Our Need for Goals

The great inventor of the essay, Michel de Montaigne, once wrote:

The soul that has no established aim loses itself.

Vagueness is a disease of modern life. We're surrounded with so many possibilities, we don’t know what to actually pursue. We may have a general idea, but But thoughts can't guide specific behavior. The actress Lily Tomlin once said, “I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” Doesn’t that capture the way so many people think, these days? They want to be somebody. They want to do something important. But they may have no clue exactly what.

The great thinkers from Aristotle to the present day have recognized that we are essentially goal oriented beings. Unless we have a clear target to shoot at, we quickly get lost in literally aimless living.

Make sure you're aiming at some clear and specific goals in what you do today, and this week. Also, take any chance you might have to engage in a conversation with a co-worker or family member about some new personal goal, or some shared goal you're both pursuing, or should be pursuing. Conversations can clarify. When we put things into words, we gain focus. In discussing something you've been thinking about, you can find a new sense of clarity and purpose that's so easily lost amid the demands of the day.

Love

Love is the spirit of compassion, care, and forgiveness.

It unfolds in service to others and the best growth of the self.

It is the deepest and only wellspring for true greatness in life.

It seeks the best in others, and for them, while cultivating its own garden well.

To live without it is a struggle. To live with it is a better struggle, in the warm light of hope.

Love is first a commitment, then an attitude, then a belief, then a feeling, and then everything.

Love conquers all. Eventually.

Love transforms all. Now.

Love is the transcendent source of all good things.

It is the only enduring form of strength.

It is the sole source of peace and happiness.

To love is to live in full.

A Happy Life

What is happiness? What makes for a happy life? Go to any big bookstore, and you'll find lots of authors tackling the question. Ring all those books up at the register and you'll likely end up very unhappy at the total.

The roman lawyer and stoic thinker Seneca once wrote: "A happy life is one in harmony with its own nature."

An unhappy person is out of step with herself.  A happy person experiences a large measure of inner harmony.  She lives in accordance with her own highest nature.

In his strange film Zelig, Woody Allen long ago masterfully caricatured the chamelion-like tendency that many people have to fit in. We dress in the right style and eat at the right places, drive the appropriate cars, talk in the lingo of those around us, and do as we’re expected to do, all in a misplaced search for happiness. The only reliable formula, Seneca believed, is to live and act in harmony with your own best nature. He believed, first, that there is a universal human nature that should be respected in all that we do.  But he also wanted each of us to be true to who we uniquely are, at our potential best - with our own talents and abilities honed in a way that's right for us, but also put into service to others.

Where are the tensions in your life? If you take an inventory of your own obstacles to happiness, I think it's likely that you’ll find places where you aren’t being true enough to your deepest and highest nature. The good news is, you can make the changes you need to make to live and act in a way that is more natural for who you are and distinctively can be. It is, after all, your nature. Embrace it and work with it. That's the path to happiness, according to the philosopher.

The Unexamined Life

Socrates famously said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

He was not one to mince words. Born in the fifth century, BC, he already lived in a time when people hustled through the day, too busy with the demands of life to ever take a break and think over what it’s all about. This philosopher would stop strangers on the street in Athens and urge them to examine their lives. What were they chasing? And why?

Socrates believed in a simple scale of value. At the low end of the scale are our possessions. One step higher, are our bodies. And higher yet are our souls.

He was convinced that the least important things are the things that we tend to think about and talk about the most, and that the most important things are those that we tend to think about and talk about the least. If we examined our lives more carefully, he was confident that we’d be able ro rectify this common and profound mistake. 

When we buy something, or invest in something, we typically ask whether it's worth the price we confront. And we often make negative judgments. "That car is not worth what they're asking." The famous statement made by Socrates can be understood in the same way.

The unexamined and confused life, the life on automatic pilot, on cruise control, following the crowd mindlessly, is, according to his claim, not worth the massive investment that goes into it - the entire process of living. It's not worth all the time and energy that go into living it. 

Living an unexamined life is just making a bad investment. So, heed Socrates’ advice today, and examine your priorities. Are your commitments in line with a proper scale of values? Are you living the sort of life that is well worth living? In this examination, you can pass or fail yourself. It’s finally up to you.

Exceptional People Around Us

I’ve been exercising my memory for the past 6 months by memorizing Shakespeare soliloquies, mainly the famous ones. It all started with a short passage from Hamlet. I remember the day I had just learned it – it wasn’t easy – and I still had to practice it all the time.

So. I was in line at the grocery store, a Fresh Market near my house, and the lady in front of me turned around and apologized for having so many items in her cart. I promise I wasn’t counting. I said, “No problem. Take your time. I’m rehearsing in my head a famous literary passage I just learned.”

The man who was ringing up her items stopped and looked at me with an expression of appreciation, almost of deep brotherhood, and said,

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, the droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote.

Well. That was unexpected at a grocery store checkout counter. But, it was the slow line. So, the clerk went on for a few more seconds of recitation and then stopped and looked at me with a big smile, and I just had to say,

And smale fowles maken melodye, That slepen al the night with open ye.

The guy looked really surprised and said, “You KNOW that?” I said, “Yeah, Chaucer, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Good job.” And a lady behind me gave me a look that “perced to the roote” because I think her ice cream was melting through all this.

Just two days later, I’m in a Harris Teeter, and the young lady checking out my groceries said something to me that I didn’t catch. I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. I was practicing a passage from Hamlet in my head.”

She said, “Oh! Really? I memorized Hamlet once.”

I said, “You mean you memorized a passage from Hamlet?”

She said, “No, the whole thing.”

“The whole thing? The whole play?”

“Yeah,” she said, “But not in English.”

“What do you mean, not in English? It’s an English play.”

“Yeah, I know, but I memorized it in Klingon.”

“The Star Trek Language?”

“Yeah, it was more fun that way. But it took, like, four months.”

Well.

And then, last week, a different grocery store cashier spontaneously performed a Shakespeare Sonnet for me. I mean, it was Senior Discount Day at the store, so I think she took off a few lines. But it was most of Sonnet 116. In case you’re interested.

Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house. Strange things happen.

But I came away from these recent conversations with a new realization – and not just about where our English majors are getting jobs these days – the market for literature grads is surprisingly fresh.

My realization was, that we’re surrounded by exceptional people in the world. They’re all around us. And that’s easy to forget. But when we break through the background hum of habit, poke a hole in the ordinary, and really talk to people, and give them a chance, they can sometimes shine in unexpected ways. And then, we learn.

Break through that background hum today, in some way. Poke your own little hole in the ordinary, and see what you discover.

Money: Blessing or Curse?

Today, the Roman poet Terence weighs in on money. He once wrote, "Riches get their value from the mind of their possessor; they're a blessing to those who know how to use them, a curse to those who don't."

Money, of course, isn’t the meaning of life. And it’s not evil, either. Its value depends on how it’s used. We’ve all seen it destroy people. And we know how a lack of it can make a life so much more difficult. Any form of wealth is a resource that can be used or abused. How are you, typically, using yours?

Ultimately, it’s up to each of us what attitude we adopt toward money. It can serve us, or we can serve it. How does it function in your life right now? Is it merely a great and useful resource, or a number one focal goal? Is it an obsession or a tool? Does it control your life, or do you control it, for the good of others as well as yourself?

Most of us worry about it too much, one way or the other.

It can indeed be a blessing or a curse, and that's up to each of us.

The Inner Circle Principle

Imagine life as involving a series of concentric circles representing your spheres of action and involvement. At the center is the inner and outer you. The next circle out is your family - both of birth and of choice - along with your closest friendships. The next circle yet is your neighborhood and your workplace. The next one out is your overall community. Then there is your state, or province, your nation, and the broader world, and perhaps even more.

Each circle, starting with the first, is to be tended to, nurtured, and grown in a healthy way, and is to be helpfully open to the next larger circles to come. We're never to get stuck in ego, or just in a family, or a neighborhood, or in a nation, in our sense of self identity and affiliation and value. As the ancient philosopher Diogenes once said, "I am a citizen of the world." Healthy self identity, and healthy affiliation at each level, is open to, and allows for, greater affiliations as well. Then, those come back and enhance the inner circles they encompass.

We're never to be stuck in any form of narrow thought that cuts us off from others. One of the biggest mistakes seen around the world is exactly that - an exclusivity of allegiance that turns others into threats and enemies. But, as my friend Vinod put it in a conversation we just had in the gym, "There are places where Sunnis work with Shiites in harmony and with shared purposes. This is how it should be." International business wants to bring the world together. International rivalries and exclusivist tribalisms want to pull the world apart. We can never fully flourish without being, in turn, tolerant, open, appreciative, and even celebratory of our differences. Tolerance is never enough, though it's the logical place to start, and hard enough for many people. But it's meant to be a door into a more positive understanding and appreciation, and even appropriation. We all have insights. And we all have errors. We can learn from each other. And we need to, in order for things to go well.

But of course, when we speak of being tolerant, open, appreciative, and even celebratory of others, we don't mean that we should ever embrace what strikes our most enlightened moral sensibilities as just wrong or unjust. What we're to learn from each other should never take us to a worse place, only to a better stage in our own understanding and sensibilities.

I hope you'll go through the day with an enhanced appreciation of all your concentric circles. You are a citizen of the world.

"We Forget How to Fall."

Reflecting on the fact that older people often sustain serious injury when they fall down, my workout partner mused one day that, "We forget how to fall." He's a lifetime surfer and skateboarder. At the age of 51, he falls all the time. And he heartily recommends it. "When you know how to fall, you don't get hurt so badly."

As kids, we fell down all the time. It was just a part of daily life. We fell down and we got back up. We fell running, and on our bikes, and in all kinds of ways. We didn't get discouraged, or distraught, or too badly bruised, at least most of the time. But, as adults, we forget how to fall, both literally and metaphorically, and so, when it does happen, we get seriously hurt, discouraged, and distraught.

Falling is, of course, a well known and much used image for failure. As kids, we tried new things all the time, and rarely got them right the first time. But, for the most part, we didn't let that bother us. We adjusted, adapted, and usually, after a time, prevailed. Sure, someone had to patch the knees of our pants, but that was almost a sign of honor, wasn't it? We were out there in the world doing things. We were active. We were brave. Falling down was just a natural part of it.

And it always is. Don't be afraid to fall down. In fact, try new little things so that maybe you can get some practice again at falling down, if you haven't had a tumble in a while. And then roll with it. Don't be tense. Be flexible, and go with it. Then just get up and try again.

The importance of those childhood lessons never goes away. Just remember: Falling is a stage of learning, and an early stepping stone to mastery. Fall often. And fall well.

Failure and Success

The pond guy, Thoreau, once said, "Men are born to succeed, not to fail," and he got it mostly right. But here's the problem. We're actually born to fail a lot along the way, because that's the only way we truly succeed. We have to take our lumps to learn our lessons. But that's not meant to be the end of the game. It's not meant to be easy, but it is meant ultimately to be about success, in the right ways.

Don’t we sometimes feel as if the cards are stacked against us in this life? Think about the obstacles you’ve had to face whenever you’ve tried to do anything new and different. It can sometimes feel like life itself is just one long uphill battle.

It’s interesting in this regard to look into the biographies of very successful people. What’s amazing is that there is a nearly universal pattern to so many of their lives. Talent and hard work initially get rewarded with encouragement and nurture, only to be set up for rejection and failure. Repeated rejection. And perplexing failure. The talented individual almost gives up in a Dark Night of the Soul. Any “reasonable” person would. But somehow, our hero shows an almost supernatural ability to stick it out though all the tough times, and finally emerges into public view as an overnight sensation.

You know the old saying: “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” The fact is that we're all born multi-talented. No one utterly lacks talent. And nobody has just one. We’re also born with the ability to discover our talents, along with the will power that it takes to develop them. If we don’t give up. If we stick with the process. We finally learn what we were born to achieve. And in that respect, Thoreau was right. It's ultimately not failure that's meant for us as the last verdict, but success - a form of success that is right for each of us. But it takes that ongoing process. And that process will involve lots of trouble along the way. Remember that today. You were born to succeed. After all that failure. So go do it.

Hearing No: Some Advice that Sticks.

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

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

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

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

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

The Breathtaking Joy of Existence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeking a Real Good

The prominent first century Roman lawyer Seneca had sought and attained more lofty goals than the vast majority of people in his time, or of any time. He was powerful. He was rich. He was famous. He advised the emperor in an ongoing way.

One day, he had a moment of self-realization. He sat down and wrote to himself: "Why don't I seek some real good, one I could feel, not one that I could display?"

In the first century, Seneca saw other well educated and talented people all around him chasing the wrong things. He even found himself doing so. And we’re even more guilty today. Too many people read so that they can make witty references at cocktail parties, or over lunch. We work for the finest cars, fashionable clothes, and ornate houses that will suitably signal to others our true worth. And yet, having filled up our lives with good things to display, we end up feeling strangely empty. Why?

The things of life that can be displayed like trophies are most properly thought of as the occasional happy side effects of our main ambitions and energies, and not as primary, focal targets. They can certainly be enjoyed. There's nothing inherently wrong with nice things, or baubles that can be seen and admired by others. But we do best in life by seeking first and foremost something much deeper, something we can feel within. When such a thing is our focal pursuit, it then becomes the basis for any other healthy pursuit. Seneca saw that true fulfillment comes from the inside out, from the cultivation of our own souls, and from the good we do for others, the good that we feel, from the heart, as we do it.. 

That attitude and path is what we all ought to seek to display.

Fame and True Success

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are You Wise, or Otherwise?

Questioner: Are you a wise man?

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

Questioner: You respond in the best way.

Answerer: And you.

Making Your Difference

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

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

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

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

What Few Understand About Wisdom

Through the millennia comes a recommendation:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shocking News About Wisdom

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Praise of Hard Work. No. Really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worth Dying For? Worth Living For.

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

Wait. What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Novel Insights: Part Two - The Life of Pi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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