What is This? Being as Becoming

When Aristotle saw one, he saw the other. And yet, we often get stuck on a single stage of becoming. What are you seeing now, when you perhaps ought to be envisioning as well the result yet to come, or the original first beginning that’s long past? Sure, things are what they are, but they're also deeply what they were and will be. Each of us is an example of alchemy through time. Transformations work from what was to what can be. Often, real insight into what's in front of us requires not just perception but time traveling imagination as well.

Bringing the Magic

It was a dark and stormy night. But magic was in the air.

My single greatest experience of the poetry and magic of human excellence was when I once flew into the Charlotte airport late at night and had to find a room due to bad weather flight cancellations. A hotel van came to get me, and the young black woman driving was friendly with the three or four of us riding to our lodgings for the night. I sat right behind her and we got to talking. She found out I'm a public philosopher and shared that she is a poet.

As we pulled up to the hotel and began to get out under a wide overhanging roof, I asked if I could hear one of her poems. She looked at me good for a second and said, "Let me get everybody’s bags and send them to the lobby, and I'll do one for you."

I waited a couple of minutes, then she came back out into the chilly air, rain pounding all around and said "It's a little bawdy, or blue, if you don't mind. I mean, there’s some language and imagery.“ I said, "Sure, no problem, go ahead."

And she didn't recite, she performed the Platonic Ideal of performance. She lived into her words like a great jazz musician of the highest quality, weaving a sound and story texture partly rap, part lyrical wonder. it was all this and more. Her voice strode and soared and whispered and almost roared and teased and sang such a range of emotions, I was stunned at how this lone bard was transporting me, perhaps like Homer did long ago, but better. I didn't think I could clap hard or long enough for her, all by myself, under that porch in the rainy night that made the entire trip to give my own performance in California worth doing.

It may have been the single greatest artistic performance I've ever witnessed, across all the arts, and I was the whole audience. But the poet could not have done more or better on a national stage in front of millions. It was heart and soul with extreme talent unleashed in extreme perfection. A shuttle van driver and a traveling philosopher standing in a parking lot, late at night. Wow. Real Magic. Why not you? Why not me? All the time.

The Golden Calf of Our Time

A Note: I deeply appreciate those of you who receive and read this blog. I also appreciate any comments you ever send me. I know some of you aren’t on social media, so I often reblog here a Facebook or LinkedIn post, and also often seek to expand a bit on what I’ve said elsewhere, just for you all, my blog readers. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this post that’s gotten a lot of positive attention in a shorter version on social media. We’re at our best when we think together! Have a great day!

The Golden Calf. You know the story. Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God. After a time, he comes down with some commandments from on high. Meanwhile, his people have set up an idol to worship instead, a Golden Calf. We now have our own, in a broad swath of our culture.

There seems to be a new cult mindset abroad in the land that’s generated around false ideas of freedom, or liberty, and the sanctity of the individual. The pop expression would be: "Nobody tells me what to do." But this is utterly false, of course, on several levels. And connected to this faux philosophy, if we can call it that, there is an allergy to rules and laws or any constraining concern beyond the level of individual preference.

On this cultish and quintessentially selfish view, the ideal of freedom means I can do whatever I want, say whatever I want, and defend myself in any way I want and, in the process, I don't have to listen to what anyone else says about any of this unless I choose to acknowledge them for wisely agreeing with me. Nothing is prohibited to the truly free individual, in this anarchic and ultimately licentious viewpoint.

On this view, the classic distinctions between truth and falsehood, honesty and lying, kindness and cruelty, peacefulness and violence are viewed as all irrelevant, since their implications could interfere with our freedom, and none of these concepts can be allowed to govern me. I am literally ungovernable except by myself, who on this philosophy, is the least qualified governor in the world. The current Golden Calf of idolatry, carved in the image of recent politicians who seem to embody this mindset better/worse than anyone else, is this mindset itself. It brings together many worshipers who have nothing else in common but runaway ego and a deep resentment of any guidance or guardrails for their raging desires and unfettered resentments. It's not a wise worldview to hold and live.

The classic view, globally, is that the laws of logic, ethics, truth, and love are not at all external impositions on our freedom, but the inner foundations for our own good, our own flourishing, and any positive contribution we can make to the world. The cult view is, by contrast, destructive not only to society, but ironically to the individual whose freedom is supposed by that view itself to be the most important thing in the world. There is no true freedom without proper structure. There is no healthy structure without proper freedom. Each should inform the other. The deep and genuine philosophy rejected by this superficial cult attitude is alone able to guide us to the greatness of which we’re capable, both together and in our own hearts. May we recognize counterfeit wisdom for the worthless currency it truly is and encourage others to avoid it along with us.

Rain

Rain. As I sit at breakfast and gaze out the big sliding glass doors in front of me, looking over the patios and gardens below, I notice all the raindrops hitting the bricks, the stones, the glass tables, a wrought iron bench, the leaves, a raised pond, and I ponder the puddles they've already formed. Soon, I think about our individual actions and how from a distance they can look small, but up close they seem bigger and yet still can appear isolated and mostly inconsequential until you notice the patterns and the cumulative effect. There's standing water where it had been dry, and now birds can come and drink while frogs can frolic. Small things add up.

The big is always an accumulation or aggregation of the small, and nothing else at all. Within the natural world, big is one of two things. It's either dependent or illusory. There are no other options. So we should have a deep respect for the small since, in this world, that is all there really is, viewed closely enough and well understood. When we do small things well, what seem to be very big results can ensue. But we know the truth, don’t we?

A Little Listening Manifesto

I'll listen better today. I'll bring keen attention to the challenge. I'll focus. I'll seek to hear more, letting go of all the insistent distractions that would otherwise pull me away from what's worth my notice. I'll take in whatever I hear and seek a true understanding of it rather than to assert my own opinion in response. I'll try to honor the spirit of others who hope to communicate something of importance to me. I'll attend to what I hear the way I often endeavor to read between the lines and peek around corners. I'll embrace any learning that may come my way. In short, I'll be all ears.

Fear and Courage

Fear is a Feeling. Courage is a Choice.

Fear is an normal emotional reaction to threat or danger. It can be sudden and surprising in its intensity. Or it can be sneaky, almost hidden, and equally unsettling in its power.

We don’t choose our emotions—at least, not at the time they come to us. But we can choose our response to them, and our habits of that choice will invite some emotions more than others into our lives over time.

What we choose in the face of fear will shape how we then think and act. It will also form what we become. Aristotle believed that there are three possible reactions in the presence of a threat or recognized danger. There is an extreme of “too little” in the realm of spiritual response and one of a “too much,” and finally a “just right.” The too little in the face of fear is cowardice. The too much is a crazy carelessness. The just right is courage.

Fear is natural. It can be helpful and even necessary at times and stages and places in our lives. But it’s never our best and highest guide. Wisdom is. And it counsels courage in all things. It never recommends cowardice or carelessness. It advises sensible caution and bold bravery in precisely the balance that only it can suggest.

As we grow in wisdom, we grow in prudence and in courage in the proper inner weave. The only other path is one on which fear unhinges us in one way or another, so that it rules and ruins our life, leaving us impoverished in spirit and full of regret, and worse of all, without the joy of the song we’re here to sing.

Two Mindsets

Two Mindsets. Some people are oriented around Winning. Everything is a game or a contest or a war to be won at any cost. Things in the world are there to be won or lost. Winning isn't just everything, it's the only thing, as the old saying goes.

Then there's the mindset of Wonder. The world is a garden, or a sea, or a living museum, of delights. Things around us evoke awe and curiosity and deep, thankful appreciation.

The winner mind runs through the contest of the world amassing every sort of prize possible. And when that's the frame through which everything is viewed, this mind often does great harm to others, the earth, and itself along the way.

The wonder mind strolls the garden of life open and amazed, contemplating and asking, and seeking to create new wonders that others may then use to do likewise.

There are indeed contests in life to be won or lost, and engaging in them the right way can be wonderful. But they tend not to be managed well unless the concern for winning has its proper and secondary place in the heart of the contender. That's one of the great paradoxes and ironies of the world.

And of course, there are then the two sorts of leaders. Those who most often think "I won," and those who are most inclined to begin a thought with, "I wonder." Which are you? I do wonder.

Beware Where You Get Advice

Here is the Preface to a book I've been writing for 25 years and am not done with yet. It's 2,800 words long. So it may take a minute in case you're interested. I'd love to know what you think.

There are four kinds of people in the world who make it their business to offer advice about life to the rest of us: fakes, flakes, friends, and philosophers. While the people in the last two categories – friends and philosophers – can be helpful, and sometimes very helpful indeed, those in the first two groups – the fakes and the flakes – can be harmful, and even disastrously dangerous. One purpose of this book is to indicate how to recognize the difference between the helpful and harmful guides to life that are available to us all.

Fakes are of course people who pretend to be what they’re not, and to know what they don’t. The reason that they so often offer the rest of us advice about life is very simple. Advice sells. The aim of the fakes is simply money, fame, status, or power, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get these things. They’re basically just deceptive manipulators interested only in their own gain. The advice that they give us – or, rather, sell us – is meant only to line their own pockets and pad their bank accounts. And so they tell us primarily what they think we want to hear.

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By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of the naïve.

Romans 16:18

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The problem is that sufficiently cagey phonies can be impressively polished and slick, masters of appearance, impresarios of illusion. And because of this, they can be very successful in weaving a spell of counterfeit wisdom and care.

Flakes are a bit different. They tend to live in a world of their own, unhinged in various ways from the realm of existence known by the rest of us as reality. They make wild and extravagant claims about life, and provide advice for the rest of us based on those claims but, unlike the fakes, they actually tend to believe all or at least most of what they say. They’re so completely convinced, they can often be convincing. The problem is that they’re so unplugged from the actual world of fact and value as to be every bit as dangerous as the fakes, if not more so. They’ve deeply imbibed the outrageousness they’re hawking to the rest of us. They’re sincere. They’re passionate. And they’re nuts.

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And fools cannot hold their tongues.

Chaucer

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Of course, these two categories of fakes and flakes aren’t mutually exclusive by any means. There are plenty of flakes in the world whose heads are full of wacky, ungrounded, and superstitious beliefs, and who still also make intentionally deceptive claims going far beyond what they actually believe, in pursuit of the money, or adoration, they think they can gain as a result. And it may be hard to find a major flim-flam artist in the world of high priced advice who isn’t to some extent as deluded as he is deceptive. But we can still draw a useful distinction between fakes and flakes based on the most fundamental tendency they embody.

By contrast, over on the positive side of the ledger, I want to define the friends who offer us advice in a broad and inclusive way. Our close personal friends often give us counsel about particular situations, events, and opportunities in our lives, but never for a price. They’re genuinely interested in our good fortune, and want to be helpful, sharing whatever they’ve seen, heard, or learned that might be useful to us. They may warn us about some paths and recommend others. They’re not always right, of course, but they’re generally concerned for our welfare, and their words of counsel can quite often be very beneficial – if they’re both wise and well intentioned. True friends want us to prosper and do well not because of what they’ll get out of it, but simply because of what we’ll get out of it. That’s just part of what it means for them to be our friends.

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My best friend is the man who, in wishing me well, wishes it for my sake.

Aristotle

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Because of the salient features of friendship that are operative here, I want to stretch this category beyond the relatively small array of people we know well. I’ve found it helpful to think of many of the better motivational writers and speakers who give and sell advice about life as sincerely serving the role of a friend-to-all, in at least this regard. They do indeed care about other people and actually want to be helpful. They are typically paid for their books and talks – and sometimes a lot – but many of them are also people who often do free presentations as well, and frequently offer words of advice and encouragement to people who have sought their counsel, in emails and letters, as well as communicating heartfelt recommendations in other ways, when the only reward they receive is a feeling that they’ve done something helpful.

These friendly advisors may occupy any point along a broad spectrum of sagacity and old-fashioned common sense, but they are never mendacious hypocrites or mentally unbalanced pseudo-oracles. They’re often the most effective cheerleaders of modern life. They’re not always especially careful writers, or speakers of great substance and precision, but they talk and write about success in life as first and foremost an act of genuine friendship to the rest of us. When they engage in hyperbole or exaggeration, it’s usually a result of their own enthusiasm, it’s well intended, and it’s rarely self-conscious.

These friends of their fellow men and women could have any of a wide variety of backgrounds – in sales, military service, athletic coaching, sports stardom, or business building – and they want to share with the rest of us what they’ve learned in the course of their life achievement, as well as in their own reading and study along the way. A great deal of the motivational, inspirational, and more insightful self-help literature in the past and even nowadays comes from the work of good sincere friends like these. Some of them may rise to the level of our fourth and last category, but it’s a much smaller group, with distinct qualifications, that we now need to consider.

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Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.

Vauvenargues

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For the category of philosophers, I have in mind the entire history of the writers and thinkers who have lived in many different cultures over at least the past twenty-five hundred years, and have in various ways conveyed their clear guidance and life advice to others in their own time, as well as to those of us who would follow them in subsequent ages. I’m not referring primarily to professors of philosophy in colleges or universities, or to people who have Ph.D. degrees in the currently recognized academic discipline of philosophy – otherwise, I’d be excluding many paradigmatic sages like Socrates, Lao Tsu, Cicero and Confucius, not to mention those in our own day who operate outside the institutional structures of higher education, and yet serve the same role for people around them as the great practical philosophers of the past. In my understanding here, a genuine philosopher speaks out of a mindset of broad knowledge, careful analysis, deep synthesis, and targeted precision. He or she is intent on capturing and sharing with others a wide range of useful and profound truth about life, and practical advice based on that truth that can help anyone flourish in their various personal adventures in the world.

The advice of a true philosopher can help any of us organize our own thoughts and experiences, and perhaps see familiar situations in unfamiliar and creative ways. A practical philosopher can inspire us, comfort us, ennoble us, and help show us the way forward with genuine insight and wisdom. As the Roman Stoic Seneca once put it, “Philosophy is good advice.” And it’s good precisely when and because it’s exact, clear, true, deep, and universal, as well as practical.

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At best, the true philosopher can fulfill his mission very imperfectly, which is to pilot himself, or at most a few voluntary companions who may find themselves in the same boat.

George Santayana

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Again, as in the first two categories of fakes and flakes, these positive categories of friends and philosophers are not at all mutually exclusive. Many philosophers have been generally friends of humanity. Only a few have been misanthropes. And you may even have a personal friend who is a real philosopher. Of course, I’m not talking about any acquaintance who is an egregious BS artist, a hot air windbag, or pretentious, pedantic, irritating know-it-all, but a good buddy or close girlfriend who is a real “lover of wisdom” with a sharp eye, a trained mind, and a good heart who, while seeking to understand life better, endeavors to help others get their bearings as well, just because it’s good to do so. And in such a case, you can benefit from not only that person’s general concern for other human beings – and the sort of advice or guidance he or she would give anyone – but also from the specific care and direction that can arise out of a more particular and intimate knowledge of you.

To some limited extent, of course, we’re almost all in a very broad sense philosophers – good or bad, careful or sloppy – and so also, therefore, are our friends. We’re all seeking in our own ways to understand more of life, gleaning insight from our experiences, and searching for what is most worth valuing and worth the investment of our time. But for our purposes here, I’d like to reserve the distinctive category of philosopher for those fairly rare individuals who have made more than normal progress in these intellectual activities and existential investigations and can report on what they’ve learned in particularly succinct, insightful, and powerful ways. So, although it’s certainly possible to have a genuine philosopher as a good friend, this is not as common as we might like, since real, full-fledged philosophers aren’t as commonly found among us as they could and perhaps should be. The question I want to ask is, then: Where are the best philosophers we can listen to with profit?

The Problem We Face

The problem we face right now is that there are so many people eager to sell the rest of us “the secret” to life, happiness, and success that I sometimes wonder how, at this point, there could possibly still be any real secrets left concerning these things. And what about all these purported purveyors of profundity themselves, the people offering us their words of wisdom in book, seminar, and video form – who exactly are they? What’s their basis for giving us advice? I think I need to see some I.D. – don’t you?

I was at a big conference years ago, and after I met the organizer, he started telling me about one of their speakers the previous year. He said, “The guy was a well known memory expert. That’s what his P.R. claimed, and that’s why he was speaking for us. He was going to teach us how to remember names and faces. I introduced myself to him the first day when he arrived, and we talked for a few minutes, since I was running the show and wanted to greet him and make him feel comfortable. Two days later, he came up and introduced himself to me as if we had never met. And he wasn’t joking. Can you believe it?” I was surprised. And it was, at the time, hard to believe.

Not too long after that, I heard some basically similar stories. I had just arrived at a beautiful meeting facility outside Princeton, New Jersey. Before I was scheduled to speak to a group of luxury car dealers from around the country, along with some top-level auto executives who were sponsoring the event, I had a very nice lunch with several of the participants. After about fifteen minutes of fun and lively conversation all around, I asked the guys at the table, “Who have you had speak to you so far this week?” There was a group groan in response to my question that seemed to come from everyone. One man across the table put down his fork and studied me for a second.

“Well, if you really want to know, the first guy was a real character. He showed up like a celebrity, with this blonde on his arm that you wouldn’t believe. It was a red-carpet-at-the-Oscars kind of thing. I thought to myself, ‘Who is this guy?’ Turns out, he was a time management expert. It took him four hours to tell us what he could have said in twenty minutes. I’m not kidding.”

Another well-dressed gentleman at the table spoke up. “Yeah, and the next guy on deck was supposed to be a world-class organizational guru. But the only organization he had ever run was a Boy Scout troop. And he was here to tell us how to do things right at Mercedes Benz.” The guy then laughed.

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Those who wish to seem learned to fools, seem fools to the learned.

Quintilian (AD 95)

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I couldn’t help but think of the highly paid relationship experts I had met over the years, all of whom – I had been repeatedly stunned to learn – had experienced a significant amount of trouble in their lives, with relationships. I was starting to wonder about the old adage concerning those who teach and those who do. As a teacher myself, it was a bit disheartening to hear how many self-proclaimed experts selling advice to the world don’t really seem to know what they’re talking about. Or maybe they just don’t apply what they’ve learned in their own lives – unless of course they’ve tried, and it clearly doesn’t work for them, so why should we think it will work for us? And yet, many of these experts have become very wealthy from their talks and books and videos of advice for the rest of us.

Let’s face it. We live in a time when advice is big business. Because of this, despite the bizarre pervasiveness of the general phenomenon we can call “The Barefoot Shoemaker,” I’ve noticed that it’s at least a little difficult to come across a financial guru who is actually poor, but I have to wonder whether this proves anything at all about their content-relevant talents. With the right image and PR spin, it seems, almost anyone sufficiently photogenic and well spoken can become decidedly rich from the modern guru role alone. I’ve certainly known of speakers and writers on success who didn’t seem to have had any at all until they began speaking and writing on it. So it does make you wonder.

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I’ve sat in an office and listened to some mystic stalk up and down for hours spouting tripe that’d land him on a nut-farm anywhere outside of California – and then in the end tell me how practical he was, and I was a dreamer – and would I kindly go away and make sense out of what he’d said.

Wylie White, Hollywood writer,

in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon

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As I started to notice this odd phenomenon throughout our culture, it began to occur to me that we’d all better start to be a little more careful about the people we go to for advice about the things that matter most. We all want to be happy. And that’s usually why we want to be successful, in good relationships, and financially secure. It’s why we want to use our time well, and flourish in our work. Our quest is a full and robust form of happiness for ourselves and for those we care about the most. And many of us would like to make a positive impact in the world as well. Some version of that could even be a part of experiencing real happiness. In response to our interests and concerns, our hopes and our dreams, there are all these advisors out there in the world who offer us their expert guidance for a fee. Of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with a fee – as long as there is nothing wrong with the advice, either.

This book is about where not to go, and where perhaps to look instead, for the deepest insights about happiness, success, meaning, and everything else that matters to us most. We don’t necessarily have to run to the local bookstore’s “New Arrivals” shelf, or to their “Bestsellers” section for the latest revelation of secrets from the people most touted in the media today in order to discover what we truly need to know. What then should we do? I invite you to read on to learn the answer.

Being Vivid.

Be Vivid. Leaders. CEOs. Managers. A Lesson. My wife just called her brother, whose college graduate grandson across town from him had been pretty sick yesterday. I heard my wife ask in her first sentence how the boy was, and her brother answered, "Well, I took him a pork chop last night and he seemed better." And that sums up the southern literary sensibility. Most of us would have said, "I saw him last night and he seemed better" or "I took him something to eat last night" or "I carried him a small dinner" which are all generalizations and even abstractions, and not that specific concrete detail the southern story teller uses naturally, the particular descriptive that forms a mental image and carries more than its weight in sparking our imaginations and moving the story forward. As a philosopher trained in abstraction and generalities, I have to make myself remember at all times the power of the pork chop. Y'all remember it too, hear? And pass the mashed potatoes.

Og and Moog: A Thought Experiment

Og and Moog. Travel with me back many thousands of years to early humans, or their ancestors. Imagine two of them, hunter gatherers Og and Moog, walking around hungry and seeing some wheat blowing in the breeze in a clearing they've come across. Imagine this is a day before anyone has ever thought of baking anything, except maybe wild boar on an open fire. Og stops and stares and has a creative moment, saying, and I translate here from cave man talk, "You know, some of that would make a nice loaf of bread." Moog replies, "Loof! Loof!" Then a cow walks by and Og says, "Yeah, a hot loaf smeared with ... butter." And Moog just looks at him, puzzled. My point of course is a simple one. We need in our time to be able to do the equivalent of looking at wheat grains and seeing for the first time bread, or at a cow and envisioning butter. It's much more than seeing an oak in an acorn, by a big leap. It involves the mystery of our own alchemy, the transformative creativity, the ability to make beyond what anyone else has ever imagined, that's sleeping deep in our souls most of the time. We need to awaken it in our day, more of us than ever before, and see the world around us not just as it is, but as it could be. And then get to work baking the bread we need. We need to be like Og. Amen?

It's Ok.

Some days evoke a particular inner state. It’s Ok when the regal lion inside you is reduced to something at least approximating this. In fact, under the appropriate circumstances, it should be viewed as normal.

You may be aware of some striking and daunting scenario in which you find yourself and you get it and, moreover, you’re rationally not quite ready to deal with it. You’re cognizant. You’re vigilant. And yet, there’s a measure of stunned perplexity about it all, or at least about whatever sublimely absurd manifestation of it all has just caught your attention and suspended your animation in the here and now. It’s natural to pause, at least in a protective space.

There’s not always a rush. There are times when nobody’s holding a stopwatch. It’s prudent to take it all in and breathe and make yourself relax just a bit. Then you can respond more wisely to whatever, whomever, wherever, whenever, and in fact however might be right.

Recalling the Mysteries

As we contemplate our busy lives or ponder our problems, we need to keep in mind that we're creatures suspended between the incalculably large and the unimaginably small. Sitting in one tiny place on one planet in one solar system spinning through a huge galaxy populated by tens of billions of other such systems and itself just one speck among hundreds of billions of galaxies, perhaps trillions, formed around the strangest of objects called black holes, we also skate over the thinnest ice of quantum probability waves of entangled energy that we call solid ground. And we have no idea about so much of it. I see a small cat concentrating on something and muse that he likely has no thoughts in his own mind of the layers and complexities of my life as a human being and husband, father, and grandfather, nor of my work as a philosopher seeking truth. And perhaps that gap in understanding is vanishingly minuscule compared to the chasm between what we think we know and the actualities of the reality within which we find ourselves. So we should seek to learn the rules of the game we're in, and how to play it well, nobly and formatively, so that we emerge in the end as at least some approximation of the best that we can become here, poised between infinities. And it seems to me that the rule of rules for this game is love, expressed through wisdom and virtue; and even the cat can feel the results of that.

A Dogged Pursuit

I love how a metaphor can help us think through some aspect of our lives. Sometimes, a verbal one tells a story that can be both illuminating and powerful. And occasionally a simple photo can do the same. I saw this simple picture today and was sparked to ponder a general feature of our existence.

For a new challenge, the first step is often the hardest, and as you struggle with it you may feel the frustration of being blocked from going any farther. But that's the nature of the new in our world. It's an experience we share with all those who now seem to be on top of the world, at the pinnacle of the highest staircase, to continue our metaphor, one they may even have had to build as they dreamed and did through their own struggles. But hope kept them going, or sheer persistence of will. If their intent was noble and for the greater good, we celebrate their grit, resilience, and alchemy. And we learn that the same qualities are available to us. So keep climbing, doggone it!

Bring the Light

Be someone who brings the light. I'm tempted to think a purpose of the dark is to raise up light-bearers among us. It's a noble task to which we're called, one that gives benefit to many. We all steer through our lives by the glows of illumination sprinkled about us, some near and others far. If you have a lamp to light, spark its flame and hold it high.

Gifts and Gratitude.

The third volume of the Roman philosopher Seneca's Moral Essays published by Harvard Press features a group of reflections entitled "On Benefits." At one place, Seneca states that benefits are the force that holds together society. We've all benefited from those who've gone before us and built the world in which we could come to be. We're alive because of all our ancestors who strove to live and work well in their own adventures. We're the beneficiaries of billions of people and trillions of choices, from those of the early humans in hunter gatherer bands to our neighbors and teachers and friends who have helped us without condition when we needed it. And our response to all of them and what they've done to make our lives possible should be a deep thankfulness, a gratitude of the spirit.

Surrounded by uncountable blessings and benefits, we too often choose instead to focus on the petty blows, bruises, and bullshit that comes our way. And so we miss the bliss. In one passage, Seneca reflects on the man who sees everything good in his life as being, at best, deserved payment for his own high merit. His sense of entitlement is so high that even what he thinks the world owes him always comes too slowly, with too much trouble, and even then still falls far short of what he believes he truly deserves. The philosopher clearly has fun mocking what's far too common an attitude on life. It's a perspective of course that we need to avoid.

As we grow more acutely aware of our many benefits, we should increase in gratitude, and in become more lavish in giving benefits to others. Gifts and Gratitude are the dynamic Yin and Yang of a full life. And indeed they provide the bond that can unite us all beneath our many causes of division, if they become our proper focus along the way. Happy Day of Thanksgiving to all my philosophical friends!

Out on a Limb

Wisdom often finds itself out on a limb, doing and saying contrarian things. Love your enemies. Become like a little child. Most things aren't what they seem. Selfishness is self defeating. Pure giving is the best getting. Joy is at the bottom of the jar. Humility is the path to positive power. Vulnerability is strength. Stoop to rise. Serve to rule.

But everything great has its imitators and counterfeits. Publishers discovered years ago that confidently contrarian announcements got attention, sparked controversy, and could sell books by the millions. Whatever was common sense or received opinion was wrong, backwards, upside down. "We've always thought X; but a series of clever experiments recently proved Y instead, the very opposite of X. We've always been wrong! Buy this new book to see how."

Beware the charlatans, the con-men, the flim-flammers simply out to make a buck. They end up sawing off the limb they're sitting on. But real wisdom retains its perch. Wait. How then do we know the difference? Well, what lasts? What echoes through the centuries and when lived makes people better, deeper, and more loving? That's the test. But to apply it takes a measure of, well, you know: wisdom. And yet, only a dollop, a modicum, an open leaning forward with a modest discernment, and that will get you more. Guaranteed. And to learn more about this unexpected insight, buy my books. Just kidding.

The Wisdom Edge

The main character in a seventies movie once remarked in existential exasperation, "Don't you realize what a thread we're all hanging by?" The metaphor may change, but the reality is the same. We live on something like an edge at all times, near a precipice, whether we realize it or not. The wise are those who know exactly what the situation is, and where they are, and possess an inner calm about it, along with an agility of balance and correction to deal with anything that may come. Agitation never helps. Fear can be self defeating. A peace deep in the spirit is the sole fount and fulcrum from which good things may arise and even endure, despite the age of the thread or the bare breadth of the edge.

The Weeds of the Soul

When you’re out in nature and in a philosophical mood, it’s amazing how many moral and spiritual lessons you can get if you pay attention. I like to go out in the morning now and then and drop down on my hands and knees in the backyard to weed. It strikes me that the stuff we don’t want in our yards and gardens grows quickly and profusely on its own, and with no help or encouragement from us. That’s a lot like our personal vices: irritation, irascibility, lust, greed, pride, envy, laziness, and any form of harmfully addictive tendencies, to name just a few. We don’t decide to cultivate them, plant them in our souls and work intentionally to nurture them. They’re the weeds of the soul.

So, if we want a nice landscape, we weed. It used to be that when I noticed a stray weed in a place I’d worked hard to clear earlier in the day, I got mildly frustrated. Now I just get busy. Weeds grow. The ones we don’t uproot today, we’ll pull tomorrow. You rarely get it all done at once. And I used to be overwhelmed seeing how many needed my attention in certain stretches of the back. Now I simply know my coming days will allow me to get out into nature again and do something needed, something that’s good. Plus, the exercise itself is its own thing, and beneficial.

It’s important for us to realize that the garden of our hearts, the landscape of our souls, needs similar attention and work. Every day, try to weed a little. And while you’re paying attention, also check on the good stuff. A little water here, some organic fertilizer there, and it’s heartening what a bit of care can accomplish. But there’s always work to do, which is not something to be regretted, or to sprout new weeds in your spirit, but to be embraced as a reality of why we’re here in the first place. The inner exercise itself keeps you sharp.

The Garden is vitally important in the Biblical narrative, and it’s an equally crucial metaphor in our own stories.

Inner Work

One of the hardest lessons for us to learn is that our most important task and number one priority should be our own spiritual growth, improvement, and maturity. And if that sounds selfish, it’s because we haven’t yet made enough progress ourselves to see how it’s the one path to growing more self-less. Only when we are becoming inwardly whole and good can we do our proper good for others. But we are by nature outwardly oriented. And that's an evolutionary survival trait. Improvement is important to us, but we'd rather improve our circumstances, or our friends and family members, or the entire rest of the world than ourselves. We're fine, we easily assume. They've got the problem.

One of my guilty pleasures used to be watching the various incarnations of "The Real Housewives" mock reality shows on Bravo TV, until I just couldn't take it anymore. The dominant theme and attitude on the part of any cast member in any challenging situation seemed to be "I deserve better than this!" It was a show about aggrieved egos on parade, or in other words, about more of us than we'd like to admit. Jesus had a funny way of talking about how much time we spend spotting the speck in the eye of another when we have a log in our own. That was his little nudge toward a refocus and concern for improving ourselves before we tackle all the inner problems of others.

When we're not experiencing Nirvana day to day, we easily blame others, or anything else in our circumstances, rather than considering the part that we ourselves might be playing in our own discontent. But if that rare realization dawns on us decisively and we actually act on it, we quickly feel astonished at how long it took us to see what then becomes the most obvious truth, that it's how we react to the world, more than the world itself, which determines the way we feel, day-to-day. If we can learn to manage our expectations better, or at some level release them altogether, shift our center of attention from how we ourselves are doing to how we can help others around us, just inwardly smile with God, and adopt a different framing attitude for all that's around us, we can attain an inner peace and even stretches of joy never seen on Bravo.

The Power of Our Inner Wounds

Thornton Wilder's short play, The Angel that Troubled the Waters" is based on a Biblical story (John Chapter 5). The blind and lame and otherwise damaged would gather at a famous pool to await an angel who might come to stir the waters, and it was said that the first to get in would be healed. In Wilder's play, a newcomer arrives among those who regularly wait and hope, a medical doctor himself, looking whole and healthy. The legendary angel suddenly arrives and challenges this man as to why he's there. He answers to point to a deep inner wound:

"Surely, surely, the angels are wise. Surely, O, Prince, you are not deceived by my apparent wholeness. Your eyes can see the nets in which my wings are caught; the sin into which all my endeavors sink half-performed cannot be concealed from you."

The angel says simply, "I know."

The doctor then renews his plea, and the angel explains:

"Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love's service, only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back."

The water is stirred and many leap or tumble into the pool and are healed, jumping for joy and showing their former deformities that are now made whole. One of the healed, the first who threw himself into the water, now turns to the silent doctor and says:

"May you be next, my brother. But come with me first, an hour only, to my home. My son is lost in dark thoughts. I—I do not understand him and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an hour ... my daughter since her child has died, sits in the shadow. She will not listen to us ..."

And the play ends. Pictured, a rare 1928 copy that I found online, cheaper than a used paperback, and on the front page, it was inscribed by Wilder. Meant for me. And you. Wounded healers.