Person and Partner

We best work and push and develop ourselves as individuals so that we can work together well in teams. Our partnerships empower us at the next level. Our personal rights and reasons come prepacked with responsibilities to others around us. It's only together that we can do the greatest things and avoid the worst harms. If one member of a crew were to seek to outperform and row faster than his mates simply for ego, or slow down out of indifference or sloth, nothing good would result. Harmony is required. And when we lose sight of this in our body politic or anywhere else, it becomes increasingly difficult to honor it in other domains of our lives. The development, growth, and performance of the individual should always honor greater goods beyond his or her smallest personal sphere. That's how the personal becomes truly profound.

A Parable. The Tree in Water.

The secret is first to grow where you’re planted, no matter how unlikely the spot may seem. If you end up for a time alone, your uniqueness will shine through in clear and special ways. Suppose, though, that you feel like a solitary tree growing tall in the middle of vast water, cut off, isolated, apparently out of place, and you realize that you long for the shore. As you gain height and the beauty of lush green foliage, someone may at some time notice you, come to you, and help transform you into something new, a boat or a raft that will get you to the shore you seek, with others all around.

But wait, for that to happen, you’ll have to die to your current life, you realize and say. Yes. As is always eternally true. That’s what transformation is. And it’s why you grew big and tall. You became a properly abundant resource for what comes next.

And then you would need to be cut down before you could be built up anew. Every ending is somehow a beginning. Perhaps you were indeed meant to float, and the water all around you was a hint of that all along, a clue, a nod to your next. Have faith. Believe. Grow strong. And oh, that tree? What is it, really? On my reading of the parable, and it's my parable after all, so I guess I can offer a gloss, the tree is the ego, the worldly construct of your sacred self. It's the fabricated "you" that the real you has created to present to the world and yourself.

Two Paths

Two Paths. There are two paths of philosophy, one represented by Socrates, one by Seneca. The Socrates path is one of critical thinking. The Seneca path is one of creative living. Both are important and in the end inseparable for a full and flourishing life. Imagine them as crossing every few miles. You can walk a stretch of one, then the other, and integrate what you see and learn.

Each path can be difficult at first, but general ease increases with the miles walked. Yet even for the seasoned hiker, there are still challenging stretches. Both paths insist that we overturn many of our habits of laziness, of fitting in, and worst of all, of self satisfied intellectual smugness. But to even mention these things and the difficulty that greets the novice to philosophy is to understand a bit why both Socrates and Seneca had foes as well as fans, and why both were sentenced to death for their efforts to improve those around them. We can do better in our time in our reception of the wisdom we need. We can help make their sacrifices worth making. Of course, they wouldn't think of it that way, already in their time fully convinced of the worth of their own paths, whatever the cost, but they would cheer us on in the endeavor. Let's explore both paths and find ways, like they themselves did, to join features of the two into one beautiful way forward.

By the way, the Seneca path is well represented these days in books by my friends Ryan Holiday and Donald Robertson, and many others writing on the Stoics like Seneca, and on other thinkers from the past like Thoreau and Emerson. My old friend Brian Johnson is also doing great work in helping people to find and walk this practical and innovative path. And my own work of the past three decades involves mostly this trail. The Socrates path has fewer easy to find popular guidebooks in our time. But one is perhaps Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow.” And family members are reading Adam Grant’s new book “Rethink” and liking it a lot, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. I hope to promote in my own work both careful thought and creative living. And I certainly wish both for you!

The Past and Future You

There's a Biblical story about Lot's wife that you likely know. She's supposed to be leaving the past behind, but looks back and is turned to stone, or a stone-like pillar of solidified salt. There is a way in which our inability to let go of the past hardens us in the present and makes any real dynamic movement into the future impossible. We're no longer limber and resilient or able to grow and adapt.

It's always been puzzling to me that we identify the Biblical character not by her proper name but by the phrase 'Lot's wife.' Her very identity is in her circumstances, in her external relations. And that's itself a warning. We are not ever just where we've been or what we've experienced, who we've known, or what we've done. There is a core identity that is intended to be open to the new, spiritually transformable by the alchemy at work in the world at all times and that we can use to form our souls anew as we move forward into our best possibilities. I suspect those guys on Easter Island were also too caught up in pondering the past, nostalgically looking back. And there they are, stuck in that past. Don't be like them. Focus forward. And go forth anew.

Two Greek Words

Two Greek Words. Ok, in English letters: Telos ("TEA-loss") means something like Real Purpose. Techne ("TECK-nay") means Rational Process.

Your telos is your true reason for being, the essence of who you are at your best, what you do when you’re in flow and flourishing, and why you properly are and do. It's your overarching aim and goal and calling in life that properly helps you select, organize, prioritize, and balance all other goals and interests. It’s the North Star of your wellbeing and best work.

Techne is the art, craft, and science needed to live your purpose and attain your goals. It's the toolkit for embodying your telos in the world. It's rational in the broadest sense of the word, incorporating logic, information, and intuition properly together, the head and the heart, which both have their reasons, as Pascal once said.

Your Right Path is the result of both, brought together well, in work and in life.

So to sum up: Real Purpose + Rational Process = Right Path. And that’s how philosophy should work. Simple. Deep. Comprehensive. Practical. If you agree and find this post helpful, please share it with friends. I did a shorter version on social media today, but this is the full deal.

Galaxy Brain

It turns out that empty space isn't as empty as we think, on a cosmic perspective. Here's a photo from the Hubble Telescope showing a hint of the astronomical fecundity and profusion that surrounds us. I recommend Googling such photos now and then and pondering them. There's a thing called "Galaxy Brain." It's the wonderment or awe that naturally arises when we try to wrap our minds around the immensities within which we scurry about on a very small planet circling a tiny star in a mid sized galaxy among billions and billions of others, as the late Carl Sagan was wont to say. And oddly, Galaxy Brain stimulates a deeper sense of connection with our fellow beings here below. We become more attuned to community and its importance, as well as the wonder and fragility of our amazing adventure together. It's a very different mindset from the one that gets people in trouble, that inner image of the self as a giant astride the globe, at the center of it all and free to do as it pleases, regardless of any consequences for others.

One of the most gratifying talks I ever gave was when I spoke to all the Hubble Telescope people, along with the cosmologists, astrophysicists, and planetary and space scientists who are their colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University, where the Hubble is headquartered. I was honored to give their annual endowed lecture, The Meridian Lecture, and to soak up the amazing minds and hearts daily awash in wonder who work there. Let's be like them. Let's not be oblivious to the big scale of quasars or the small scale of quarks between which we're suspended and called to experience wonder and seek wisdom every day. Self knowledge is not just about diving deep and exploring within, but also about broadening out and existentially understanding our small and precious place in the immensely bigger picture of things.

The Unexpected

You never know what you’ll see next. One of the aspects of life that can either delight us or alarm us is that things can be so unpredictable. The new and unanticipated can surprise us at almost any time.

As Nassim Taleb reminded us in his bestselling book, The Black Swan, no one seems to see coming the biggest things that happen. Most prophets of the dramatic turn out to be false. And you would think that the bigger an event is going to be, the more signs of it would exist in advance of its appearance. But we seem caught by surprise, over and over again. Any new day can thwart our expectations, which is an insight that can cheer us up if we’re discouraged, or keep us humble if we’re on a roll. It’s certainly an interesting world.

I like to see the glass as half full of new opportunities every single day. And it happens to be a very big glass.

The Human Business of Business

Thoughts this morning after reading a great book on Stoicism, where this topic is never mentioned. But sometimes, that’s how a good book will affect us, sparking new ideas and suggesting things that aren’t in the book at all, which makes reading a good book always an adventure. The book, by the way, was How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson. Click the title to see it. Such a very good book! But now to the thought it oddly sparked.

I have an image of capitalism as a very big dog that, trained well, can be a boy or girl's best friend. Untrained, it can wreck havoc throughout the house and poop on every yard. But nurtured lovingly and taught good behaviors, it can be a boon companion through the years of our lives and make our journeys better in so many ways.

Now let's switch metaphors. When anyone thinks of a business as a money machine, things go badly, however well they seem to proceed. When we think of business instead as an engine for human good, things change for the better. It's a bit like viewing medicine as about not only healing but enhanced health, or general wellbeing. When business is viewed and used properly, it's also about healing and enhanced health across all dimensions of our lives. It's about the general weal and wellbeing. It's about improving the human community for all.

I think only a dogged pursuit of the right visions will give us in our time, and in times to come, what we so deeply need.

With the Great British Podcaster Jackie Goddard

New today in the public domain! Great British Podcaster Jackie Goddard comes to my study via Zoom and we have an amazing chat! Here's a link to the whole enchilada just posted over on linked in!

Jackie writes in her post today: <<In my relatively new podcasting career I've had the pleasure and privilege of speaking to some incredible humans, all leaders in their chosen fields and this episode is no different.

Tom Morris is known as America's philosopher. He's a professor of philosophy, keynote speaker and author of 30, yes, 30 books. In our conversation Tom shares his secret to life, his philosophy of success and how the adventure he's now on is preparing him for his next.

So many wise words! I had so many questions and I could have listened to his answers all day... Enjoy!>>

Find the full version here https://lnkd.in/daZjhBH

on the Power To Speak- The Podcast channel on YouTube.

The Surf of Life

I live very near the white caps of the Atlantic Ocean, a mile from a great beach, and in this context, a thought occurred to me this morning. I wanted to share the image with you. A good friend surfs almost every day. And pondering that sparked a realization.

Most of surfing is floating and waiting for the next good wave. Maybe that's a metaphor. Much of life may be in some sense a version of floating and waiting, on some level, for the next good wave. We need to let many ripples pass that may not be quite right for us. And the wait that results should not be viewed as an interruption, a lack or gap, but an essential part of it all. Many of us with images and visions of good rides, eager to get up on the board, need to learn to enjoy the float and the wait as being every bit as much a part of the essence of it all as the flow of a great ride.

Wisdom is Timeless

Wisdom is timeless because all lives reflect universals. The insightful distillation of any experience is therefore ours, whether it's modern or ancient. We can learn from others who have walked this way before us, as we might from those around us today. But sometimes the older witnesses speak to us in a distinctive voice, unencumbered by the many glittering particulars that distract us now from genuine core truth. So pick up an old book, or read a story set in a former time to find fresh guidance and guardrails for your own life now. I do it all the time. And I'm amazed at what I often discover anew to spark me on.

To see the amazing wisdom I picked up from a bunch of fictional Egyptians in 1934, go look around at theoasiswithin.com. And have a great and wise day.

Questions

Some questions we're meant to answer as quickly as we can. Others come to challenge us and take a while to crack. But perhaps some are with us more as companions than as problems to solve. Maybe even a few are meant to be like life partners, once we're introduced. And if we could more deeply understand that, we might even have a key to unlock more doors than we might now even begin to imagine need to be opened. Patience is always good. But there may be a mental and emotional state even beyond patience that will alone allow us to best relate to some of our more ongoing questions that are meant not to be answered and put away, but to change us deeply instead.

You Can Fly

If you've ever seen David Parson's "Caught" in a dark theater with strobes in person, you'll think a human being can levitate and fly. I had the experience once, with David himself, and it was indescribable. The physical illusion is a complete and powerful metaphor for the spirit of anyone willing to work long and hard and impossibly focused to attain the rarefied excellence that alone can play out above all expectations and float in its own element. The experience of it from within is a special ecstasy and a joy. Whether you dance with your body or your mind or your heart, in those times that you soar almost beyond any gravity, you are partaking of something unique and revelatory and for which ordinary thankfulness is a very thin soup, when gratitude rises to prayer. And you know: This is it. And then you grow in wisdom and realize that, done right, everything is it.

The Fight for Clarity

Clarity. I’ve long said that “Vague thoughts cannot motivate specific behavior.” The point is not of course that vague thoughts WILL motivate vague behavior, since there’s no such thing. All behavior is specific. The point is that when we’re vague about our hopes and dreams for the future, our subconscious minds can’t guide us into what needs to be done now and next to move us in the right direction. Vagueness offers no precise advice.

But we all have times when we’re confused and our thoughts are really vague about what exactly we want or need for the future. And that’s natural. Confusion can lead to clarity. Vagueness can give way to vividness, but only if we act both patiently and persistently to make that happen.

First, be patient with yourself. Getting clarity on something isn’t always like flipping on a light switch and gaining instant illumination for your next step. it’s more often like slowly moving a dimmer switch in the right direction, and benefiting as the light comes up to a certain level. Patience and persistence are both important. We need to take action to gain clarity but clarity isn’t always easy or instant.

I like to take out a blank sheet of paper and just do some relaxed free form thinking about possibilities for what comes next. I just write down whatever comes to mind. I try to be creative. And some of those possibilities may sparkle or glow and catch my attention more than others. Then it may be time for listing some pros and cons. These are all active efforts to gain clarity. And often, talking with a friend can help.

I did a version of all this when I was a professor at Notre Dame long ago and was thinking about the possibility of leaving that wonderful place to do something very different as a philosopher. I thought. I pondered. I brainstormed and made lists. And one day on a speaking trip I went for a walk on the edge of the desert in Arizona. And as the sun rose in the sky, my clarity rose with it. I decided to resign my position at Notre Dame and become an independent philosopher. On the long walk back to the hotel where I was staying, I pondered all the implications, and fought with some minor doubts. I got back to my room, and sat on the end of the bed, and flipped on the TV. The movie Rudy was just coming on HBO, the film about a young man with modest athletic talents who dreamed of one day being on the Notre Dame football team. He had a growing clarity about how to realize his seemingly impossible dream. And he was both patient and persistent. But he never could have imagined exactly what was to happen and how getting on the field his senior year at the end of one game and making one tackle would take him to stardom. I knew Rudy. And seeing that movie come on right after I had gained my own clarity made me smile and feel that I was doing the right thing. For both me and Rudy, Notre Dame had prepared us for what was to come next. Just like something in your life can prepare you for your next.

Thanks to the great Sam Horn for inviting me to speak on this last night for her wonderful podcast/Zoom call, "Clarity Matters." Come philosophize with me on any topic any time at www.TomVMorris.com!

Challenge

Those who try to do something new often come to feel the full magnitude of what they’ve taken on only when they’re in the middle of it. Their dreams were focused on happy outcomes. Their realities quickly become the hard process. And success can look impressively impossible at many stages along the way. A sense of loneliness can set in, along with a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task. Doubts rush in. Energy seems to diminish. At such times, wisdom often means to focus on the next task we can do, forgetting the immensity, ignoring the discomfort, putting probabilities out of mind, and just getting busy on what matters next. And it helps to remember now and then how far you’ve already come from where you once were. There’s always a view to enjoy at the stages along the way.

Be Like Water

Chinese philosophers have an image of moving water they use well. When flowing water comes across an obstacle, it goes over it or around it or under it. It sometimes nudges it aside. The obstacle creates the way. And yet, when there is literally no way, the water pauses and becomes a pool or a pond or a lake and waits until the time is right again to move on.

Then these wise thinkers ask: What is stronger, water or stone? And many wonder at the question, saying that stone is heavy, dense, massive, and hard while water is only liquid and soft. But dripping water can go through stone. The drops together, repeated and relentless, have unseen power. So can be our actions in the world. Be like water.

To Change Your Life: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Unity.

In the early 90s, I noticed that all the bestselling advice books and popular talks about personal and organizational success were just on the topic of goal setting and attainment. Nobody was talking about relationship building. But our network of friends and colleagues can make all the difference in our success, leveraging our initiatives and energies to a higher and broader level of achievement. It also concerned me at the time that all the business buzz of the era was about product quality and process efficiency. Nobody was talking about the spirit of the people who do the work. What does it take for people to get excited about anything they’re doing, and then perform at an extraordinary level? To answer this question, I did the research that resulted in the 1997 book If Aristotle Ran General Motors.

It had a fun, playful business title, but it wasn’t just about business. It was about the genuinely human side of everything we do, and what it takes for us to feel a deep sense of fulfillment in our lives and work, as well as how that can generate greater levels of creative success.

My main conclusion was that from the time we get up in the morning until we fall asleep at night, we experience the world along four dimensions—the Intellectual, Aesthetic, Moral, and Spiritual—and each of these dimensions has a target which, respectively, are: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. I came to believe that if we understand these four things, respect them, and nurture them in everything we do, we can provide the foundations for some form of greatness to be possible and sustainable in our endeavors together.

Look at these ideas as a checklist: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. How are these things going in your life, and in your relationships? How are they going in your business? If they’re not flourishing, we can’t flourish. We benefit when we find new ways, and sometimes even small ways, to encourage and respect these four foundations of greatness. Then everything goes better.

I’ve met lots of Fortune 500 CEOs over the years, and many of them have told me they have that book of mine on a shelf in their office. I know some have even read it, and a few have made changes for the better in their organizations, based on its ideas. But many more leaders of the present need to take the advice of the philosophers and apply it well now. We certainly need these four foundations in our political life at all levels, and in everything we do.

When the book appeared in 1997 and was launched on the Today Show, there were lots of early readers who told me, “This book is way ahead of its time.” And in many ways, it might have been. But now the times have caught up, and I’m excited that it’s being rediscovered anew around the nation and in various parts of the world. If you haven’t seen it, I hope you have a chance to, and to dig into the ideas there about what can change everything for the better using the wisdom of the great thinkers who have lived before us.

One easy way of finding the book at a good price is to click HERE.

The Power of Small

Small is where everything good begins. The seed, the acorn, the baby. Unimaginably small strings of vibrating energy in their equally unimaginably tiny 10 dimensions, almost vanishingly little and yet, maybe, responsible for everything else in the physical universe. An infant in a manger, a grain of sand in your shoe, pixels on a screen, an extra few zeroes on the right of that number featured prominently on the check that unexpectedly comes in the mail, a piece of paper merely a few inches around and yet life changing. In the end, perhaps even in some sense small is at the root of all. Remember this when you think of yourself as small, or your actions, or your accomplishments. Small is great. Small can be powerful. Small is the beginning of great.

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.