was in Experimental Design, helping to build the newest airplanes for the military. His boss wrote the War Department that he should never be drafted, because he was needed stateside for his aeronautical expertise - this young high school graduate. The War Department wrote back that no one his age could possibly know that much. And soon, he was carrying a rifle in the infantry.

He built radio stations, ran them, sold all the ad time, and learned to deal with all kinds of people. He got into some amazing business deals, and then was shut out by crooked partners. He had a promising future, and then nothing. He sold cars, and encyclopedias. He managed a bowling alley. And then he learned that, in real estate, he could walk the woods as he had in childhood. So he started his own company, and returned to the land, building environmentally sensitive developments.

My mother had been raised in an orphanage, and had emotional scars from those years that did not allow for a happy marriage or a good parenting experience. And yet, the two of them stayed together. And it was tough for my dad, during my years of growing up. So he would often retreat from the house, to find peace. I missed him when he wasn't around. But I understood.

And then, as a teen, I developed my own interests. I was in a band. I played guitar. I traveled a lot. I was a good student. I read and studied off by myself. I then got a scholarship and went off to college where I began to chart out my own life. I left for graduate school, far away. I got married, and had my own family. The teen and early twenties drive for independence, and separation, and a life of my own, had instilled habits that were not good to have. I didn't call my father enough, when I lived a thousand miles away. I didn't write him very often. I didn't see him enough. And when I did, I was too caught up in my own life and career and didn't have a sufficiently deep curiosity to ask about his childhood, and his teens, and his life and thoughts and feelings through the years. I wish now that I had. I almost desperately wish I had. It's a connection with the flow of life and the existential stream of where we come from and who we are that we should never ignore or neglect. I had made a huge mistake.

I sat with him when he was dying, and beyond conversation. I told him he was going on to prepare a place for me and the rest of the family, one day. I made sure to say that he had been a great dad.

I kissed his bald head when he was dead.

I wish my father was alive today. If yours is, please talk to him. Ask him all those things I can't ask my dad now, and didn't when I could have. And listen. Really listen. Then remember. And give him a little hug and a kiss. While he's alive. Ok?

Oh, but in case you think your old man's a jerk, or annoying, or you've had a bad disagreement with him in the past, here's the honest truth: None of that matters, in the big scheme of things. He gave you life, and he's going to die. And so are you. Don't live with regrets like I have, regrets you can avoid. Show your love with sincere conversation.

Philosophy Every Day

On June 3, 2014 I began posting little philosophical blogs here every day. So this week, I hit my one year mark, which was my target for daily postings. Today was going to be the first day I skipped, but I decided instead to write this short explanation. I'll still be blogging, and probably several times a week. But I won't hold myself to the daily commitment. It was an experiment. And it worked, at least for me. I hope it has for you.

Blogging daily has made me pay more attention to the world swirling around me. Things that I used to notice for two seconds, I now may dwell on for six seconds to see whether they deserve much more of my reflection and time. And if they do, I'll sit and write to see what comes. I've had lots of new thoughts as a result. And I notice more. It's also a nice discipline to write in 200-400 words. It's a level of reflection that's new for me. Too many bloggers write way too much. Who's got the time? Even great ideas can get lost in long stretches of verbiage. I've tried to be succinct. I hope I succeed at least most of the time.

Each day this past year, I've put a message in a bottle, and tossed it into the big, vast ocean of the internet. Some of you have found various bottles, and opened them to look at the message inside. I thank you for that. Your effort has joined mine to give me a sense of contribution. And for every one of you who has left a public comment, I thank you also. I appreciate as well those of you who have written me privately about one post or another. I didn't realize when I started that lots of top corporate executive friends and people in the public eye have to refrain from public posts that are of a personal and philosophical nature because of the glass box you live in. And so you write me privately. And I benefit.

I'll continue to do philosophy every day. I hope you will, too. But there may not be a new message in a bottle from me here every day. I'll see when the spirit moves. I'm expecting to write several times a week, still. Just not every day. But I hope you'll look for that bottle that on any given day might be floating in the water, pop the cork when you see one, ponder the message, and occasionally tuck a reply back in and toss it again into the waves. Let's keep thinking together about things that matter.

Emerson and You

Ralph Waldo Emerson was in many ways our last truly public philosopher. At least, until me. About a hundred and fifty years ago, he spoke to business and civic groups all over the country, bringing them the best of his own philosophical thought. I try to do the same thing, in our own time.

Emerson believed in "self-reliance" - in trusting your deepest instincts, and in building for yourself a philosophy and worldview that is strong enough to support your life and work in the world. He drew on many great thinkers of the past, as we can, too. But he reminded us that these great thinkers were just ordinary people like us, struggling with the challenges of life and seeking ways of doing some good in the world. We can do, in our own ways, basically what they did - we can use the resources we have to come up with our own maps of the world that will move us forward. Again, it's not wise to do so alone, with no guidance at all. There's plenty of wisdom already available for us to use. But you need to appropriate any of that great wisdom out there as your own, certifying it in your life, and living it yourself.

The place I went to grad school, Yale, is lucky to have one of the great literary critics of all time on its faculty, Harold Bloom. I've never gotten over the fact that he disdained the Harry Potter books as they were being published, and threw deep shade on J.K. Rowling as an author. But still, in his other views, he's heralded as the best literary critic of our time. And he sees Emerson as the source of much great American literature.

In a new book, The Daemon Knows, Bloom says:

For me, Emerson is the fountain of the American will to know the self and its drive for sublimity. The American ­poets who (to me) matter most are all Emersonians of one kind or another: Walt ­Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, John Ashbery, A. R. Ammons, Elizabeth Bishop, May Swenson, Henri Cole. Our greatest creators of prose fiction were not Emersonians, yet the protagonists of Hawthorne, Melville and Henry James frequently are beyond our understanding if we do not see Hester Prynne, Captain Ahab and Isabel Archer as self-reliant questers.

Emerson brought America a perspective we needed, and still benefit from having and applying well. It's no surprise to me that my father, a high school graduate, had a copy of Emerson's famous essay Self Reliance all marked up with agreements and underlinings. Philosophy of the right sort can reach us all, where we live. And it should. 

Can The Deepest Secret Be Spoken?

There is perhaps no insight of philosophy more important than this. 

In all my years of teaching, I had just one student get really mad at me. We were two weeks into a month-long daily seminar on "Faith, Reason, and The Meaning of Life." The National Endowment for the Humanities had brought together a group of amazing teachers from around the country, remarkable individuals who taught in grades K-12, for a summer enrichment program. I was the sole professor. And I was pretty young, in my early thirties. The seminar itself, after eight years of teaching and learning, eventually became the book Making Sense of It All.

The student, an experienced teacher, was irate. His wonderful, fairy-tale, story-book marriage had just come to an end, days before he was to travel to South Bend for my seminar. His wife had left him a message on the kitchen table that she was gone and would not be coming back. Their life together was over. He was stunned, and crushed, and in emotional free-fall. He was desperate to find some sort of meaning and how to make sense of this shock, and of life itself, amidst the craziness, the disappointment, the despair, and the unexpected suffering that can assail us in this world. We had been reading and talking for two weeks, and he was at the end of his rope. He wanted to know the meaning of life, and he wanted to know it right then. That day. No more delay, no more waiting. Why did we keep beating around the bush? We'd been reading stuff and philosophizing for hours at the time, and there was no clear answer! 

I went by his dorm room and talked with him for two hours. I quickly came to realize that he was suffering under an assumption that a lot of us naturally make.

He was assuming that the deepest secret for living in this world, the most profound insight, the key to a meaningful, happy, fulfilling life, can somehow be captured in the content of a sentence, or statement, or proposition. And he thought that I was stubbornly refusing to utter that statement, choosing instead to tease the class with roundabout hints and elusive suggestions, but never saying the one thing that most needed to be said.

I had to challenge him and ask him how he knew that what he was searching for could be said at all. What gave him to believe that there were some magic words that would change everything in an instant? 

Now, admittedly, this was years before I wrote a book called If Aristotle Ran General Motors, and in a chapter on "Business and the Meaning of Life," I did actually manage to convey what I consider to be the single deepest truth that can be stated on this issue, a truth I had to discover for myself, from hints and clues spread throughout the wisdom traditions of the world. So, in that book, and in the subsequent big yellow tome, Philosophy for Dummies, I did write a sentence providing what I think is the one and only definitive answer to the question "What Is the Meaning of Life?" And I've had people tell me that it's the most important sentence they've ever read, which makes me glad. But even then, once it was said, once the crucial statement on life's meaning was communicated, there was still something else, something crucial that, perhaps, cannot be said, and that, it seems, may be even more important.

The deepest secret may not be a statement, or a proposition, at all.

Wait. What?

There is an inevitable elusiveness to enlightenment, to salvation, to the ultimate mindset of transformed wisdom. In a book I just read for the third time this week and twice already wrote about here, Siddhartha, the title character comes to exactly the realization that, maybe, the most important and deepest secret to living well in this world can never be said or taught in simple declarative statements. He meets Gautama the Buddha, and says to him:

I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in your enlightenment. 

He admires greatly the message that the Buddha is conveying in his words, as he teaches his disciples, and yet says this about it, as a whole teaching:

But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One experienced - he alone among hundreds of thousands.

The deepest secret is perhaps too big, and deep, and transformative to be caught like a bird and caged up into language, into words. But it can be discovered. It can be encountered. One who has experienced it can introduce it, in a way, to another. And then, it can do its work. 

Even Plato, writing in his Seventh Letter, says about his own deepest wisdom that:

It is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning; only after long partnership in a common life devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark, and once it is born there it nourishes itself thereafter.

In the third chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus tries to explain to the scholar Nicodemus that, in the case of our Ultimate Quest, the name of the game is not discovering the right true sentences, but undergoing a radical transformation. Siddhartha's own eventual Guide to understanding and metamorphosis, the simple ferryman Vasudeva, basically has to help his new friend see that there is no shortcut to the deepest secret. We each have to make our mistakes, commit sins and errors, take wrong paths, try things that don't seem to help, live through adventures, and maybe, as a result of being in the right frame of mind at the right time, the light from the most elusive flame will be sparked in us. There will be a dawn. We'll then see anew. But this will happen, in some sense, and in every case, beyond words.

And that's what all the mystics have been trying to tell us, with many words, for a very long time.

Oh, and my one angry man, my irate student: He calmed down as a result of our many words together and my efforts to push him that day beyond words. He seemed to understand. I couldn't be blamed for not doing the impossible. And yet. And yet.

I know now more than I did then. And I could have been more helpful, I think, if I had lived through and learned all that I've subsequently lived through and learned, but, as Plato says, not like in other branches of learning. This tree grows in a distinctive way. And perhaps it speaks its deepest secrets almost as faintly as as the sound of a light breeze blowing through its branches. And if there is a spark, that breeze may fan it into the flame that's needed to provide the light that's desired.

When Things Go Wrong

We live in a world where things often go wrong. In fact, you can divide all of your life into three basic kinds of time segments:

1. The time when you're waiting for something to happen, wanting it to happen, and perhaps doing all you can to make it happen,

2. The time when it either happens, and you're glad, maybe even elated, or perhaps relieved, or else,

3. The time when it was supposed to happen and didn't, and you're either sad, or mad, discouraged, or even worse.

In the book by Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, published in 1922, which I wrote about yesterday, there's one very interesting story. The young man Siddhartha is working for a very successful and wealthy businessman. The rich man is always worried about something, or angry when anything doesn't go right. Siddhartha is never worried or angry. He treats business like a sport to play, and in a very pure way, where he simply enjoys the playing, without any concern about who wins or loses. And because of his attitude, he wins much more often than he loses.

One day, he makes a trip to a distant town where he's hoping to purchase a crop that he and his partner can then resell for a major profit. But when he arrives at the town, he learns the deal has already been made, with someone else. Rather than reacting with sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, regret, resentment, concern or worry, fuming that he's wasted all the time and energy of travel for nothing, he quickly turns nothing into something. He meets the people of the town and gets to know them. He visits with them, eats with them, and plays with their children. He has a wonderful time making new friends with those who will probably now very much want to do business with him in the future. His older partner wouldn't likely have done any of this, but would typically have stormed off in a huff, furious that he'd missed the great opportunity he'd pursued.

A CEO once told me that it's his job to worry. And from what I could see, he does it very well. But is that really a mission critical job? What does his worry accomplish that simple planning, checking, and exercising vigilant care couldn't do? I can't see how the worry, the tension of anxiety, adds anything to the mix of productive endeavor. Most negative emotions, in most situations, are the same. Our hero, Siddhartha, by not worrying or allowing any negative emotions to overtake him, was easily able to turn nothing into something. He showed how we can all be opportunistic in a very positive way, at those times when things initially don't seem to go our way, and, in fact, in almost any situation in which we find ourselves. We can deal positively and creatively with whatever happens, and make the best of it.

And I can't think of anything better than that.

Siddhartha's Search

I think I first read Siddhartha, the little classic novel by Hermann Hesse, in college, in the early seventies. I read it again in 1998. Then again this week. It's the story of a well born boy in India who is handsome, highly intelligent, well liked, and by all appearances effortlessly successful in everything he does. But he's not happy inside. Despite what seems to be an easy path of Brahmin life, through study and eventually a sort of priestly vocation, Siddhartha decides to renounce all his privileges and go into the forest as a Samana, or beggar. The idea is to minimize the physical in order to get in touch with the spiritual and find both meaning and happiness. His best friend Govinda joins him. They go in search of spiritual teachings that will bring them meaning, purpose and fulfillment, and continue on this path for three years. But they don't find what they're looking for. 

And then they hear of a great teacher, the Buddha, who has broken free of all illusion and has attained the goal of true wisdom and happiness. They go to meet him. He shows inner peace in everything he does. His words are attractive. Govinda wants to become one of his followers. Siddhartha can't. He is immensely impressed with the Buddha but senses somehow that what he needs is not more teaching, or more words, from anyone, but a different path, one that's distinctively his.

The childhood friends part company. Siddhartha moves on, and comes to a town where he sees Kamala, a stunningly beautiful young woman and richly attired courtesan who, as a profession, teaches the art of love. He ardently wants to be her student. But she's unwilling to practice her art with a dirty, ragged beggar. She will see him only if he wears beautiful clothes and shoes, and is bathed and perfumed, with his hair fixed in the way of the wealthy. He then quickly attains these things as effortlessly as he's gained anything in the world that he's ever set as a goal - other than, of course, enlightenment, which alone seems to have eluded him. And he becomes Kamala's best student ever. He learns to play at love as an artist. And in order to continue with her, he learns also to play at business, as another art, or nearly a sport. He flourishes in all outward ways. But he's still not happy at his core. He grows to love Kamala but to hate what he's become in order to win her.

One day, Siddhartha leaves again for the forest. But this time, he's so distraught over what he's become in his pursuit of wealth and worldly pleasure that he feels suicidal. He meets a ferryman at a wide river and, to his great surprise, this man becomes the person who leads him to the enlightenment he has always sought, but who does so more with actions than with words. The ferryman isn't a teacher or preacher so much as a listener. And because of this he shows Siddhartha how to listen - at first to the river, and then to any living thing, and to hear and see and find within the nature and people around him the universal pattern and unity of all things that has otherwise eluded him.

In the Bhagavad Gita, a charioteer is the source of wisdom and enlightenment. In The Legend of Bagger Vance, it's a golf caddy. In this story, it's a river ferryman. All are servants. All are people who help others to move toward their goals. And in all three stories, the simple servant is the source of enlightenment. Because a good servant listens, he can then speak in such a way as to direct the seeker toward his goal. And that's a lesson worth pondering for those among us who want to help others accomplish the right things in their lives.

Siddhartha is a book you can read multiple times, a short tale of 122 pages in the old edition I own. And it's provocative. You won't agree with everything in it, but it can stimulate your own thoughts  about life and love, work and wealth, meaning, purpose, and happiness.

Priorities

We all have priorities. We value some things over others. We prefer certain activities to alternatives. And yet, we're not always aware of our priorities. Twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich suggested that everyone has what he called an "Ultimate Concern" - a priority that trumps all others, a most important thing in your life. For some people, it might be life itself. For others, love, or family. For too many, it seems to be money, or power, or status.

The ancient stoic philosophers believed that our chief concern should be to know what is properly our ultimate good. Then we can take care to govern our lives accordingly, not letting our priorities get out of order, but giving the most time and attention to what's most important, and the least to the least. The fake urgencies of life often cause us to get this backwards, giving our focus to ephemeral things that are actually of little value, and letting them crowd out the things that are of greatest meaning and significance.

You've heard the old story, of the rocks and the jar, I'd imagine. A professor has a very large glass jar on a table in front of the class. He tells his students that he's going to fill it with rocks, and he does. "Is it full?" he asks. They all agree. It's full to the top. Then he produces a bucket of pebbles and begins to pour them in around the rocks, filling it even more. "You see, it wasn't actually full before," he explains as they all contemplate the much more packed container. Then he produces a bucket of sand and starts to pour it also into the jar, filling in all the cracks and spaces between the rocks and pebbles.

The professor explains that the jar is like a life. If he had started out filling it up with the little things, the grains of sand, and had packed it to the top that way, there would have been no room for the bigger pebbles, or the much larger rocks. But by filling it with the biggest things first, there was also ample room for the smaller things. He then explained the metaphor explicitly. If we allow the little urgencies and demands of life to fill our time and hearts, we'll have no space left over for the bigger things. But if we start of with a focus on what matters most, we'll also have plenty of room for life's smaller matters. It's all about priorities.

And then, there is, of course, the variant of the story where an enterprising student suddenly stands up, walks up to the desk, pops the top of a beer can he's carrying, and slowly pours it into the apparently full jar, explaining as he does, one more insight: "There's always room for Bud."

How are you with priorities? They matter in a business just like they do in a life. Get them wrong, and all sorts of things go wrong as well. Get them right, and many other things go right, things worth celebrating. Then, there's room for a Bud.

Who People Are

I've been reading a lot of Young Adult (YA) fiction recently, just to see what it's like - books such as the Hunger Games trilogy, the Divergent trilogy, The Bell Jar, and three titles by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. It's been a great ride. And I've especially enjoyed the story telling techniques of John Green. I loved the characters in his tale about young cancer kids, The Fault in Our Stars (made into a major motion picture), but really disliked the bleak philosophy that he chose to put in, underlying it, a world view which was too easy for the narrative, and in my view, unearned. An Abundance of Katherines is about a road trip two friends take, driving the interstate from Chicago, and they end up in Tennessee. One of them has only dated girls named Katherine. Until now. Hence the title.

Perhaps the most interesting of Green's books is Paper Towns (soon to be released as a major motion picture), set in Orlando. A group of high school seniors is approaching prom and graduation. The narrator is one of them, and is smitten with a girl in his class he's known since elementary school. But he's a geek, and she's super popular, and he mostly views her from afar, until these last days of school, when she suddenly includes him as her driver and support on a long night of revenge pranks aimed toward the boyfriend who has cheated on her, and the girl who lured him away, along with anyone who likely knew and didn't tell her what was going on. She turns out to be a master of the grand gesture and the intricately magnificent prank. She's courageous, intelligent, over-the-top creative, and stunningly beautiful, and our narrator falls deeply in love with her. Or does he? She suddenly disappears, leaving home and school with no explanation, but she sprinkles what look like clues around the neighborhood, using Woody Guthrie lyrics, Bob Dylan songs, and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass as sources of code and dark hints that seem to point toward an impending suicide. There is a desperate search on the part of the narrator and his best friends, a wild road trip from Orlando up I-95 to New York State, and unexpected discoveries that surprise the reader as much as the kids.

The main theme of the story seems to be as important as it is simple.

We often think we know who people are, and in reality we've just been misled by surface appearances. We come to love, or admire, or respect, or resent, or despise mere caricatures that we mistake for real people. We judge books by their covers, people by their appearances, and situations by their most obvious, and often misleading, interpretations. We think we know, when we don't. We rush, then jump, to conclusions in ways that can eat up our time and mess up our lives.

The book's narrator learns, and shows us, the wisdom of not rushing to judgment or letting our emotions dash about on their own, disconnected from the true realities to which they should be responding. I came away from the book with a renewed sense of the importance of pausing, waiting, and looking twice before passing judgment too quickly on anything that catches my eye. Not a lot in this world is exactly what it at first seems.

Wisdom is not easily misled by surface appearances. Wisdom digs deep. It embraces truth. It can wait to see what's what.

Paper Towns was a fun read, and insightful. You might enjoy it as a light summer book. Click on the title to see it on Amazon.

Go Outside!

“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” - Jane Austen

If you're like me, you don't go outside enough. I read inside. I write inside. I speak to groups of people inside. I go to a gym and workout inside. Why do we even call them workouts? They're typically work-ins. I normally eat, drink, and sleep inside. Then, there's the television. It's inside. And it often keeps me in when I could be out contemplating the heavens, gazing at the stars and feeling our smallness in the grand scheme of things. 

And we wonder why the greatest life wisdom often comes down the centuries to us from long ago. People spent much more time outside then. And it made a difference. In fact, many wise voices from the past advise us now to get out more.

“Never a day passes but that I do myself the honor to commune with some of nature’s varied forms.” - George Washington Carver

I'm think I'm going to make it a practice to get out more, to feel a few minutes of sunshine on my face, to enjoy some communion with sky and grass and trees, to sit and watch the birds fly by, and listen to the geese honk as they often pass over my backyard. Whenever I do it, it reconnects me to the fundamental things, and the real rhythms of life.

I did that recently, for hours. I sat outside and communed with nature. Nature communed back. I felt refreshed, rejuvenated, renewed.

On a beautiful day, it can be an energizing experience, even for a few minutes. And then, even after a rain, there can be a special something in the air, and on the ground.

“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” - E.E. Cummings

Why don't you give yourself the gift of more time outside? You don't have to hike the Appalachian Trail, or go climb a mountain. A few minutes in the air, and under nature's dome will do you good. Reconnect. And see if it doesn't inspire new thoughts and feelings.

Pat Conroy's Novels

I just came across a bunch of Pat Conroy novels on a shelf in my study and stood pondering them, and thought maybe I should write a little something here about him and his books. As we enter the summer season of reading big books on vacation, maybe one of his should accompany you down to the beach, or wherever you go to relax. I mean, of course, along with one of mine. 

I like Pat Conroy a lot. And I like his books. I had the chance to sit and talk with him for quite a while one night, just the two of us, and came away with the feeling that he's a really good guy. I then heard him speak to a big group of people and was really impressed with his talk. He was funny. And moving. Just like his books. Born and raised and educated in the south, he's a man who paid attention growing up and stocked his mind and heart with the stories of this distinctive region that he’s been sharing with the world for many years.  

He wrote his first book while he was still in school, and then followed up with a string of best sellers that continues to this day: 

The Water is Wide – a heroic year of teaching on a small island off the coast of South Carolina, now the basis for two great movies,

The Great Santini – growing up in the home of a fighter pilot, and having to fight for any small measure of independence and dignity while surrounded by violence, prejudice, outrageous demands, and some surprising sides of love,

The Lords of Discipline – the experience of a southern military school: hazing, torture, friendship, self-mastery, hope, betrayal, and honor,

The Prince of Tides – one family’s struggles with tragedy and madness, much of it in the midst of great beauty, along with one man’s attempt at making sense of it all,

Beach Music – the gravitational force of family and how hard it is to achieve escape velocity from place and blood, no matter what you do,  

My Losing Season – where basketball meets the rest of life,

And even a cookbook that people with culinary talents I don’t have say is one of the compelling cookbooks of our day. There are other titles, as well, but those are the ones I know.

Pat Conroy’s themes are as universal as his sense of place is particular: The experience of adversity, the power of friendship, the complex cauldron of family in which we’re all formed, the incredible lure of the low country with its rich display of the wonders of nature, here at the edge of America where I live. You can experience shock and trauma on one page of a Conroy book, and find yourself laughing out loud in the very next chapter.  

Some of the best reading times I’ve ever enjoyed have been in Pat Conroy’s books. I’ve read them even when I really should have been doing other things. I’ve relished every one, and I’ve even taken notes. You see, Pat Conroy is a good philosopher – an astute diagnostician of human nature. But, most of all, he’s a master of stories.

Whenever I’m reading one of his books, I think I appreciate my family and friends a little more, I breathe the fresh salt air of my town a bit more deeply, I linger outside a touch longer to watch water birds move across the sky, and I get really hungry. The descriptions of food in Pat's books are pretty amazing, which is possibly why he had to do a cookbook for us, to help satisfy at least one of the cravings his pages create.

So: Do yourself a favor, and try out one of his books, if you haven't already. Or grab one you haven't read. It's sure to be a great summer read.

Action, Opportunity, and Impact

We all know that personal action is required to take advantage of opportunities in life. Otherwise, they lie inert for us and then dissipate. But there's also a deeper perspective available. In Adam Bryant's New York Times column "Corner Office," Lori Senecal, Global CEO of ad agency C. P. &B. and CEO of the MDC Partner Network said something interesting this week while reflecting back on her own graduation from college and going for her first job. She got an offer and decided to take it without even realizing what all it involved. She comments:

That was a time when I embraced one of the philosophies that I go back to a lot today, which is that action creates opportunity. I didn’t know what the nature of the job would be, but I knew that if I took action, other possibilities would appear, and they did. Ever since then, I’ve often thought about action creating opportunity.

Bryant later asked her what advice she would give to new college graduates, and she said:

I talk to them about action creating opportunity. So dive in, and great things will come of it. The other thing I like to focus on is the importance of impact. You have to learn to prioritize the impact opportunities rather than just being busy. There’s an infinite amount of things that you can do, but focus on the things that will catapult the company and your career forward.

Action and opportunity - action and impact: Two vital connections. Taking action in reasonable ways, in ways that are right for us, creates opportunities, and then among those that arise, we should choose to act further on the ones that will have the greatest likely impact for good on the world, our businesses, and our own careers. Well directed action is the key, at both levels.

This is the philosophy I call activism. It's up to us to take action. Do things that matter, both by creating new possibilities, and by having impact. This is nice advice to keep in mind, not just for recent graduates, but for all of us along life's way.

Big Trees, Deep Roots

The other day, I spent the afternoon on the wide front porch wrapped around a beautiful house that was built in 1830. A great breeze cooled us as my family and I watched boats glide down the Intracoastal Waterway, and gazed on the homes of Wrightsville Beach, along the Atlantic Ocean, just across from us. Some of the oak trees on the property were amazing - with trunks so thick you couldn't get your arms around them, and soaring into the sky. There was even a tree house on the one acre property, built high in a spreading oak in 1904, and with a spiral metal staircase rising up to it. 

The house had stood and the trees had grown through nearly two centuries of coastal storms, as well as sunshine. And both the storms and the beautiful days had contributed to the beauty we experienced.

I was reminded of a statement once made by one of my favorite stoic philosophers, Seneca, who wrote this in first century Rome, in an essay called "On Providence":

Why, then, do you wonder that good men are shaken in order that they may grow strong? No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing, it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely - the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. It is, therefore, to the advantage of good men, to the end that they may be unafraid, to live constantly amidst alarms and to bear with patience the happenings that are ills only to him who ill supports them.

As Florida Scott Maxwell wrote in her incredibly wise little book The Measure of My Days, the things that we most resist and dislike, the things that cause us the most worry and pain, are often the very things that strengthen and deepen us the most, if we do our best to respond well. The storms of life can work a magic in us that transforms us into the people we're capable of being. Remember that in your next storm. Put out deeper roots, and grow tall.