The Joy of the Deeper Mind at Work

Joy awaits us all. When we work with the ordinary levels of our mind, everything's harder that it could be. When we clear away the clutter and get beyond the chatter of the normal conscious mind, joyous magic can happen.

I recently posted on social media that I had, a few days ago, finished the final major editing of the eight books that now exist in a series of novels that I've been working on for five years, since February 2011. It's the first experience of writing where I wasn't working hard in my conscious mind to think and compose. It was all a gift of the deeper mind, a layer of mentality or soul, if you will, that we all have, but that we don't often enough draw on, day to day.

These books and the stories they convey came to me, as I've said before, like a movie in my head, a translucent screening of an action and adventure story far beyond anything I could ever have created out of my ordinary operating resources. In fact, when I first started reading the manuscripts out loud to my wife, she interrupted to say, "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?" It was all that different from my nineteen previous books, all non-fiction.

One reviewer of the prologue to the series, The Oasis Within, suggested that a series of conversations between people crossing the desert wasn't that big a stretch for me, and not that far out of my comfort zone as a philosopher who is always talking about life wisdom. And he was right. But there are all these little details and plot points in Oasis that I never would have thought to develop. And there's a reason that The Oasis Within is a prologue to the new series and not a numbered volume of it. It's mostly great conversations. It prepares one of the characters for the action that's to come. And it prepared me for it, as well. But a younger reader, or a reader who just loves action can start with Book One of the series, Walid and the Mysteries of Phi, the book that's now recently out by the title The Golden Palace, which is full of action, adventure, mystery, and intrigue and brings us philosophy in an entirely new key. And all the other books are like that one in this regard, too. It's like slowly walking up to a door, and opening it, and what's inside takes you completely by surprise and launches you into an adventure that just won't stop.

Early in the process, when I learned to calm my conscious mind and just relax and release, the magic would happen. With the deeper mind at work, you feel more like a receptacle, or a conduit. I've mentioned here before, I think, Elizabeth Gilbert's new book Big Magic, where she tells several stories about this remarkable kind of creative experience. It's joyous and practically effortless in its level of self-perceived exertion. How often can we say of our job, paradoxically, that "It's the hardest I've ever worked" and "It's the easiest thing I've ever done" and "It's been pure joy" all at the same time?

This is a hallmark of the deeper mind at work. There is amazing persistence of accomplishment and a sense of ease, and an overflowing of joy to match. The joy is wondrous, deep and high, wide and focused, inner and outer somehow at the same time. It animates everything else you do. It's remarkable, and it's maybe meant to be our most natural state—when we've peeled away all else, all the accretions of consciousness and contrary emotion, when we get down, deep to our most fundamental resource, one that's both natural and transformative at the same time.

I heartily recommend working from your deeper mind and experiencing the joy that's there awaiting you. I'm hoping that another book will also come to me the same way. After a million and two thousand and five hundred and more words, I feel like I'm just getting started. And isn't that the way our work should feel?

A Reflection on Valentine's Day

WARNING: You should read this only if you're absolutely sure you have nothing better to do. This is my belated Valentine's Day philosophical gift to you. The warning.

It’s nice to have survived another Valentine’s Day. And I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my history with this holiday.

Let me first ask something. Ladies, have you ever been given a Valentine’s gift that was poorly thought out, inappropriate, or in any way disappointing?

Guys: Have you ever given such a gift?

I’ve had my share of Valentine disasters. And we philosophers like to find wisdom in catastrophe. I woke up recently reflecting on it all. I’ve had plenty of time to think during my lengthy house arrest since the day in question. You’d think I’d know better after 42 Valentine’s Days with the same person.

There’s nothing scary about Halloween. It’s Valentine’s Day that’s scary. You see all the men in our local grocery store the day before in utter panic trying to pick out the right card or bunch of flowers. They’ve got their Game Faces on, but you can almost smell the fear.

My wife likes to tell her friends that she knows when it’s early February each year because right after the groundhog does his thing, I start walking around the house saying what a made up holiday Valentine’s Day is, and how it’s just a crass money grab. And how, you know, I like to show my love and affection every day, not just one day of the year. I’ve got all the standard guy stuff well rehearsed.

I mean, I got my daughter and granddaughter two-dozen roses this year and it was like, Ok there goes the college fund. They should draw Cupid’s arrow going right through your Master Card.

But when my wife and I were first dating I hatched a plan. I’d get her presents for Valentine’s Day whose price doesn’t double or triple for the occasion. But I’d have a really romantic heart-red theme—the color red—and that’s the primary Valentine color. So I’d always get her something red. I'd be golden.

Early in our marriage, she was driving a Volkswagen beetle, and I had seen a couple of those cars on the side of the road with engine fires, smoke coming out of the hoods. So I thought, wow, I can show love for my wife in a deep way with a very special red present. So I got her the extremely loving gift of a … red fire extinguisher. Well, that put out the fire in a way I had not actually anticipated.

So, Ok, it’s a gift you hope you never have to use, like a defibrillator. Maybe that was the problem. So the next year I got her something more hopefully useful, a red Swiss army knife. It was a nice knife. But I was the one who ended up sleeping in a tent and whittling. I’m just kidding. She was simply puzzled.

And I’m not the worst at this—not by a long shot. A banker in town told me that, I think it was for his first Valentine’s Day with his wife, he went to a top department store in town and got her, in his words, “The very best frying pan they had—top of the line” and when he presented it, she started crying. He said it took him a while to realize they weren’t tears of joy.

One of my other good friends just told me that he had realized he’d better explain his first Valentine’s Gift to his wife. So these were his words: “But we’ve really NEEDED a vacuum cleaner.” I’m not making this up.

In case you’re wondering what I got my wife this year, I once again thought I had something unique: Red Hummus and a red and white kitchen spatula. Yeah. I know. But now I get away with stuff like this, because she looks forward to being able to tell her friends, who are suitably horrified. In some strange, transformational alchemy, the worst my gifts are, the better the story is, and that ends up being the gift. But we do have to wash it down with some really good French champagne. I’ve at least learned SOMETHING.

I ended up this year actually looking good compared to one friend, a CPA at our church, God bless him, who’s maybe even more frugal than I am. You want him managing your money but probably not giving you a gift. He waits until there’s a sale at the Dollar Store.

At church Sunday, my wife asked him whether he had risen to the occasion for the special day. Did he get his wife something nice? His first words were “Well there’s this tray she has for serving me breakfast in bed.” And I knew this was going nowhere good. He said, “One of the legs on the tray had broken. So I got her a new tray.”

Many of us should feel lucky to still be walking and talking—and in a relationship that actually survives such choices. And I think there’s a philosophical lesson or two here for the taking, buried within my well-intended failures and the missteps of nearly my entire gender. But maybe I should leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

A Sunday Reflection on Religion and Faith

I've been away from blogging for a couple of months. I first took a break in honor of the holidays. And then I got busy editing my new series of novels for a quicker than normal schedule of publication. I hope you've already seen the prologue to the series, the book The Oasis Within. It's been out for a few months. And just this week, the first numbered volume in the series Walid and the Mysteries of Phi, The Golden Palace, appeared on Amazon. In two or three months, I hope to have volume two out as well, The Stone of Giza. 

I'm almost done in my editing of the eight books I've already written for the series. And today, Sunday, I want to share a passage I just edited. Even though the books are set mainly in Egypt, certain things happen in faraway places, like Tunisia, or Berlin, or New York City. This passage comes from a story line in numbered Book Seven, The Ancient Scroll. The setting is New York City in 1935 at a Methodist Church. The minister, Bob Archdale, is working on a sermon. We get a chance to see into his head and heart as he makes notes. I hope you enjoy this passage.

Bob at the moment was in his office preparing his sermon for the next morning. He was planning to talk on the nature of faith and how it’s more about perception and values and commitment than just belief. He had decided to use as his biblical text the famous meeting at night between Jesus and the Jewish Rabbinical leader Nicodemus, as reported in the Gospel of John, chapter three. At a time when most of the religious establishment either disliked or feared Jesus, this prominent teacher had gone to see him at night, when, presumably his visit would not be public knowledge. He approached the controversial figure and actually said, “Teacher, some of us know that you were sent by God, because no one could do the things you do without divine support.” And then Jesus, rather than acknowledging the scholar’s rare open-minded reasoning and remarkable belief, says something instead that can be very puzzling on more than one level. His words in response were: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus is of course perplexed and says, “How can anyone return to the womb and be born a second time?” And then Jesus answers in such a way as to indicate that his entire ministry and mission aren’t primarily about reasoning and belief, but personal transformation into what’s really a new life, with new perceptions, values, and commitments.

Bob knew that, at almost any time, many of the people in his church were showing up, week-to-week, to make a deal with God. They would believe whatever they needed to believe, and do whatever they needed to do, in order to gain divine favor and everlasting life. Some were likely just hedging their bets and maybe living out the famous Agnostic’s Prayer: “Oh God, if there is a God, please save my soul, if there is a soul.” They were there in an effort to perhaps improve their lot and maybe defeat death. But God wanted them there to defeat spiritual blindness and deafness and idolatry and selfishness. He wanted to see them born anew, raised from the death of alienation and separation and selfishness to a new life of union with him and each other. He wanted an eternal life for them now, which was more about quality than it was about quantity. 

He really wanted to get this point across to everyone who showed up for the service. The faith they were being called to embrace is about new life, new values, and new commitments lived all day, every day. He wanted them to understand that when the insistent felt needs of the untutored ego can be released, its real needs can be met. And then, we can experience the genuine power of humility, compassion, and deep faith. The reverend was hoping to get all this across in a persuasive and illuminating way, so that at least many of the members of his congregation could perhaps see the issues of faith in a new and richer light.

When people approach religion for what they can get out of it, they ironically make it nearly impossible to get the most out of it. It becomes a tool—an instrument the ego is merely using to enhance its own interests, whether those interests are healthy or not. That’s why we’ve had so much war and violence and oppression in the name of religion throughout history. These things have nothing to do with true spirituality, but are perversions or deformations of what faith and the quest of the spirit are supposed to be all about. We often come across people pursuing their own greed, with their own ambitions, and superstitiously seeking to assuage their worst fears under a false patina of religious language, ritual, and sentiment. And this wasn’t just a danger for other times and places, Archdale knew, but it’s a temptation for any of us unless we can come to a true understanding of spiritual things.

Some Good We Can Do Together

I'm hoping you'll join me to make something good happen.

The New Book

Ever since I left Notre Dame in 1995 to pursue the unusual job of being a public philosopher, I've wanted to write a book full of ideas that had been transformative for me and that would also be genuinely life changing for readers. After 19 nonfiction books, I think I've finally managed to do so at a new level with the new novel, The Oasis Within. 

It arrived as the biggest surprise of my life, and as the doorway to - so far - seven other much longer novels that are also now completely written and just awaiting a final edit and publication. The Oasis Within is a prologue to this series of longer books. My granddaughter christened the big series "Walid and the Mysteries of Phi," featuring the name of the main character and a Greek letter that in this context names both a mathematical ratio and a secret society that's unlike any group of people ever written about, and that's profoundly relevant to how we understand our own lives. I've learned more about life and its possibilities from the characters in these stories than I ever would have thought possible. I've also come to love the characters as if they were real: and in a way, they are.

You've most likely heard me tell the story. The first scene came to me uninvited, as a strikingly unusual, vivid daydream one morning in February of 2011. An old man and a boy were sitting in the sand under a palm tree, talking. They were in the desert in Egypt. It was the summer of 1934. I ran upstairs to my study to write quickly what I was seeing and hearing. I continued to transcribe this mental movie for four and a half years, never consciously devising a scene or plot twist or character. I just watched it all unfurl and did my best to describe what I saw and heard.

A Fellowship of the Mind

There's a concept in The Oasis Within that's become especially important to me - the idea that there can be a "Fellowship of the Mind" in our world, a loose collection of people who are fully open to discovering who they most deeply are, and what they can truly do with their talents and energies – kindred souls who help each other learn to see deeper patterns in events and to draw on otherwise neglected powers for creative accomplishment that can make a difference for their own lives and in their broader communities. I have an audacious hope that if this book gets into the right hands, all the stories in it and the subsequent series may help bring readers together into such a fellowship that can be uniquely powerful. 

Our world is full of tangled problems that no one seems capable of solving, and of intransigent politics that rarely appear to rise above the level of schoolyard taunts. We need something superior to what we're already doing. And in a time when more people than ever are telling me they want their lives to really matter, we all need the right ideas and inspiration for the best path forward. 

My Proposal

Here's what I've realized and now want to act on: You, dear reader, know many people I'll likely never meet. You have a sphere of influence that I could never duplicate. If you've read The Oasis Within already and it's touched you, or even if you haven't yet, but are willing to, and you then find it so resonant that you're moved to go even farther and use it to touch the lives of the people around you, I have a proposal.

I want to get this new book into the hands of as many good people as I can. I don't care about Amazon rankings or bestseller lists or author royalties at this stage. I just want this book to have the impact it's capable of having. And the challenge is now mine, since to get it into the world, I've left the realm of established publishers and have "gone rogue" and created my own imprint for all these books. They were too "different" for the literary agents I've worked with in the past. They couldn't be put into an easy genre box for mainstream publication. Or so I was told. And I knew I wouldn’t change them from being what they are. I believe in them exactly as they’ve come to me. So, I've launched my own publishing initiative, in such a way that allows me to offer you a proposal.

If you can commit this month to buying at least 25 copies of The Oasis Within to give to friends, family, and associates, I can provide them for you at a cost of $7 a book, including shipping, for the beautiful paperback that retails for $14.99. Anyone who orders 50 or more at this price will also get, as a gift from me, the first long novel in the subsequent series, a book called The Golden Palace, which will be fully edited and ready before the New Year. Some friends who’ve ordered 25, 35, 50, 65, 100, or even 200 copies of the book to give away as gifts within their own circles sparked this idea. They were excited to pass the book on to their clients or friends, or to others they come into contact with in the course of their daily lives.

What You Can Do

Here's what you can do, if you'd like to partner up with me in this way. By sending an email to TomVMorris(at)aol(Dotcom), let me know how many copies you'd like to order to give to others. It could be 25 or any number above that. Include in your email your best mailing address. I'll place the order for you right away and have the books shipped directly from the printer to you. I'll then email you an invoice that you can pay by check. If your order includes copies for a book club, let me know and I'll make myself available for a short email of Q&A for the members, or even a brief Skype time with them. I've never done anything like this before. But I think the time is right.

During the holidays, you'll likely be giving presents to people you care about and who make your life better. I hope you'll join me in spreading philosophy by giving The Oasis Within to some of those people, inviting them into a fellowship of the mind and heart that can enhance their lives and perhaps even the world around them a little more than would otherwise be possible.

It felt as if the characters of these books chose me to bring them and their lessons into the world. If you can help me share them in your own part of the world, it would be great. If you've already ordered lots of copies, or in case that's not possible right now, or even if you're just not at all moved to join me in this way with such an endeavor, I hope you'll simply help the books find their mission in the world by mentioning them to others. There's a lot of work for them to do in our time.

Thanks so much for considering this distinctive form of partnership! 

The National Launch of The Oasis Within

Tonight is the official national launch of my new book and first novel, The Oasis Within. If you live near Wilmington, NC come to Barnes and Noble in the Mayfair Town Center at 6 for the celebration! I'll be donating a portion of each copy sold to The Teacher's Fund, a great local philanthropic outreach to area teachers in the elementary grades, to provide for supplies that are much needed. 

It's been nine years since I did a bookstore event, and I'm excited about tonight's opportunity. If you live anywhere other than Wilmington, NC, first of all, visit when you can. But second, you can join us virtually tonight by going to your favorite online bookseller and grabbing copies of The Oasis Within for friends and family. You can even write me about sending you signed bookplates for the books, for any order of 5 copies or more! 

If you live nearby, I hope to see you tonight. It will be a meaningful time for me. The writer's life can be a solitary endeavor. But bringing a book into the world can be an act of social outreach. This book is so chock full of ideas I can't wait to share! And early readers are sending me such gratifying emails! Let me share two or three here, and then I'll be quiet. The first is from an old friend, a company founder and president who just lost his adult son, suddenly, not long ago. The second is from a neighbor I met the first time on a plane to Charlotte the other day, an accomplished artist who lost her husband not long ago, and then her only son. We live in a world of great gifts and great losses, of gains and challenges, and possibilities for deep growth. Then I'll end with a man in town who did a nice Facebook post for the event tonight. Here are the sample reader reactions:

Hi, Tom! The Oasis Within is breathtaking. At times while reading I actually gasped at the beauty of the writing and the clarity of such profound and life changing ideas. Virtually every page of your book is now covered in highlights. I was particularly taken with your perspective on uncertainty. Like so many folks, I've often resisted uncertainty, or even feared it. I now have a new tool in the toolkit. 

I also loved your description of goals. In my career I have focused on goals and talked about goals and obsessed about goals. But I never really saw them as a new path of concentrated, consistent and committed action. How I use goals in my life will never be the same.

Your discussion of the fire of positive energy, and for me, the idea that tough times can become fuel is inspiring and so very useful right now.

I could go on and on, but I do want to thank you specifically for one other insight - the roles of nobility and humility. After 30 years and hundreds of AA meetings that revolve around humility, I still didn't have a good way to think about the dichotomy of those ideas in life. Now I do.

I was captured by Ali and Walid. And I was taken by surprise by the plot twist and revelation. I can't wait to see what happens. Tom, this is a remarkably important work, one that I'm certain will benefit thousands and thousands of people. Thanks for sharing and thanks for your friendship.

Jack H.

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Hi Tom: I’m home from Naples and I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed THE OASIS WITHIN! I was hooked from the opening chapter……underlining, highlighting, making notes and ‘WOW”s in the columns………

Full of chills……one in particular…….When I got to the chapter entitled ‘WISDOM BUCKET’…..for some odd reason, I drew a heart around those words………I read those two pages…..turned the page and read the line…..”My wisdom bucket is in my heart”……..chills up and down my spine….. I was definitely meant to read this book………….so, AGAIN……THANK YOU. Hope to make it to the book signing……already have a list of friends who will receive them for Christmas!!! And definitely will share with my book club!

In the last 8 years, I’ve watched my husband succumb to cancer…….and then my only child succumb to ALS………. Since I’ve been searching……which I guess is pretty normal……trying to figure out what’s next for me and trying to be open to those answers, directions, signs, etc. This book arrived in my hands in a totally random way… (Thank you Universe). MY book is now full of “highlighting”, notes, “Wows”, answers……One I will read over and over and over….It’s THAT GOOD! And so now, I’m on this new ADVENTURE with Uncle Ali and Walid…….and can’t wait to continue the journey……. Thank you Tom Morris!

With gratitude, Anne. (Anne Cunningham, Metal Artist)

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From Facebook:

I’m compelled to stump for my Wilmington friend and philosopher, Tom Morris. If you haven't yet stumbled across his absolute gem of a book, "The Oasis Within", then please check it out. It is the most meaningful book I've read in years, possibly ever. Book signing this Friday evening at Mayfaire's Barnes & Noble.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1668042616770164/

Tom Hackler, Duke Energy

Friends! This is Tom Morris again. If you have a chance to read the new book soon, please write and let me know what you think!  TM

Our Emotional Telescope

In light of the Paris events of late, I thought my friends might benefit from a short passage in my new book, The Oasis Within. Here it is.

The old man asked him, “Have you ever come across a telescope?”

“Yes, once, in the village, years ago. There was a man, a visitor, with a small telescope that you could hold in your hands, and he let me look through it. Things that were far away suddenly seemed close. It was like magic.”

The old man said, “When I was a lot younger than you, a kind neighbor gave me such a telescope as a gift. I imagine it was much like the one you held. I used it to look all around me. I remember I once stood in the middle of the village with it. I could see people in their houses, men at a distance, and animals far down the road. I discovered something important that day.”

“What was it?”

“When I peered through the small end like everyone does, it made things look bigger and closer. But then, I turned the telescope around in my hands. I have no idea what made me think to do that. I put it up to my eye again and gazed this time through the big end. I was so amazed! It made everything around me look much smaller and far away. Large men seemed little. Tall trees were shrunken into tiny images of themselves.” He smiled at the memory.

The boy said, “I never looked into the big end like that.”

“Well, we all have in our minds something like an inner telescope for our thoughts and feelings. When things seem bad, we automatically view them through the small end of our telescope, like most people do, and then those things look much bigger and closer and worse than they really are. That’s what makes us frightened or worried. But, just like a real telescope, we can turn it around, and look through the other end. That will make our problems appear smaller. It will reduce in our minds and hearts the perceived size of what we face. Then we can feel bigger and more powerful. Often, that’s just what we need.”

“Wow. That makes sense. It’s a new way of thinking.”

Yes it is. So, when you’re afraid or worried or sad, think of your inner telescope. Are you looking through the end that almost everyone uses? Are you making things seem bigger and more imposing than they really are? You have the power to turn the telescope around and gaze through the other end. You’ll then see the difficulties as smaller, and you’ll feel better, and stronger.”

The boy was impressed, and pleased. “I like this idea. It’s a good image. And really, it’s not something I’ve ever thought about.”

The old man smiled again. “Here’s the ultimate secret, my boy. Once you’ve mastered this trick with your mind and understand the power of perspective, once you’ve grown enough in wisdom and knowledge of the world, you can put your inner telescope down and simply look at things as they are. And you’ll know. Most things in reality are no bigger than we can handle. And that’s important to remember.”

Welders and Philosophers

In the most recent Republican presidential primary debate, Senator Marco Rubio said:

“For the life of me, I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.” 

First of all, let me ignore the grammatical infelicity here and agree that the senator is absolutely right in his opinion that vocational education is not as appreciated as it should be in our time and place. One of the best books written on this topic is Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew Crawford, who happens to be a philosopher with a prestigious PhD who makes his living by working with his hands as a motorcycle repairman, and thus demonstrates that the we should beware of false alternatives in our political rhetoric. Crawford argues eloquently for a recognition of the value and dignity of manual labor, with a special emphasis on its skilled varieties. Life doesn’t offer us a stark choice between doing or thinking, and neither should any good system of education. There are different ways by which we can enjoy a life of thoughtful work. Welding can certainly be one of them. So can toiling as a philosopher.

To the claim that welders make more money than philosophers, my first response would be that if it’s true, then, so what? Would it follow as the senator seems to suggest that we need more welders, thereby increasing our available supply and, against presumably equal demand, competitively force their wages down to the level of the sages? Stranger yet is the fact that behind these remarks we can see the exact value assumption that’s gotten us in trouble: The belief that higher wages mean a higher value to our society. That’s precisely the equation that’s led us down the road of valuing college prep vastly more than vocational education, and trying to train everyone for white collar careers, whether that’s the best thing for a particular young person, or for the rest of us, in the first place. A mediocre hedge fund manager may make a lot more money than a great school teacher, or a master welder, but you can’t convince me that this is a good measure of their relative value to society. So even if the welders of the world are out there lighting their cigars with hundred dollar bills and the average philosopher can’t pay the rent, I don’t think that implies anything about the relative value of welders and philosophers. 

When I first went to graduate school at Yale to become a philosopher, I remember seeing a newspaper clipping on a philosophy department bulletin board. It featured a photograph of a construction worker sitting on the ground, eating out of his steel lunch box, his hard-hat by his side, and with a copy of Heidegger open in front of him. I said to myself, “That’s it. That’s the role of philosophy - to help everyone become more thoughtful about their lives.” I spent fifteen years as a professor of philosophy in a great university and my goal was never to turn my students into wage-earning academic philosophers, but instead to help them develop a more robust philosophical dimension of their experience and thought, whether they went on to become doctors, lawyers, insurance agents, or welders.

And in my most recent two decades as a public philosopher working with people across industries and professions, my goal is the same. We need more good philosophy and philosophers in our time, not less of it and fewer of them. But that’s because we need more philosophical practitioners in all walks of life, including politics.

Rodin got it right in his famous sculpture of The Thinker, which I first saw in person many years ago. It surprised me to notice how muscular an individual is depicted in the statue. He’s obviously a man of action as well as of thought. Rodin had expressed a deep insight. The good thinker should ideally be a proficient doer; and the active doer, a careful thinker. Only then will things have a chance to go well.

This is something all our candidates for high office should keep in mind. Doing without thinking is much more dangerous than thinking without doing. And no politician who ignores such philosophical insights can ever take on the fissures in our body politic and stand a chance of repairing our wholeness with good and lasting welds.

Things We Can't Control

I’m standing in the Charlotte airport waiting to board a plane to Houston. And I’m well positioned, ten minutes ahead of time, in the Priority Boarding Lane of Gate C18. There’s a guy on the other side of a fat vertical column who has a cough every bit as thick as the cement post. It’s rich and deep - and quite impressive, in fact. It’s both frequent and explosive. I also hear the man sniffing. He’s really sick. I hope he’s not going to be sitting anywhere near me. It’s a big plane, an Airbus 320. There are hundreds of seats. But still, you know what they say about microbes in recycled airplane air. If he’s in the cargo area, I’m in trouble. That’s the sort of thing you learn from watching too many TV news shows.

But he’s here at the Priority Lane. A scary thought crosses my mind. Maybe like me, he’s in first class. That would be really bad. It’s a long flight and close quarters. But no, I remind myself, he could just be Platinum Preferred and able to get on soon, but will be sitting in the last row in the back of the plane. Yeah, that could happen. And maybe, just maybe, the germs would stay back there in his vicinity. He coughs again, thunderously.

I start hatching likely scenarios to keep me from worrying. He got here for this flight, last minute, up from his sickbed, or the hospital, and is going to board early because of the long walk ahead of him, far from my designated seat, 3A, which I chose just days ago when I switched flights to avoid predicted thunderstorms and tornadoes. Surely, my general good fortune will keep me at a safe distance from this germ distribution center. Did I mention that he never masks his cough with a hand or arm or anything? Yeah. He prefers to project out into the airport air more generally, getting those particles as far from his body as he can. I guess he figures that the rest of us can just take our chances. Where’s TSA when you really need them?

So we board. I’m the second guy on the plane. Mr. Sick is not third, or fourth, or fifth, or even sixth. Good. I feel relieved. Maybe he was just standing near me in the gate area for no good reason and he'll be in the back of the plane, after all, or possibly - hope springs eternal - he’s on another plane altogether. And even if - worst case scenario - he is on this plane and joins us in first class, there are 12 seats, which means 10 chances out of 11 that he will be in a seat that will keep me relatively isolated from his hawking, spewing, spraying barks of disease. 

And now, here’s where I let out a big sigh. You can probably see already what’s going to happen. I couldn’t, eternal optimist that I am. And there he is, the human aerosol, hacking his way onto the plane and down the aisle. He’s not in row one. Not in row two. Ok. Then I see him stop and lift his roller-bag into the overhead compartment … right above my third row. Oh, no.

But there’s no need to panic. Row 3 has two seats across the wide aisle and well away from me - 3D and 3F. I quickly do the math. There are only 4 seats in the row, with 3 now available, and 2 of those are options I could live with. My chances are good. And, of course, he sits down in neither of these less harmful spots, but in 3C, right up beside me. My elbow is inches from his. The coughs continue, but after some hot coffee they slow down to merely one every 20 seconds or so. They’re still impressively powerful. The back of the seat in front of his is now more teeming with viral and bacterial flora and fauna than a petri dish in Mass General Hospital. 

I lean as far up against the window as I can. I become one with the safety glass. What are my options? A massive attack of stomach gas on my part might encourage his own avoidance posture. Yeah, that would get him leaning in the opposite direction like nothing else. But this obvious tactic seems not to be an option right now. And that’s more than a little ironic, isn’t it? There are things in life that never seem to be available when you could most use them, and yet insistently near to hand when you least desire their advent. We live in a funny world. He coughs again to punctuate my sentence, and as if to mock my own normal and stubbornly reticent inner bodily functions.

I started writing this so I won’t have to face him and talk. The flight attendants serve food. He'll have the crepes. I'll have the caniptions. I practically bathe in Purell Hand Sanitizer. And I keep my food well out of his repeated spray pattern. I eat quickly so that ambient infectious particles can’t alight on the biscuit. I use more hand stuff. 

An hour passes like this. The pilot announces we’re ONLY an hour and twenty minutes out from our destination and the possibilities of detox. By now, I’ve used most of my sanitizer, which I truly want to squirt down my seat companion’s mouth, but I’m already far too close to the volcanic orifice, continually erupting as it is, like Old Faithful. Where’s a surgical mask when you need one?

There he goes again. Everyone else on the plane is sitting quietly and like me trying not to breathe at all. No one else is coughing. Just this one guy inches from my face. At least I’m not flying to London with him. As it is, we should be met at the gate in Houston by a HazMat Team. And I’ve got the busiest week of the year coming up in a few days. I really should get this guy’s name, address, and legal contact, in case I need to sue him. But I can't turn to speak to him.

There should be some limits on who can get onto a crowded plane. In this guy’s present condition, he needed to be airlifted to Texas - medivac style - and hooked up to something in the presence of only people in decontamination suits.

This all leads me to reflect on the stuff we can’t control in life. All things considered, I guess this guy beats a tornado, but not by much. But why did that have to be my choice in the first place? Why do we get into situations like this at all? I’m a philosopher, and I don’t have the answer to that one. But it causes me to reflect. I do know that this epidemiological nighmare guy gave me a new sense of my own concerns and anxieties, and a clear chance to rise above the fatalism that our situation clearly seemed to suggest. And I now realize that, despite him, I’ll be fine. I'll rev up my immune system with the power of postivie belief. All is well, at least with my soul.

And then I sniff.

When You Run, Run Free

Imagine for a moment that The Kentucky Derby is underway. It’s a beautiful day. The horses are all rounding a turn in full stride, close together, hooves pounding, sprays and clumps of dirt flying up from the track. The colors are dazzling. The jockeys’ bright silks are glistening in the sun – green, red, yellow, in solids, stripes, and patterns of diamonds. The action is frenetic. Whips pop against the horses’ flanks. You can hear the thunderous pounding on the track.

Now consider this. Many of us are those horses. We’re racing around a track we didn't create. We have jockeys on our backs urging us on, guiding us, and at times whipping us forward. If we’re good enough to win, someone gets a trophy. And when this race is over, there’s always the Preakness. And then we’ll get ready for the Belmont Stakes. And so it goes.

I was recently at a weekend retreat for incredibly high achievers. It was the triennial Morehead-Cain Forum that brings together from around the world and across the decades hundreds of men and women, along with their spouses, who have attended The University of North Carolina on a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious full merit scholarship. This honor pays for all college expenses, sends its recipients around the globe and across disciplines to continue their learning in the summertime, and gives them extra funds for personal and intellectual discovery along the way. Long ago, it allowed me to be the first person in my family and its history on both sides ever to go to college, something that would otherwise have been impossible for a young man like me who grew up in an eight hundred square foot rental house and could eat only two meals a day at home. I’m sure the Morehead-Cain also helped get me a full ride to graduate school at Yale, where I was able to study free of cost for six more years after college and earn a double Ph.D. in philosophy and religious studies. 

And here I was in a big room full of Morehead-Cains, as I have been over a long magical weekend every three years for the past couple of decades. Many of those around me are prominent doctors and lawyers who have changed their hometowns, or their prestigious big city practices, for the better, transforming things wherever they go. They’ve started companies, or television channels, produced movies, run global enterprises, made films, created Broadway plays, or performed in such venues. They’ve discovered, invented, created, and published. They’ve helped save the US Postal Service from insolvency, transformed blighted inner city neighborhoods, launched film festivals, fought wars, and run companies like Ancestry.com where we can get our bearings in the world by discovering our historical roots. Some of the former scholars are household names. Others quietly work behind the scenes to do incredible things that boggle the mind and help create the future for us all. 

And in one of our weekend sessions, we were discussing throughout small breakout groups how we define success. In two of the groups I sat in, it became clear to me, hearing everyone else speak, that we all got to college as great young race horses who knew how to win. And we all had small but powerful jockeys on our backs – the hopes and expectations of our families, the pressures of our peers, and our own needs for praise and accomplishment, along with various other forces that pushed us and prodded us to run faster, and always faster. As a result, we had indeed won lots of races and garnered vast arrays of trophies.

But at some point, it seemed, most of the older achievers in the room were starting to ask new questions. Do I want a jockey on my back? Am I running a race that I feel compelled to run or that I choose to run? Am I enjoying the process, or is it all for the water trough and big feedbag at the end?

As I listened to my esteemed colleagues speak of their lives in a vast array of very different terms, this vivid image came to me to organize most of what I was hearing. Are we content to run someone else’s race, on their track, for the entirety of our lives? Or is there perhaps a time to leave the winner’s circle at those venues and find our own paths?

Are we prepared to follow our hearts and go our own way, even if there’s no one to hand out a trophy as a result of what we do? Are we free enough in our inner selves to set our own standards, find our own goals, and pursue dreams that are distinctively ours, outside the glare and glamour of the track where everyone gathers? That’s a key to what I call true success.

There’s actually nothing wrong with running on someone else’s track, as long as that’s what we truly enjoy and freely want to do, and as long as there’s no bright smocked jockey pushing and forcing and prodding us along. We need to shake off the blinders and bits that have been constraining us, and make sure we’re finding our own way and doing what we do because it’s truly ours to accomplish and contribute to the world.

It was still a day away from when I would stand in front of all these successful people from around the world and close the weekend with my own session on “Wisdom for the Journey.” And I had other things to say. But as I sat in the final summation around the room of our small group discussions, I was moved to raise my hand and share these simple thoughts. And when I did, the great thoroughbreds in the room broke into spontaneous applause – something that surprised me. But then I realized that we had touched a nerve, and articulated a feeling.  The only smart bet for true success is that when you run, you need to run free, and stay true to your deepest self.

On the Team: The NFL and You.

I’m sitting in the Little Rock Airport at Burger King. It’s 9:40 AM and time for lunch. Yeah, that’s how messed up you get when you travel too much. So, a guy in a brightly colored pro football team T-shirt walks by and stops when he sees another guy wearing a different team’s jersey. He gives the stranger a thumbs up and says, “You guys did real good the other day.” And then I hear:

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You got a great defense.”

“It’s been a surprise. We didn’t know we’d be this good.”

“Well it was a nice win.”

“Yeah, thanks, we needed it. And you guys are going to be Ok.”

“We got to work on offense a little more.”

“Yeah. It’ll happen. You’ll be fine.”

And so it went on, for a little longer, as if these semi-portly middle-aged men shuffling through the airport with roller-bags were themselves players or back office executives at their respective NFL teams. There was a sense of identity and belonging that got my attention. All the “you guys” and the “we” references spoke to a deep human need for affiliation. What’s really interesting is that we don’t often get that need met in our neighborhoods, or churches, or workplaces where we spend most of our time, but in connection with favored sporting teams.

Something that distinctively impressed me about these two men was their affable spirit. The other team was something to be respected, and even admired, and not at all disliked, and so was the fan of that team. They spoke of their respective tribes like they were really involved, first hand, in tribal activities. And I suppose they actually are, in their own ways. Not everyone who is part of the action has to be on the turf, wearing protective equipment.

We should remember this deep need for belonging, or for affiliation. If we can cultivate more of it at work, we can connect up with deep resources in the human spirit that need to be called into play for the best results to happen.

And then, who knows? We may make it to the playoffs.

The Superfluity of Worry

I have an old friend who once told me that it's his job to worry. My first thought was simple: That's not a job I'd ever apply for or aspire to have.

Worry never adds anything positive that can't be had more directly and without the anxiety. Does worrying make you more cautious? Just be more cautious. Does it make you really pay attention to a situation? Simply pay more attention. Does it goad you to double check, or be more creative, or get in gear and take action? Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Anything we think worry produces can be had without the worry. So: Why worry?

As an emotion, it's superfluous, redundant, and useless. And it takes energy. Plus, I really believe it erodes the calm clarity of thought required to unravel a complex challenge and arrive at an optimal solution to a knotty problem. It's also unpleasant. And it makes you no fun to be around.

So, I've decided to shed it as much as I can. I'm on the lookout for it. I try to become aware of it, as soon as it creeps into my sensibilities and dismiss it as unneeded. "Thanks, but I can get on just fine without your help today."

And when you think about it, so many of our negative emotions have the same problem. Any good they produce can be had another way. So, perhaps we can appreciate what they're trying to accomplish for us, and yet briskly send them on their way.

Their particular companionship seems not to enhance my enjoyment of life or my positive impact in it. I think that a moment's introspection may deliever to you the same realization. And then deliver you from worry.

I hope so. And hope is something that's not at all superfluous to a good and happy life.

The Megaphone of Power

The famous South African film director jumped out of his chair and ran up to me, stopping only when his nose was six inches from mine. "I'm right here. I'm this close," he nearly whispered to me. And then he held up his right thumb and index finger four inches apart and said, "I'm this big and I live in the lens of that camera. You're talking to somebody this big. Do you understand?"

Yeah. I suddenly understood. I was making television commercials for Disney's Winnie the Pooh, and I had never acted before in front of film cameras. I was speaking to fill the enormous sound stage. I needed only to reach the microphone. Later, I saw a great video on acting done by Michael Caine where he talks about people making a transition from stage to film. Actors accustomed to projecting back to the cheap seats and gesturing on a big scale had to become accustomed to a medium where a raised eyebrow might be all that it took to convey a point.

In today's New York Times, I came across a very good article by Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School, entitled, "When You're In Charge, Your Whisper May Feel Like a Shout." The point of the article was that when you're in a position of power or authority over others, your words tend to get amplified far more than you may realize. A whisper can sound like a shout. You have to watch what you casually say, because there's a megaphone effect at work, and you're not on the end where you hear the extra volume.

I had been a Notre Dame professor speaking in the early years without a microphone to hundreds of students in big auditoriums. My wife always had to remind me at home that I didn't need to project. Oratory was not required in the kitchen. And it wasn't just me. Winston Churchill knew a man who could not make the transition from public speaking to private conversation, and once said of him, "He addresses me as if I were a multitude." We're not always aware of our tone, or volume, when talking to others. Adam Galinsky's essay reminds us that when we're in charge, our words are large. We need to be aware of that, and modulate appropriately.

In my favorite blog, Brain Pickings, I came across a remark this morning that was once made by Gloria Steinem that's both related to this point and wise. She said,

One of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.

When we listen to people more, we learn better what they need to hear and how they need to hear it. And when we encourage them to speak up, we can become less likely to use our own voices, as leaders, in ways that are loud and alarming.

I'm a pubic speaker. But I've learned over the years that to do it well, I have to be just as good at being a public listener. Then I know what to say, and how to say it. I hope the same for you.

Unusual Places to Philosophize

I'm just back from a great national meeting in Orlando for ValMark Securities, where I had the chance yesterday to philosophize with hundreds of wonderful people, thanks to the sponsorship and support of Lincoln Financial. We were in a beautiful ballroom in one of the few top Orlando hotels I had never spoken in before. The Loews Portofino Bay was an elegant and perfect venue for relexing and exploring the wisdom of the ages.

And in the midst of that great environment, a question arose in conversation. Where was the most unusual place I'd ever spoken to an audience as a philosopher? I had to think. And I ended up with an interesting list. I've philosophized in such places as:

A private home in Texas, on the family's third floor, full-size basketball court, to 150 people

The middle of the Baltic Sea, in the ballroom of what seemed to me a titanic cruise ship, that later sank

The Detroit Lions Football Stadium, on the fifty yard line

Outside in a big field in Alabama, in 100 degrees, under a tent, after another big field talk out in the country near Roanoke Rapids, NC 

On a large, private Gulfstream Jet, pictured above, where I used a white board while speaking to 11 company presidents

In the Mecca in Milwaukee, where the Bucks used to play basketball, to 5,000 people

In an old Elk's Club in rural Illinios, where I was given the Key to the City by the Mayor but was told that no one ever locked anything anyway

In Camp Snoopy, inside The Mall of America

In an otherwise regular looking, fairly nondescript room whose most notable feature was that it was big enough that it could accommodate the 10,000 people philosophizing with me that day

In the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica, at a rural mountain lodge

In the middle of the East Carolina University Basketball Arena, to thousands of teachers

At a well known New York City Disco, on the dance floor, under the disco lights, and surrounded by an audience of hundreds of people around a balcony and on the floor holding drinks

There have also been many schools, churches, retreat centers, old buildings, glass buildings, high rise, low rise, and no rise locations amid all the ballrooms and convention centers along the way. 

The lesson I take from this when I relfect back over it all is that you can philosophize to good effect almost anywhere, and under nearly any circumstances. For over a hundred years, our culture has too often limited serious philosophy to college and university classrooms, where the discussions can sometimes rise so high in abstraction that they seem to lose all breathable air. But Cicero once praised Socrates in these words, or actually their Latin equivalent:

He was the first to call philosophy down from the sky and establish her in towns, and bring her into homes, and force her to investigate the life of men and women, ethical conduct, good and evil.

It's been my unexpected joy to be able to do something of the same in our own time, on my own level, and in my own way, redoing the job begun by the famous progenitor of public philosophy, a job that needs to be done anew in every century, in every generation. I feel a deep gratitude to all who have invited me to come and do it, in whatever circumstances. And I look forward to the locations yet to come! I hope you get to join me in one of them for some philosophical reflection on our lives. 

Focus and Flow

One of the most endangered skills in our time, and one of the most important, is the art of focus. The New York Times just ran an op ed about the importance of great lecture classes in our schools, and especially college, where students learn to listen and focus on complex ideas and sequences of ideas.

Call to mind a totally unfocused photograph, blurry and indistinct. Now contrast that with a picture that's crisp, clear and well focused. Our minds can range through a similar spectrum. Successful people in every domain of human activity tend to be those who can attain and keep a clear focus on what they want and what it takes to get there. 

At its peak, focus becomes flow, a transcendent mindset of absolute absorbedness in an activity or enterprise. And flow seems to be the key to both creativity and masterful levels of excellence.

The world around us conspires to distract us from ever experiencing focus or flow. But the only way we can contribute our best to the world is to resist its siren songs enough that we master focus and grow more adept at flow.

With focus and flow - Oh, the places you can go!

Dogs Chasing Their Tails

The biggest danger in a capitalist economy is that we all become dogs chasing our tails. In the weight room the other day, a number of us began to discuss the benefits and perils of modern capitalism as we lifted. The conversation was spurred by one of our number commenting on how outrageous online news story titles have become. People will say anything to get you to click on their story, whether the title and lead-in have anything to do with the content of the piece or not. It's All Hyperbole All The Time. When Aliens do land on the White House Lawn, we won't believe it for a second - even if Donald Trump is swearing it took place and that it was the MOST INCREDIBLE THING THAT EVER HAPPENED and that, no, it wasn't how he came to be among us in the first place.

Here's the problem. Any country that gets the blessing of free market capitalism sees a decrease in poverty and an increase in living standards for lots of people. And for a while, things look very promising. And then, before you know what's happened, you get billionaire oligarchs, people moving money around for no reason other than profit, lots of people chasing oversize profits, and everyone else struggling. You also get an economy in which we all become dogs chasing our tails.

What's corrupted journalism? It's become a big business, chasing clicks and eyeballs. Why? Because it's really chasing advertising dollars. In medicine, doctors are trying to see more patients for more profits. Drug companies are trying to charge more for life-saving drugs. Lawyers are desperate for more billable hours. And here's what eventually happens. Years ago, backstage before a talk, I met the CEO of a very large drug store chain. I said, "How's business?" He said, "It's been a terrible flu season." I said, "I don't know anyone with the flu." He said, "Exactly."

It took me a second to realize what he was saying. And how he was thinking.

Our weight room talk became a discussion of the professions. Traditionally, something was a profession when the pursuit of it had to do mostly with internal motivators - doing an excellent job, serving people well, providing a useful and satisfying product or service. Medicine, law, journalism, and education were all professions. But mom and pop grocery stores and local clothing shops and corner bookstores had a lot in common with them, as well. Work was about making a positive difference for your neighbors and fellow human beings. Do that well, and you'd make a good living. But then the professions became businesses, focused on the bottom line and profits. And that unintentionally created distractions, distortions, corruptions, and ultimately the sort of mindsets represented by the drug store CEO.

Fifty years ago, doctors had to make a living. So did people in all the professions. But they weren't chasing profits first and foremost. Even businesses outside the professions could view profits as wonderful side effects of pursuing other valuable things well, and not as the focal point of everything.

When dogs are healthy and normal, and do things right, their tails follow along right behind them, as a matter of course. They go places, do things, and have a great time. They don't have to worry about the tail not accompanying them. It keeps up. But when their focus changes and they start chasing their own tails, well, they go around and around in circles and never get anywhere.

We can't let our economy and society become nothing but dogs chasing their own tails. We need to go out in pursuit of things that matter and take a healthier view that the profits we need will accompany good work, following us where we usefully go with the right things in view.

Otherwise, as another modern image has it, the view never changes.

The World Needs Us

I came across an obituary online this past week that gave me pause. In case you didn't see it, it's instructive to read. Here's an abbreviated version:

Jamie Zimmerman, who served as a doctor and reporter for the ABC News medical unit, drowned while on vacation in Hawaii. She was 31. Zimmerman was attempting to cross the Lumhai River on Kauai's north shore when she lost her footing and was swept out to sea. Zimmerman's mother, Jordan Zimmerman, confirmed her death with a message on Zimmerman's Facebook page:

"Those of you who knew Jamie or perhaps read some of her writings knew that she loved people above all else. It was her passion to be of service, and teaching meditation was her calling," Jordan Zimmerman wrote. "In her short 31 years Jamie traveled the globe representing America as a caring mindfulness ambassador. Her accomplishments included helping Congolese refugees in Zambia, volunteering in a cash-strapped hospital in India, building classrooms in Uganda, and working with indigenous people on the Amazon in Peru. Jamie served as a United Nations Global Health representative in Haiti and she even taught meditation at the U.S. Capitol.

"She was honored with UCLA's prestigious Charles E. Young Humanitarian Award, was a Rhodes Scholar finalist, and earned the title of Dr. Jamie at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. All this was in addition to her work with ABC News in their Medical Unit as well as The (Goldie) Hawn Foundation where she trained educators and school administrators to teach meditation to children."

This was a tragic death, as are so many in our world. And when we read of the loss at age 31 of someone who was doing so much for so many, we're reminded that the world needs those of us who are still here to step up and make up for some of the difference in the world that Jamie could have made had she stayed among us longer.

Of course, there's no such thing as replacing such a person who has been lost, either in the lives of those who knew her, or in the world more broadly. But there is a point worth pondering. This young woman did great good. And she would surely have done much more, had she lived a more normal lifespan. The world is in need of that good, still—all those years of all that service. And so the rest of us should be inspired, when we notice a need, or happen to think of a way we could help someone around us, to take action like Jamie Zimmerman presumably would.

She made herself available to others, and lavishly. We don't have to travel the globe to do that ourselves, in our own way, and in the time we have remaining. But wherever we are, and whatever we notice that could use our help, the world needs us to take action.

The Four Stages of Life's Journey

I've come to think that there are, ideally, four basic stages of life. Let's imagine a lifespan of 100 years. And with this assumption, we can imagine each of the stages as spanning about 25 years, give or take. if you think that's unrealistic, I should share a recent experience. 

One of my friends is very active internationally in top track and field events, at the age of 66. Recently, I read somewhere about another man who is 100 years old and is setting new records in track and field competitions. So I told my friend about this guy and asked if he knew such a person. He said, "Which one?" It turns out that he knew five people 100 years old or older who have been competing and setting records in track and field events. So, there you go.

Each of the four 25 year periods that structure our lives has a focal activity definitive of it. This is not an activity exclusive to the stage, but it rather serves to organize and structure most other activities that take place during the stage.

The First Stage - Up to Age 25 or so: We're Focused on Learning

In our first 25 years, our focal activity is Learning. From the moment we're born, we're learning about the world, about other people, and about ourselves. We're learning to move, to walk, to talk, and then finding out how to do things that we see others do. We go off to school and the learning gets formalized. But so much still takes place outside the structure of the classroom. We're learning sports. We're learning the difference between true friends and false friends. We're often learning another language. We're learning how to reason, and how to see as an artist would, or a scientist, or historian. Until our mid-twenties, at least, this is, in a sense, the main activity among many in which we're engaged. 

The Second Stage - Age 25 Up to Age 50 or so: We're Focused on Building

Throughout the second stage, from around 25-50 or beyond, we're building. We're building careers, families, homes, and networks of friends that can endure. We're building skill sets, lifestyles, reputations, and habits within which we'll engage in launching ourselves independently into the world. We don't usually think of it at the time, but this is when we begin building our own legacies for the future. It's an exciting period, often for trying new things, for being creative, and for gleaning the first deep satisfactions we may experience from making a difference for good for other people as well as ourselves.

The Third Stage - Age 50 Up to Age 75 or so: We're Focused on Serving

This can be a subtle shift or a big one. We begin to think of our work more than ever before as an act of service to other people. We may have lived competitively and sought to be winners in all that we did, until now, but this period in life often sees a shift. Leo Tolstoy had a famous midlife crisis at about the age of 49. He realized he had been living his life up until then trying to get as rich as possible and as famous as he could become, and that he had finally attained all of his desires through the books he had created. But when he thought more deeply about why he was doing all this, he couldn't figure out the reason for any of it. And he went through a two-year crisis as a result. In the end, he writes in his great little book Confession, and sums up a subsequent discovery that revolutionized his attitudes in the words: "What then should man do? Man should live his life in service to others." During this period of our journeys, ideally, this refocusing begins to happen in a clear and compelling way. We begin asking more how we can be of service, to our neighbors, our communities, and our world.

The Fourth Stage - Age 75 Up to Age 100 or so: We're Focused on Guiding

We've had by this stage a lifetime of learning, building, and serving. And with good nutrition, ample exercise, and help with managing whatever genetic glitches we may have been born with, or whatever accidents we may have experienced along the way, we can still have a vibrant and meaningful fourth quarter, where the focal activity is ideally that of guiding. If we do it right, we're still learning, and even building, and certainly serving. But the new focus of this period is on guiding others with the accumulated experience and wisdom that we've earned over the years. Many other cultures do better than we do in making this possible, and expected. The elders are revered for their stories and lessons. But we need this in our time and society as much as it's ever been needed, if not much more.

Each Stage Along the Way

At each stage along the way, again, ideally, all four activities I've named are taking place. Children  often learn by building - forts, playhouses, snowmen, sleds, fishing poles, and countless other things. And I've seen plenty of people under the age of 50 serving their fellow human beings - working with The Boys' and Girls' Club, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, or Habitat for Humanity, for example. Furthermore, at any stage, we can guide others with what we've learned. Again, none of these activities is exclusive to their focal stages, and should never be. We do best when we involve ourselves in all these things. But at different life stages, there are different priorities and main activities, or perhaps, orientations. A full life allows for these differences and shifts of perspective.

How we think of success, and what makes us happy, may also vary stage-to-stage. Approaching every one of life's journeys as if they're all the same will miss out on the subtle differences that can make all the difference.

Of course, I'm just doing my best here to capture an aspect of the human experience, but in the end, treat these ideas with all due respect given the basic fact that I'm just making all this up. But at age 63 my focal intent, of course, is to serve you with ideas that may spark insight.

And in a dozen more years, come to me for all the guidance you want.

But what then, after 100? I hear you ask. And I've pondered it.

Then, the focal activity may just be hanging on for dear life, by our fingernails. Or preparing for the next big adventure.

A Great Wisdom Weekend

I had an amazing time this weekend at the seventh triennial Morehead-Cain Forum Weekend. Over 400 Morehead Cain scholars and spouses got together for a nonstop weekend of wisdom, wine, and wonderment. I just had to sleep for 12 hours to recuperate. During the weekend, there wasn't much slumber.

The format is interesting and varied. In addition to food trucks, receptions, and a magical dinner on the floor of the UNC basketball arena, the Dean Dome, we had talks, panel discussions, a film or two shown, and afterparties till 2 or 3 AM. They had a a lot of the scholars give 7 minute talks, almost like mini Ted talks. The executive editor of Fortune talked about the role of humans in a world of technology. An accomplished man from the class of 1957 talked about how great things can come from small beginnings, and how at his final interview for the scholarship, he sold to one of his interviewers two bottles of a product his father had invented - Happy Jack Dog Tonic Mange Cure. In my own session, I later commented that the entire weekend was like an existential version of Happy Jack Dog Tonic Mange Cure For the Soul, and that I was certainly wagging.

A corporate attorney and professional boxer ranked in the top ten for his weight class talked about subtle forms of prejudice. A young British Morehead talked about reforming the banking system in London. Another young grad talked about 3-D Virtual Reality and how it will be able to give us soon an experience of being in a third world village, or on stage with a ballerina. There's hope for its helping as a new stimulus for empathy. Then there were panel discussions, on dealing with difficulties in life, entrepreneurial start ups, cancer research, our political challenges now, and on and on. Sallie Krawcheck, a former CEO of Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch and US Trust who now runs Elevate Network for professional women talked about personal branding. Then I got to close it all with a talk called "Wisdom for the Journey." 

I came away with many insights and reminders:

We should network with sages as much as possible, hang out with wise people, and talk about things that matter.

A great thing can indeed come from small beginnings. Passion starts it, persistence grows it, and patience allows it the time for full blossoming.

Have the courage to do what makes your heart sing. Whether as your profession, or as your joy. Or both.

Don't let the past define you. Just let it prepare you for what's next.

Political conversations can be productive when you're guided by empathy, goodwill, and a keen desire to listen and learn. 

It's not so much what you do in life as how you do it.

If you can, travel, and talk to the world, but most of all listen.

I also got a chance during the weekend to sign 250 copies of my new book The Oasis Within for my fellow Morehead-Cain scholars. I look forward to hearing what they think as they read this first in my new multi-volume series of fictional and factual explorations into the world of wisdom. It's gratifying to be a current pioneer of what my friend, the pop culture philosophy guru Bill Irwin, has called Phi-Fi, Philosophical Fiction. It was an ongoing topic of conversation with my old and new friends throughout the weekend. I heartily recommend, wherever you are, and whatever you do, that you give yourself, at least now and then, the opportunity for conversations with smart friends about important things that really matter.

As the first person in the history of my family of origin to ever go to college, I'm grateful for the Morehead-Cain Scholarship that allowed that to happen, and just as much for the Foundation Staff and the community of Morehead Cain scholars around the world who keep me inspired and energized. The new Morehead-Cains call each other "cousin" and that's how it feels. As one of our tribe, the CEO of Ancestry.com put it in his dinner talk, we're all cousins in the end. But it's especially good to have family like this.

Plato's Gym

At the Sports Center gym where I workout every day, there's a cafe or deli. One day this week, when I was walking by the counter, the young lady who works there making sandwiches and ladling out soups, putting together salads, and handing out sports drinks, called out to me. "Mr. Morris, can you help me with something?"

I thought she needed help lifting and carrying something heavy. So I said, "Sure," and turned around to go heft whatever burden she had been struggling with. But she didn't move as if to show me what big box or sack she needed to have repositioned.

Instead, she said, "Can you explain to me virtue ethics?"

That gave me pause. It's not a request for help you often hear in a gym. "Yeah, no problem," I replied, before figuring out how the heavy lifting was going to be done on this one. What angle did I need to take? What leverage could help?

So I explained that Aristotle and a bunch of other ancient philosophers believed that we bring into any situation various personal strengths and weaknesses of character. The strengths, they thought of as virtues. Our word 'virtue' comes from the latin 'virtu' which meant strength or prowess. And that in turn came from 'vir' which meant man. The Greek word was 'arete' which itself could mean excellence or virtue. Aristotle thought it was worth figuring out what strengths or excellences would be universally good to have, and built his conception of ethics (from the Greek word 'ethos' or character) around these virtues.

He identified as virtues such things as honesty - a strong inclination toward truth - and liberality, a habit of giving to those in need what they could well use, and courage - an ability to do what's right rather than what's easy, even if it's quite challenging. He then came to see courage as perhaps the most crucial of the virtues, since you probably won't exercise any of the others in difficult circumstances without courage.

Modern approaches to ethics have focused on rules. Perhaps inspired by scientific laws, or the civic rules and legal regulations that make civilized society possible, philosophers began to hunt for the rules that ought to govern our conduct. The ten commandments are a start. But as important as rules are, you can never have enough, and paradoxically you quickly get too many. Something more is needed. Rules need interpreting. Every rule is general. Any situation is specific. We need discernment. We need wisdom and the habit of acting in accordance with wisdom, which may even be another nice general definition of virtue.

One of my colleagues during my days at Notre Dame decades ago, Alastair McIntyre, almost singlehandedly revived the ancient tradition of virtue ethics, a focus on character more than rules, as being what's at the heard of ethics. For a masterful and difficult account of it all, you might want to consult his book After Virtue.

There are now many qualities you can call virtues. I read an article today about positive passion as perhaps being one. The author mentioned also patience. And that got me thinking. Positive passion is a hot virtue. Patience is a cool one. Passion gets you started. Patience keeps you going. Passion can fuel a journey. Patience can keep it on track. Passion is a youthful virtue. Patience is a mature one. You have to wait for it, appropriately. If your passions bring you too much success too quickly in life, you often never develop the virtue of patience.

My friend at the gym cafe seemed to be sincerely pleased by our discussion. And I was equally pleased at the vigorous workout with weights that followed.

Whenever you're confused by anything, that means it's time to get out of Plato's Cave and get yourself to Plato's Gym. Give yourself the mental workout of thinking things through, carefully and clearly. Or if the issue seems too heavy, just elicit the help of a workout partner of the mind.

Questions and Answers

Buckle up your seat belts. We're going to ponder the role of questions and answers in our lives. Today's blog post has been copied and pasted from the introduction of Chapter Twenty in a book I'm editing, the big novel that follows The Oasis Within, a book called The Golden Palace. Occasionally, a chapter in the book will begin with a philosophical reflection. But more often, chapters open with a stunning plot twist that controverts our expectations. This is book two of what I've written just by watching the mental movie that came to me. So I'm always as surprised as readers will soon be. But onto our reflection, which came to me just as unexpectedly as any dialogue or plot twist. 

Questions are normally easier to arrive at than answers. They can just come to us, unexpected and uninvited. They can sometimes almost force themselves on us. But answers, we normally have to go looking to find. And some will elude us, no matter how hard we look. And yet, there’s a bit of a paradox here. Not all questions are easy. It can take a true genius to come up with the right breakthrough question for any domain of human life or inquiry. That’s not easy at all. In fact, the first secret to pioneering accomplishment in most areas of life is to ask the right questions. This is because, once you’re inquiring in the right direction, your path will almost inevitably lead you to interesting and important new realizations, if you keep at it and don’t give up. Great questions often define the creative spark.

And even before any answers materialize, merely living with the right questions can deepen your life, alter your understanding, and make you a different person. Those who can’t live with unanswered questions can’t function well or dwell at the highest level of existence in this world.

It’s been said that a little philosophy is a dangerous thing. That’s because a modicum of philosophical reflection gives us most of the ultimate questions, but without most of the answers. And many people, learning that the answers aren’t nearly as easy to identify as the questions, get discouraged and then despair of finding the truth, or even of there being any truth about these deepest of issues. It’s only with extended and persistent philosophy that the answers to our most challenging questions can be pursued effectively, and eventually found. They’re hard to dig up, and some of them can seem impossible to attain, as you journey hard in their direction. 

There are many lines of basic inquiry about life that have been pursued for centuries, even millennia. An initial surprise is that the people who have thought about them the hardest don’t often agree. That can be troubling, and even disheartening, because these great thinkers of the past can sometimes even be worlds apart. A conclusion then begins to emerge. The full form of the final answers about the ultimate contours and conditions of life may just elude us, even through the entirety of our earthly adventures. But typically, on any deep subjects regarding the core issues of our existence, the harder the answers are to find, the more important they may be. This means that all the work required to seek them out should, in the end, be worth the effort. Yet, this will be true only if we persist. 

Using our minds well to chase the truth can be an extraordinarily beneficial activity. If we’re open, and genuinely curious, we’ll almost always benefit in some way from the pursuit. And with some lines of inquiry, it may be that the most beneficial result of the quest will be not a propositional answer, a statement of truth realized by the mind, so much as a personal transformation, a new lived understanding felt in the heart. The blinders finally come off, and we see anew.