The Lessons of Dracula

“I vant to drink your blood.” No, that’s not in the famous Bram Stoker book Dracula, nor is it necessarily the subtext of a certain contemporary individual’s political rallies that, nonetheless, do feature the color red. If you haven’t ever read Dracula, you’ve missed out on a great experience. It’s an extremely well done story, and it’s not even very explicit or gory, at least to a modern sensibility. It’s just an engaging suspense story.

I’ve come to think of classic literary monster tales as great metaphors for the most difficult challenges we face. You can find deep insight in Beowulf, in how he pursues and takes on the monsters, and in Mary Shelley’s great novel Frankenstein, in how the title character creates one.

In all these stories, in one way or another, we learn about the power of partnership and collaboration. That would be my main takeaway from the account of Count Dracula, who represents a great evil that can’t be defeated by any one person working alone, but can be confronted most effectively by a team of likeminded people in partnership. for a shared purpose. Interestingly, that was Aristotle’s account of what it takes for the greatest human goods. And the morals of the story for us are simple. Be willing to face any challenge. Don’t go it alone. Gather support from people you trust. Then, no matter how daunting the odds, you stand your best chance of success. I recently reported throughout social media on my reading this week of The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas’ wonderful romp amid swordsmen of seventeenth century France. The same lessons came through it as well, loud and clear.

Dracula is cleverly written as entries from various characters’ journals and letters and telegrams. But it’s so well done as to read smoothly and without any confusion. You sample various points of view in a way that enhances the drama and suspense.

My favorite actual quote may be: “As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window.” (248)

Other notable reminders:

“We learn from failure, not success!” (129)

“Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles,; and yet when King Laugh come, he makes them all dance to the tune he play.” (188)

Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. (251)

“He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together.” (337-338)

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. (344)

“Friend John, to you with so much of experience already—and you too, dear Madam Mina, that are young—here is a lesson: do not ever fear to think.” (364)

And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used! (381)

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The Three Musketeers

Wonderful! Amazing! Incredible! Why did I not read this book DECADES ago?

I just finished a first reading of Alexander Dumas' great book The Three Musketeers. And as I read the last word on page 700, I was like the early young Harry Potter readers who wished the book could be twice as long! Friendship. Honor. Courage. Intrigue. The Unknown. Strategy. Unsheathe your swords, my friends! All for One and One for All!

In this story of nonstop action and insights into human nature, you'll be astonished at how well political machinations and tactical deceptions are portrayed. As a reader, you'll come away armed in a new way against the devious schemes of others. In fact, toward the end of the book, we find almost a novel within the novel depicting what may be the greatest villain I've ever come across, and this embodiment of evil is a woman with every physical and spiritual advantage apart from goodness. What burns within her soul makes her powerful beyond anyone's expectation. And you come to wonder whether she can ever be defeated.

The greatest wisdom of the book is in the story's many insights about dealing with Machiavellian characters. How do you protect yourself? How do you prevail? First, with friends, partners, confidants you can trust. And second, well, read the book to find out. I think of it as vastly superior to the thin swill too often published nowadays on navigating the difficulties of a sometimes harsh corporate culture.

Throughout the book there are nuggets of insight to spark your own thinking. I'll append a few below. My pagination is from the Barnes and Noble Classics Edition.

Of one thing I must warn you. Be careful in your comments, here, friends, for one untoward word or careless gesture may require the response demanded by the honor of a gentleman. En Guarde!

For the book, click HERE.

Some sample passages:

Obstacles

A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to overthrow a great design. (20)

Fragility

 “I was just reflecting on the rapidity with which the blessings of this world leave us.” (337)

Difficulty

“That is rather difficult, but the merit of all things consists in the difficulty.” (338)

“Eh, gentlemen, let us recon upon accidents! Life is a chapelet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink.” (526)

Fortune

“Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back tomorrow.” (410)

Opportunity

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured, the more we gain, when we know how to wait.” (465)

 Philosophers

“But then, philosopher that you are,” said D’Artagnan, “instruct me, support me. I stand in need of being taught and consoled.” (325)

Advice

“People in general,” he said, “only ask advice not to follow it; or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given it.” (387)

Grandiose Ambition

“I am at the age of extravagant hope, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan. “There are no extravagant hopes but for fools, monsieur, and you are a man of understanding.” (441)

On Too Many Public Speakers

He not only talked much, but he talked loudly, little caring, we must render him that justice, whether anybody listened to him or not. He talked for the pleasure of talking and for the pleasure of hearing himself talk. (91)

Wisdom and Energy

Toward the end of Thomas Hardy’s wild and wonderful story, The Mayor of Casterbridge, the title character reflects on what he’s come to think of as a trick the gods play on us: When we’re old enough to have the wisdom to do great things, we no longer have the energy it takes to do them. And thus the big things we need most rarely get accomplished by us.

We can call this phenomenon the principle of “Wisdom-Energy Age Reversal,” or WEAR.

In our youth, we’re full of energy, or what Hardy refers to as “zest,” but we have very little worldly wisdom to guide our abundant capacity to act. Then, by the time that many decades of experience may have schooled us well in the ways of wisdom, we lack our early measure of energy to achieve the things we have come to see would be great. This is why so many of the big things that do get accomplished in the world seem to lack an appropriate measure of wisdom, and why the old and wise among us are much more apt just to critique and complain than to actually rectify the many wrongs around us. It's a principle that indirectly counsels us to enter into partnerships and collaborations that span the spectrum of age.

I love Hardy’s books, largely for his characters and his masterful storytelling. But he’s often thought of as a pessimist, and this principle on wisdom and age can explain at least a portion of that worldview. Given the fact that he wrote a century and a half ago, I’d say that this part of his philosophy at least might be said to WEAR well, on into our day.

For a truly enchanting story that displays the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as food for thought and that shows, among many other things, how secrets and lies never provide a sound path in life, read this delightful book.

To find it, click HERE.

The Wrong Road to Success

A Sentimental Education.

Decently smart people can do indecently stupid things. An intelligent and attractive young man from a country town near Paris moves to the city to find wealth, fame, and love. But it never seems to occur to him that he might have to do or be something of merit in order to deserve any of these things.

Frederic Moreau becomes a clever manipulator of others to further his own aims, and demonstrates what a life is like with no inner core or reliable sense of what’s right. He’s fickle, undependable, and greedy. He falls in love with a married woman more than once and finds himself living parallel secret lives with his various lady friends, all in his efforts to advance his own interests in fortune and status. Revolutionary events begin to swirl around him and it’s never certain who can be trusted. Ambition drives everyone else in his circles as much as it does him. Lust and despair alternate in his life, causing giddiness one minute, and grim hopelessness the next. When he does come into money, he wastes it on showy extravagances to impress those around him as he seeks to heal an inner need that can never be satisfied in such a way.

At the end of the story, he sits with his one remaining friend, the companion of his youth who had become a lawyer in order to prevail in politics, and they reflect on their lives.

<<They'd both been failures, the one who'd dreamed of Love and the one who'd dreamed of Power. How had it come about?

"Perhaps it was lack of perseverance?" said Frederic.

"For you maybe. For me, it was the other way round, I was too rigid, I didn't take into account a hundred and one smaller things that are more crucial than all the rest. I was too logical and you were too sentimental."

Then they blamed it on their bad luck, the circumstances, the times in which they'd been born.>> (462)

Frederic never came to realize the inner man he had neglected to his own great detriment. He never understood the role of character or true commitment in life or love. And in that blind spot, he prefigures many in our own time.

The Joy of Minds Together

Looking back over the past 30 years as a public speaker, I've enjoyed every audience for its own distinctive merits. I love the small groups for the intense intimacy and give and take. I love the medium sized groups of a few hundred for the ways in which the chemistry in the room works. I love the bigger groups of 2,000-5,000-10,000 for their immense emotional waves of resonance and the sense of helping so many focus at once on things that matter. One idea in 10,000 minds at one moment, in the same room, is an amazing experience. Here's a photo I just found. I have no idea who it is. But it's the sort of room that I would always view in advance, to anticipate the challenge, opportunity, and energy on tap. Before getting on the stage, I'd silently pray for every person, and then go philosophize with them. My goal has always been to plant seeds that would begin to germinate right away, and produce unexpectedly great fruit for years to come.

So, whenever I’m in someone else’s audience, I try to make myself good soil for the great seeds that they may seek to plant. And if I experience with them the joy, I try to contact them with appreciation and perhaps a story. Teachers should be lifelong learners. And philosophers always welcome partners. Thanks to any of you who have shared the experience of ideas with me. And if you haven’t, yet ever want to, I’d warmly welcome your thoughts! We are greater together than we are apart.

Setting Goals: The Uncommon Advice

Aim High! Dream Big! Set Bold Audacious Goals!

We hear this a lot. But when we examine effective goal setting, we see something that hardly ever gets mentioned.

For every dream-goal, there should be do-goals. Ok, you want to make a million dollars, or 10, or climb Everest, or be the Number One person in your company or field, garner acclaim as Teacher of the Year, or have a book of yours on a bestseller list. That's fine. And with such an aspiration, you have a dream-goal that's big and impressive but does not depend wholly on you for its attainment. It requires the free choices of others to make it happen. Are they going to buy your book in mass numbers? Will they work hard enough to match you or outperform you in your professional metrics?

A dream-goal is big and not utterly within your control. A do-goal, by contrast, is the opposite. It's within your control, to the extent that anything can be said to be. For example, you can't guarantee for yourself 5 sales today. But you can do something to help make that happen. You can set a do-goal of 20 calls to qualified referrals. Or if your dreams are literary, you can set a do-goal of writing a certain number of days a week, and averaging 3 pages a day.

In our time, we're encouraged by all the people who most want to take your money to set and announce to others impressive goals, when we really need to be setting immersive goals—goals that get us down in the weeds of everyday life, where real success gets planted and grows, through our own ministrations. So, yeah, Ok, think big and strategic, but also think small and tactical.

Make sure your goals are rooted in self knowledge, situational knowledge, and represent the right values, being good for others as well as for you. And don't neglect all the dimensions of your life outside work. Pascal taught me that we need physical goals, intellectual goals, and spiritual goals, because we live life on all three levels. Career goals are fine and important but should not be our only goals.

Just let proper goal setting be your ongoing goal.

The Courage to Be.

In 1975, my next door neighbor Paul was a very famous architect, a graduate of Harvard, the University of Berlin, and the Bauhaus. He was in his 70s and an avid skier. He was a handsome man in great shape and with a lively mind. I had seen his homes in books of modern architecture.

I would go visit him frequently. He asked to borrow my books about Wittgenstein. We loved to sit and talk philosophy and modern design. I liked to play on his tennis court. My wife and I took care of his chickens when he and his young Chinese wife traveled. They lived in an old New England farmhouse that had been added onto time after time. It was an architectural mess. He was an architectural marvel. And he was my favorite unofficial mentor.

But then we had to move out of the one bedroom "mother in law" apartment in the big house where we lived outside New Haven. The husband of the family owning the home had disappeared for a year, only to show up one day in a crazy disguise. I didn't recognize him at all, but his kids yelled out "Daddy!" Weeks later, men in dark suits and Ford LTDs arrived to take boxes of things out of his part of the home. And soon, we had to move a mile away.

I later heard that Paul had been diagnosed with cancer. I tried to figure out what to say to him before I visited. I couldn't come up with anything. I was afraid to visit without good words for him. I thought I had to have answers. I postponed seeing him. I procrastinated. I was busy. I was in graduate school at Yale. I thought of him often, and put off what I thought would be a very awkward visit to a man who had been so full of life. Then someone told me he had died. Waiting for words was one of the worst mistakes I had ever made.

Don't wait for words. Don't wait for answers. Go to people in need and just show you care, words or not. People need love more than answers. People need you.

Sorry, Paul. I was an idiot. Actually, I was a coward. But I didn't understand that at all. I do now. And I've developed a little more courage, the essential courage to just go forth and be. I don’t have to have all the answers. But I do have this one. And now, all these years later. I have the courage to admit my weakness and to say thanks for the lesson. I still love you, man. I finally realize what it takes to show that to others.

Synchronicity

Synchronicity: Just the right thing at the right time.

We often mean by this something like the sudden and meaningful intersection of otherwise apparently unrelated causal streams of events to provide needed help or insight at an important time. A God wink, some say. It could be a small thing or a big one. It could be encouraging or revelatory or both. It could help you along the way, or stop you right before the brink of a cliff. It might lead you to a new path, or keep you on the one you've been walking, despite a time of adversity and pain.

Meaningful coincidences. Do you have any of these in your life story? Have you ever experienced synchronicity, where the right thing happens improbably at just the right time? Or do you experience such things a lot?

I'm starting to think about this more. Let me know if you have this phenomenon in your life.

Success, Failure, and Effort

The most important distinction in this world isn't between success and failure, but effort and inertia. Forward movement counts. Destinations can change as we learn and grow. But growth requires movement. And that depends on effort. So rev it up and go.

A Short Dog Tale

The World as It Is. A car sped down a rural road and what looked like trash was thrown from the window. The farmer mowing nearby stopped his work and walked over to pick up whatever paper had been thrown into his field so that the mower wouldn't shred and spread it everywhere. It wasn’t paper, but a puppy just a few weeks old, covered with bruises and now with a newly broken tail. The astonished man picked him up and took him home. A friend of his sent a picture to a friend of mine named Doug who immediately adopted him and called him Miller. That was two years ago.

Recently, Doug and Miller were at Lowe's Hardware and Miller pulled hard at his leash to get to a lady standing near an end-cap. Doug pulled him back in surprise. It was odd behavior for the ordinarily well behaved dog. They found their item and got in line. Miller pulled again and this time moved around behind Doug, who then turned to see what was going on. It was the same lady. Miller was instantly sitting next to her with his head leaning on her leg. She was crying.

"I'm so sorry." Doug had no idea what was going on.

"No, no. I had to put my dog to sleep a few hours ago."

Dogs know a lot more than we think. They understand and feel in ways we sometimes can’t even imagine. Honor the animals in your life.

And maybe ask them, "How's the stock market going to do tomorrow?" And let me know.

The opening picture above is of the puppy himself on his first trip to the vet! And now two years later, the comforter: A truly good dog.

What I do.

“One of the most properly human studies is the study of what is most properly human.”

- My last waking thought before sleep.

Last night, I was almost asleep, but my mind was trying to figure out the right category for what I’ve been doing in my work for the last twenty five years. In philosophy, you’re always working in a sub-discipline. It’s the same in other academic specialties. In physics, you might be working in particle physics, on the very small, or in cosmology or astrophysics, studying the very large. In philosophy, you might work mainly in metaphysics, examining the ultimate structure of reality, or epistemology, focused on the nature of belief and knowledge, or in ethics, or aesthetics, or social and political philosophy, or logic, or the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, or the philosophy of law. For my first two decades as a committed philosopher, encompassing graduate school at Yale and my job at Notre Dame, I was working in the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. And it was a great experience. But I came to feel a new sense of calling, to a new adventure of ideas, and since then, I’ve been on a quest to discover the practical side of philosophy that relates to life and work in the world.

It was odd. There seemed to be no set label for what I’ve been doing. I’ve often said I was working in practical philosophy, but that’s really just a big part of what I do. I discover conceptual tools we can use all the time. But there is more to it. And then last night, right before sleep would have claimed my thoughts and transitioned me into the realm of dreams, where anything can happen and I might find myself flying in a helicopter over my home, which took up one part of the evening, or saving the world from a terrorist plot (a task that occasionally requires far too much of my attempted slumber). But right before the light of normal consciousness would go out for the night, it occurred to me that I am creating, or rediscovering and perhaps naming, an ancient domain of philosophical concern, based on the search for wisdom that has to do with every major aspect of human life this world. What I do is philosophical anthropology.

For centuries, nearly every serious philosopher did it. Much of Aristotle’s Ethics is actually philosophical anthropology. And the stoics are known for it. Seneca wrote essays on happiness and anger and solitude and grief and success. Emperor Marcus Aurelius is an exemplar of it. So is Ralph Waldo Emerson. But there are many others who have done this in the past. When I began to do it in the late 1980s, I couldn’t find any other contemporary philosophers who seemed to be on the same quest. I was alone in the wilderness without a map or a compass. But there is an excitement about being an explorer, and perhaps a bit of a pioneer. I had enjoyed a measure of that feeling in my first specialty, when I was a young philosopher right out of grad school. No serious philosophers had been working on distinctively Christian topics for a very long time, and while studying the incarnation myself, I urged on others to join me and tackle such issues as the trinity, the atonement, redemption, sanctification, distinct Christian ideas of God, and on and on. The terrain of my new calling in philosophical anthropology was quite different. I now studied such things as success and partnership and happiness, greatness and failure and leadership. And each topic opened up into many more. I flew by the seat of my pants. I followed my nose. But that juxtaposition sounds strange. My pants had no aroma whatsoever, I should quickly assure you. I slashed at the underbrush to clear a trail. Yeah, we'll go with that metaphor. It was a vast wilderness where well trained philosophers seemed to have abandoned camp, but it had been taken over by pop psychologists, and motivational speakers, and a great many flimflam men.

There was counterfeit wisdom everywhere. My job was to be a detective and dig deep and discover what’s real, while rejecting the bogus and careless and false. And in the past few years, I’ve seen more philosophers begin to come back into the area. Most who have done it take a historical approach and study the stoics, or some other past source of wisdom on our general life adventure. My process has been different. I consult as much of history as possible, and dig into great literature as much as I analyze explicitly philosophical tomes of the past. But I also talk to real people in every walk of life, in every sort of work, across economic and social levels, and facing nearly every issue of our day. As a result of over a thousand public presentations, and often working with audience members afterwards, I’ve come to hear people’s hopes and dreams and worries and fears. I’ve seen magnificent success and terrible tragedy, abject failure and deep joy, meaning and suffering, foolishness and wisdom that might surprise you. And that has put me in a distinctive place to make a difference for more people in our time. It’s the greatest ride ever. And I’m glad that you read little bits and pieces here of what I’m discovering and thinking day to day, like this. Thanks for joining me in the adventure.

The Piano Tuner

Adventure. The new. The unknown. Courage. Discovery. Personal Transformation. What people seem to be and what they truly are. These are some of the unexpected themes in a wondrous book I just discovered and read, called The Piano Tuner and written by Daniel Mason, published by Knopf in 2002.

The story takes place in the 1880s. The British are fighting to subdue Burma. A brilliant surgeon takes up residence in a remote fort, a small beautiful village, really, far from civilization, and seems to have uncanny success in bringing peace to the area of warring tribes. He leverages his success to request that the government send him an Erard piano, which is shipped and carried to him against all odds. But a piano in the jungle will have problems. So he asks for a piano tuner from London to come repair it. Thus our story begins.

What was supposed to be a three month trip from London to upper Burma solely for the purpose of fixing and tuning a rare piano turns into so much more than a brief writeup could even hint at. It’s a remarkable book on the human spirit, music, beauty, and the uncertain journeys of life.

Do yourself a favor: Grab it! Read it!

For the book on Amazon, click HERE.

The Old Man and the Sea

I just finished reading Ernest Hemingway’s little book The Old Man and the Sea for the first time in my adult life. I’m sure I had to read it in high school but remember nothing of the experience. I can imagine, however, the average student of that age saying, “We had to read this stupid story about this stupid old man and his stupid fish. It was all so stupid.”

And maybe for the young, it is. But not for those of us who have lived a bit more. It’s of course a story about a poor old fisherman in Cuba that was first published as a book in 1952 and won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as being cited in Hemingway’s Nobel Prize for Literature citation awarded two years later. First printed as a magazine article in Esquire many years before, it has haunted readers for each decade since.

The old man, Santiago, seems to have run out of luck. He’s in a dry patch. He has not caught a fish in 84 days. But he’s determined to go out and catch a big one. So he ventures out in his little boat much farther than is normal, out to where the biggest fish may be found. And after a time, he eventually hooks a huge Marlin who pulls him and his small boat farther away from land for three dqys. They fight and struggle and all the old man’s knowledge and skill are put to the test. Can he have the success of which he has dreamed? Can he endure all that is required? It's hugely difficult, but the answer is yes. The fish finally succumbs and is lashed to the boat and the old man heads back toward land with dreams of the glory and the needed practical income that will result from such a huge and perfect specimen, bigger than anyone has ever seen. It may even be a life changing accomplishment.

But the old man is out on the water alone. He has not brought along the strong boy who is his friend and who often accompanies him on fishing trips. During the extended struggle with the giant fish, he often wishes he had brought the boy with him to help. Another pair of hands could have been so useful. But he struggles mightily and prevails all alone and is glad. Yet, his solitary success is quickly followed by a new challenge. Sharks descend on the huge Marlin he has caught and the old man is limited in what he has with him to use to defend the catch. Thinking of something he could have brought with him, and should have brought along, he finally says to himself words that flow down the decades and into all of our lives:

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. (83)

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Or if you forgot to prepare for your adventure with sugar and water, is there at least some vodka around that you could use?

Santiago fights the first shark that attacks with a harpoon. After losing it, he lashes a knife to an oar and does battle with the next sharks who come. When that’s also gone, he begins to club at the predators. And eventually he is out of options. The thieves of the sea take more and more chunks out of his magnificent catch until there is nothing left but the spectacular spine and bones as a trophy of success and testimony of subsequent failure. He has lost what he had fought so hard to gain.

When he returns, exhausted, demoralized, bruised and cut up, he sleeps and the boy takes care of him. After they talk, the boy says: “Now we fish together again.”

The old man replies, “No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore.”

“The hell with luck,” the boy said. “I’ll bring the luck with me.” (92)

And then they begin to discuss what they will need to bring along with them to be properly prepared for anything they might face together.

And that’s a perspective and trajectory we all need. Great effort is sometimes followed by failure. Even great success can wither on the vine. Don’t let disappointment stop you, however deep and desperate it might be. And never just wait for luck. Bring the luck with you. Take action. Partner up with someone who can help boost your spirits and aid your cause. Prepare. Move forward once more. Remember: There is always a new dream and a new chance and many fish in the sea.

For the book, click HERE.

A Dose of Goodness

I just finished reading Willa Cather's novel, My Antonia for the first time. It's rare that I close a book with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. The story, first published in 1918, is about a group of friends and neighbors in a small farming community in the Nebraska prairie during the nineteenth century. But more that that, it's a book about the beauties, wonders, sorrows, and transporting, transient joys of life that, paradoxically, can form us forever.

In our time of public ugliness and strife, it's nearly magical to be transported to a simpler time and place, and welcomed into lives that can remind us all of the most elemental possibilities for goodness in the world.

For the novel, click https://amzn.to/2CWjcuo

Flying High

Wilbur and Orville Wright were two small town bike mechanics with a dream. Everyone said they were “nuts” and “crackpots” and even people who knew and liked them as people could not figure out why they were “wasting their time” chasing an absurd impossibility. Man would never fly. It was ludicrous. But they were determined and worked hard at their dream, despite frequent setbacks, mistakes, accidents, and trials and miseries beyond anything they had ever imagined.

They might feel disappointment for a moment or hours, but the next day were back hard at work. Resilience, persistence, an attention to detail, and a courage that would not give up began to have their effects. But on one difficult day, Wilbur had been worn down and actually said that the dream might not happen for a thousand years. And then, within a year or two, it did.

But even when they were successful, most people didn’t believe it. They were ridiculed, castigated, demeaned, and called liars and worse. And yet they kept their heads up, maintained their inner poise, and kept working to improve their flying machine, pushing it to greater and greater accomplishments. When finally their success was public and undeniable, they became huge celebrities, which brought big financial payoffs, but actually got in the way of their work. And still, they found ways to persist and fight through fame as they had fought through infamy and failure.

Even though Wilbur died of typhoid fever at the age of 45, he left a lasting legacy that changed the world for us all. Orville carried on but it was never the same as the great partnership they had enjoyed, in bad times and good times. It’s a great lesson and encouragement to any of us who dream impossible dreams and struggle to bring to the world the best we can create. It helps to find a great partner who can share the dream, the work, and the eventual results. And when we face turbulent strong headwinds, we should remember what Wilbur once wrote in his notebook: “No bird soars in a calm.”

For more, go read The Wright Brothers, a great book on these guys by David McCullough.

https://amzn.to/2ExMdhQ

The Con Man and Moral Contagion

It's a phenomenon based on an increasingly popular philosophy of life. And it's sadly contagious.

I’ve just read a remarkable book for our time. The title is First Person. It’s about a young author named Kif who’s hired to ghost write the autobiography of a major con man business tycoon in Australia in the early 1990s. The man’s name is Siegfried Heidl, known to his close circle as Ziggy. On the surface, he’s a prominent character in the culture who has been arrested for his outsized, gaudy, outrageous, flashy business endeavors that, it turns out, have bilked and defrauded banks of at least seven hundred million dollars. But deeper down, the man represents an increasingly common philosophy of life. As in the case of every grifter, the con man has first conned himself, and then he corrupts everyone around him with a sort of moral contagion. We see it happen all the time. It even gets played out in the daily news now, in a constant drip of tawdry revelation.

The book begins with the young writer, who is trying to write a first novel, getting hired to work on the other book project instead and commuting from his home on a poor island to labor during the week in Melbourne, where he is to interview this celebrity CEO before his coming trial and imprisonment, take notes, and draft out a book quickly. But the con man doesn’t want to reveal anything about himself at all. And so the writer struggles. He comes to hate this blowhard, authoritarian, CEO/Grifter, and yet gradually begins to become like him in the end. I’ve copied down some sentences throughout the book that you may find fascinating, individually, and then especially in their cumulative epiphanies. The main voice is that of the young writer. No quotation marks are used. When first confronted with this man, he is astonished. Here are the passages he jots down from his early encounters with the man:

He contradicted his own lies with fresh lies, and then he contradicted his contradictions. (110)

Flattery, he said. So obvious, so easy. It’s not foolproof, but it is proof of fools. (115)

Without secrets, how are we to live? he said. (125)

And the more I saw of him, the more I found every smile, every gesture full of falsity, and each day the more frightened of him I grew. (126)

A man of unexpected shadows, in another life he might have risen to be a self-help expert, topping the New York Times bestseller lists and giving overpriced motivational lectures. And who knows what else? Personal branding. Perhaps even fragrance lines. (128)

I think he just lies. Maybe he doesn’t even care about the money and it’s just a game. (136)

And with that, he leaned back, performance done, puddles of arguments drowned in a sea of nonsense. (153)

It couldn’t last, though, I said.

Why not? So much does. (154)

He said that a coward was the most terrifying man, because there was no end to the things he might do to prove both to himself and others that he had courage. (173)

Put a corpse behind a desk and people will see their superior, he told me brightly as he put the phone down from another call to the media. (175)

… and with a seeming pride out of character he told me that for every con man born so too are a thousand fools willing to be deceived. (176)

It was his need in some fundamental way to possess everyone he encountered. At times, he felt more a contagion than a human being. (179)

(Heidl Speaking in the next three quotes):

Look around you, Kif—sickness, war, the poverty that makes people savage, the riches that make them worse. Do you think the evidence of the world is that the good are rewarded? Oh no! They’re punished. They’re beaten and tortured. They have the skin peeled off them and they’re left hanging in trees to die. The evidence of the world is that the world is evil. Cheats and liars win out, Kif. Money wins out. Violence wins out. Evil wins out. (181)

Make your choice: be a fool, lie to yourself that the world is good, and go with the good. But you will lose. … Everyone and everything is destroyed in the end by evil. You can choose good. Or you can be like me and accept the world as it is. (181)

Why deprive myself of anything, that’s what I think. Would you like a car like that? A woman? Money? You would, wouldn’t you? (182)

He went on about how he was just an ordinary man who just happened to see the world a little more clearly than other men. (183)

That was what was so confusing about him—what was genuine? What was fantasy? What was fact? All I knew was that whatever or whoever he was, I was fed up with him. (185)

Exhausted by his unbelievable laziness, his lies, his greed, his selfishness, his lunatic melodramas, I felt my frustrations transform into a wild hatred. (185)

Now I think that was precisely the point of all Heidl’s stories: to make me believe my life was based on illusions—the illusions of goodness, of love, of hope. And persuaded of that, I would betray something fundamental within myself and embrace his world as my real life. (187)

He was crazed, impossible. I was exhausted by him, angered by him, insulted by his continuing idea of me as one more credulous goon who would believe any garbage he spun. (230)

I couldn’t stomach the falseness of it all, the toying with people it involved, the perverse curiosity of placing people in extreme situations to see how they might react. (233)

Nothing about him was real. I yelled at him all that I thought: about his cowardice. His laziness. His lies. His greed. His manipulation. (235)

You’re a monster, I spat.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. (236)

You want to live without enemies, Heidl said, that’s your problem. You think if I am good and kind and don’t speak ill of others I won’t have enemies. But you will, you just don’t know it yet. They’re out there, your enemies, you just haven’t met them. You can seek them out or pretend they don’t exist but they’ll still find you. Trust me. You want to be like a dog everyone likes, but there’s not a dog alive someone doesn’t want to kick or kill. You want everyone to be your friend? Why? Why bother? (256)

I stole the sun, he said. Souls, I stole souls. I ate them whole and no one saw. I am eating the world. I am eating myself. (257)

I want grandeur, he said. To shit grandeur. (257)

All the rules, all the morals, all the mysteries, they didn’t apply. For a short time I flew above them, beyond them. I was the world and the world was me … (259)

Everything they pretended to hold dear, I trampled beneath me. (259)

The world will burn. And why? Because of me … (259)

There was nothing there. His whole life had been a lost search. (267)

He wasn’t evil. That was too grand an idea when his truth was much more mundane. He was just pathetic. (291)

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TM Note: The Writer’s Life Itself Later On. Kif becomes a television show writer, then a prominent producer, giving up his literary ambitions for the sake of money. He has become like the man he hated and now, looking back, writes (and in the second passage quotes an old childhood friend, Ray, who was the bodyguard of the con man):

--------

I’m not saying thought that what I did was a con. I am asking the question: what is not? (311)

At the time I wanted to succeed, and I had thought that life was about success. Later I came to a different point of view. Living is about being wrong, as Ray once said. But hopefully getting away with it. To live is to be defeated by ever greater things, and it may be that you learn from your defeats, but mostly you are defeated by what you learn. Perhaps the soul purpose of life, I came to think, is learning to understand the measure of your own particular failure. (311)

I rode out the good years, the golden decades, rode them hard, had fun, made money, and lost most everything else. (319)

You can do that, you know. Lose some fundamental part of yourself. and you cannot have it back. Ever. (319)

In my own humble way, retailing lies as reality, I see I have become just another con man. (320)

First Person: https://amzn.to/2MZosyG

Enjoy the Little Things. And, Surprise: It's All Little Things.

This morning, I was talking to my wife about a new connection on LinkedIn with a man who has long worked with Merrill Lynch. It led me to reflect on the unusual fact that, years ago, over a three year period, I had done 43 talks for that company, in the midst of what would be their Golden Age of iconic prosperity and reputation, under the guidance of then legendary Co-CEOs Dave Komansky and Dan Tully. I said to my wife, “It makes me remember the email I got from Tully’s Chief of Staff, when I had requested a testimonial from Tully for the back of my book If Aristotle Ran General Motors. He said that Dan got lots of requests for blurbs, and could agree only to a small few, but that he, the Chief of Staff, was the one who normally did the reading and blurbing, given how busy Tully was with the business of the company. But he wanted me to know that Tully was so impressed with what I do as a philosopher that he said he would read the book himself and write the testimonial, which ended up on the back cover of the hardback and the front cover of the paper edition. Here’s the part the publisher chose to excerpt and use:

“If Aristotle Ran General Motors goes to the heart of what makes people and organizations successful … Tom Morris’ message is a guide to the highest level of excellence in your company and your career.”

Daniel Tully, Chairman, Merrill Lynch

I told my wife the story as I shaved and then said, “That’s a little thing I’m really proud of, that Tully wanted to read the book and that he personally chose to write such a nice testimonial.” My wife said, “Well, that’s not such a little thing.” I replied, “But it’s the sort of thing that never gets onto a resume. It's a tiny little fact that almost no one knows but that means a lot to me.” I was thinking that it would never appear in an official bio or on a Wikipedia page, and yet it brought me great satisfaction. She said, “The little things that really matter are like: Do you enjoy letting someone in front of you in a line?” I said, “Yes, I do.” She said, "Good." And then I said, “But it’s also fine to enjoy stuff like the Tully thing.” And then I pondered it all some more.

It’s nice to be recognized as the Number One Salesman this year in your company. It’s something to be proud of and relish. But what makes it great is not the fact that you beat lots of other people, who are all now a bit disappointed, but rather the focal thing is all the hard work you put into the job to make possible the success you had. You feel great. But: Why should we ever celebrate or relish being the person who is keeping other people from having that feeling? It’s the little things you did persistently, and maybe relentlessly, that added up and that are worth enjoying and celebrating. The big result? Maybe there’s a way in which it’s an illusory, or true but misleading, side effect of all the stuff that really matters.

None of us needs to be King of the Hill. What we need is to discover our talents, develop those talents, and deploy them into the world for the good of others as well as ourselves. A certain level of income, or status, or a widespread public recognition may or may not come along with that. But even if it does, it’s never the core of what’s to be relished or celebrated. We get it backwards or upside down when we seek and fixate on the seemingly big things, which, after all are merely the cumulative effect of the little things, with a dash of luck or providence added in, factors that we never control and so can never take credit for. So maybe the big things are really in a sense little, and the little things are really big. And if so, then that wouldn’t be the first time that life shows us a deep paradox that’s the portal to great wisdom.

A little conversation produced a big insight which, in the grand scheme of things, as I put it out here for a few good people to read, is really just a little thing after all.

Doing Your Best

"Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority." - Jane Austen's Emma, in the eponymous novel.

The concept of negligent superiority brilliantly captures an all too common phenomenon to be seen among the lavishly gifted, talented, and connected. But as the twentieth century philosopher Wittgenstein once opined, to rest on one's laurels is as dangerous as falling asleep in the snow. Those frozen in their sense of superiority do not flow on to further success.

But modest endowments put to great use can accomplish much. In fact, it's the negligence of superiority that allows for many others with lesser gifts to prevail by doing their best. My wife's parents told her when she was young that the grades she brought home didn't matter nearly as much as the fact that she did her best. It's really both a reassuring and a daunting concept, but it does carry promises and hope. So, in all that you do, do your best.

Think Small. Aim Low. Set Modest Goals.

Think Small. Aim Low. Set Modest Goals.

Has any motivational speaker in history said those things? Probably not. And they constitute amazingly good advice.

At age 58 I had never done the famous exercise called Bench Press. I started small, at 85 pounds, because I saw a guy about my age or older doing it with that weight. Pretty soon I was lifting 100 pounds, then 120 and even 150. The day I hit 200 was amazing. When I first tried 240 I was over 60 and it felt like I had a truck on me. My workout partner was yelling “It’s moving! It’s going up!” I thought I was stuck. I was using a Smith Machine that has the bar in a slot and you don’t have to use any small muscles to balance the load. I eventually made it to benching 315 pounds. If you had asked me at any point along the way if that was my goal, I would have thought it absurd.

Now I do free weight bench, where I have to balance the bar. So I had to back up, a lot. I did days at 140, days going up to 190, and recently 200 and even 230. But today, I had my personal best on free weight bench of 250, at age 66. Again, I could never have set that as a goal. I started small. I aimed low, so as not to hurt myself. I set modest goals along the way.

What we easily forget is that thinking small, aiming low, and setting modest goals gets you in the game, in any dimension of life. As you acquire skill and strength you can then step it up. But if I had been told today that I could go to the gym only if I was willing to try 250, I could have stayed at home. Honest. By aiming only for a modest goal today I positioned myself for much more.

Consider the immense benefits of thinking small, and adjusting along the way.

A Blessing

I'm halfway through the editing of my next novel, The Mysterious Village, and just came across this passage that expresses wishes and blessings that I want for us all. In the midst of travel across the desert, and at a special Oasis, Walid is in the presence of a mysterious lady who seems to have special knowledge not available to most. He asks about the future. She's reassuring but elusive. And this happens.

She reached out her right hand and spread her fingers wide, pointing her palm toward Walid but not touching him or even coming close to him. She spoke several words in a language he didn’t know or understand, and in a strange tone, both softly and quickly, with her eyes closed. And then she opened her eyes wide and said, “May you and your friends be richly blessed as you move on deeply into the adventures that now await you. May a firm faith and a resilient hope be with you and in you at all times. May you persist with courage and prevail through any difficulties you’re called upon to face. And may you then be able somehow to share the story of your journey with future generations. Great blessings will go with you and be on you, enduring blessings to you and your friends and all who learn of you, my golden young man of the kingdom. We are blessed to have you with us for this short time, Prince Walid.”

For information on the series in which this will appear, early summer, go to www.TheOasisWithin.com.