I’ve been using and loving Zequenz A5 blank notebooks for my morning pages. The paper is so smooth, and InkJoy Gel .07mm pens glide across it like butter.
We picture an undisturbed monk sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop somewhere, free from the stressors the rest of us face. Or maybe we imagine a woman doing yoga on a beach, smiling as the sun rises and the sound of the waves hush her worries and cares. Courtney likes to “joke” that if we had kids she would end up faking her own death and moving to Costa Rica. And really, all of us think this way sometimes. That we have to “get away from it all” to have some peace.
But that’s not what tranquility is. At least that’s not how the Stoics saw it.
For them, tranquility was something inside us, independent from what was going on around us. The world can go to pieces, but that doesn’t mean we have to. A barking dog doesn’t have to grate your nerves. A song can be awful…or interesting.
According to Seneca, there are two reasons why people lack tranquility: they cannot adapt and they cannot endure.
A tranquil person adapts. They know that one of the easiest ways to ease anxiety is to let go of a fixed idea of how they want things to be and instead embrace them as they are. They endure. They know that staying the course—past the pain, past the boredom, past the uncertainty—puts them in control of themselves and, therefore, calms them.
One of my favorite stories from one of my favorite books, The Obstacle is the Way (see below), is about boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who, in the mid-1960s and at the height of his career and fame, was charged with a crime he did not commit: triple homicide. The verdict: three life sentences.
Carter had entered prison with a $5,000 diamond ring, a gold watch, and a tailored suit. Now, waiting in line to be booked into the general population as an inmate, he asked to speak to someone in charge. “Looking the warden in the eye,” Ryan Holiday writes, “Carter proceeded to inform him and the guards that he was not giving up the last thing he controlled: himself.” Yes, he knew the guards were just doing their jobs, and this injustice was not their fault. And yes, he knew he would be there for some time. But he wanted to be clear: even though he was a prisoner, he would not be treated like one—because he wasn’t powerless.
Of course he was furious. Who wouldn’t be? His situation was grim, cruel, and unfair (to say the absolute least). But instead of giving into despair—something most people would have done—he poured his energy into getting out. He would not act like a prisoner just because he was in prison. He would not do what other inmates did. He would not attend parole hearings or work in the commissary to lighten his sentence.
No, every minute would be spent working towards his freedom. Every second would be for reading books—the law, philosophy, history. He refused to buy into the idea that they had ruined his life; they had just temporarily put him somewhere he didn’t want to be. He decided “he would leave prison not only a free and innocent man, but a better and improved one.”
Nineteen years and two trials later, his verdict was overturned and he walked out of prison a free man. Did he file a lawsuit? Did he seek an apology? No and no. That would have implied that something had been taken from him, that someone owed him something. “That had never been his view, even in the dark depths of solitary confinement. He had made his choice: This can’t harm me—I might not have wanted it to happen, but I decide how it will affect me. No one else has the right.”
This can’t harm me. I decide how it will affect me.
To me, this is the essence of tranquility, the serenity prayer embodied. Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can…
Seneca said tranquility was the ultimate good for a human being. A tranquil person is not quick to anger. They have a clear head. They have a clear conscience. They take the right action. They are unruffled, undisturbed, unperturbed.
Further, a tranquil person will find the good in every situation. (Otherwise, they wouldn’t be tranquil.) And what more can be asked of us than to find the good in every situation, in every person?
Carter didn’t think, What if? Or Why me? Or They’ll all be sorry one day. Those thoughts would have upset his tranquility and clouded his judgment. By accepting his situation, he allowed room in his mind for better ideas to sprout, one of which bloomed into the foresight to begin a program of reading and studying, which would eventually lead to his freedom. And because his efforts were self-directed and in his control, each action propelled him forward and gave him the energy to endure.
I think of Socrates in jail in his final moments. When the prison guard brought him the glass of hemlock, Socrates apologized to him! He felt bad for his executioner, that he had such an unpleasant duty. Was Socrates afraid in his last moments? Maybe. Probably. Would it have mattered if he was? No, it wouldn’t have. He knew that fighting the inevitable was to hand over his tranquility, something no one would do on purpose.
Like Socrates, Carter had decided he would not “surrender the freedoms that were innately his: his attitude, his beliefs, his choices. . . . choices that could not be taken from him even though his physical freedom had been,” Ryan writes. “We don’t control the barriers or the people who put them there. But we control ourselves—and this is sufficient.”
—
Carter’s perseverance made me think of a story I recently read from the wonderful book Big Magic (my favorite book about creativity I read this year) by Elizabeth Gilbert. Distinguished writer Richard Ford was giving a talk at a bookstore in Washington, D.C., and it was time for Q&As. A middle-aged man stood up. He said he had a lot in common with Ford: they were about the same age, they started writing short stories and novels around the same time, they had similar backgrounds, and they wrote about similar themes. The only difference is that Ford was considered a man of letters, and he, the man in the audience, had yet to be published. He told Ford that all the rejection letters had crushed his spirit. “I wonder if you have any advice for me,” the man said. “But please, sir, whatever you do, don’t tell me to persevere, because that’s the only thing people ever tell me to do, and hearing that only makes me feel worse.”
Ford told the man he was sorry for his disappointments and that he couldn’t imagine what it was like to receive so many rejection letters. Then Ford said something to the man that made the audience freeze. He told him to quit. “I say this to you only because writing is clearly bringing you no pleasure. It is only bringing you pain. Our time on earth is short and should be enjoyed. You should leave this dream behind and go find something else to do with your life. Travel, take up new hobbies, spend time with your family and friends, relax. But don’t write anymore, because it’s obviously killing you.”
The room went silent. Then Ford smiled and casually added, “However, I will say this. If you happen to discover, after a few years away from writing, that you have found nothing that takes its place in your life—nothing that fascinates you, or moves you, or inspires you to the same degree that writing once did . . . well, then, sir, I’m afraid you will have no choice but to persevere.”
Books Read This Month:
-As many of you know, Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph has been one of the biggest influences on my life. I read it a handful of times between 2016 and 2017, and uncoincidentally, it was around that time that I made major changes. The main theme, like Carter’s story above, is that inherent in every obstacle is an opportunity. More than just remaining unharmed by obstacles, we can be improved by them. Do the next most necessary thing. No one can stop you from that. So when the 10th Anniversary Edition came out, I pre-ordered it and read it immediately. It’s wild how much I get from this book every time I read it. Seriously, if you read nothing else this year, read this. And if you’ve already read it, read it again!
-Another book of Ryan’s that I finished this month is The Daily Dad. I’ve had this book on my nightstand since last year, reading a few pages every other night or so before bed.It is SO good. I’m aware that giving parenting advice when I’m not a parent myself is ridiculous, but I’m going to give it anyway: if you’re a parent, you need to read this book. You really have to. It will be one of the best things you do. Even if you’re not a parent, read it. Because parenting—as my understanding goes—is mainly about being the best version of yourself for your kids. And this book is about how to be the best version of yourself. Here’s a timely part from the January 14th passage that I highlighted: “The world needs less judgment, less bullying, fewer opinions, period. Can you start this trend at home? Can you teach your kids what that looks like, instead of letting the same old rumor mill spin round and round, grinding their goodness to dust?”
–A Night to Remember by Walter Lord is a concise, suspenseful account of the sinking of the Titanic. What makes it the definitive book on the Titanic’s sinking is that Lord had access to many survivors, a privilege that no one else had or will have again. The book starts with lookout Frederick Fleet spotting the iceberg and advising the ship to turn away. From there, you get the play-by-play from multiple vantage points of its tragic sinking. Really good.
–The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson. Wow, I am ashamed that I didn’t know much about Emmett Till before reading this. In Mississippi in 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett whistled at a white woman—and was mercilessly tortured and killed for it. It’s a gut-wrenching but necessary read. Emmett had been living with his mother, Mamie, in Chicago and he asked her if he could go to Mississippi to visit family. Mamie said no. She knew how dangerous it was for Black people in the South. But Emmett begged her, and she finally relented. You can go, she told him, but you have to be careful—it’s not like it is here in Chicago. Mamie worried as she watched her son board the train bound for Mississippi. She sent away her young, excited boy, and, as Thompson puts it, what she got back was a corpse. A grisly, unrecognizable corpse. What they did to Emmett was beyond words, and at the funeral, Mamie made the choice to keep the casket open. She wanted everyone to see what hatred looked like.
-It took me 3 weeks to read the 992-page 1992 biography of Harry Truman by David McCullough…and it was worth every hour spent. Not only did I learn so much about how the government works, I learned how the press works. How lies are picked up and spread. Like how McCarthy had accused Truman’s administration of communism—a wildly unfounded claim that deeply confused and angered Truman. McCarthy, of course, had no evidence, nor was any evidence ever produced (even after an internal investigation headed by McCarthy’s own party members). But he was adamant and loud, and so most of the country began to believe him because surely no one could be that loud about something that wasn’t true. In another instance, the unhinged General MacArthur (not to be confused with McCarthy) accused Truman of firing him for “telling the truth” about Truman’s administration, sparking public sympathy for MacArthur and fury at Truman. (History really does repeat itself.) It wasn’t until later that the public realized MacArthur was just an egomaniac. Anyway, what I love about Truman—and what made the book worth reading—was his character. He was honest, cheerful, buoyant, committed to world peace and his family, and worked harder than anyone around him. He pushed for things like better education, improved housing conditions, and livable wages. Unfortunately, his plans to improve the average person’s life were repeatedly blocked by the Republican-controlled Congress, which cared mostly for the rights of big businesses. Still, Truman was able to build millions of homes through government financing, double social security benefits, desegregate the armed forces, and increase the minimum wage (to name a few things. Not to mention the formation of NATO and the United Nations). Prices were higher, but “income had risen even more.” Unemployment was almost nonexistent. Dividends on farm and corporate income were at an all-time high. Income gains, education, and standard of living were “unparalleled in American history.” Just such a great biography about one of the greatest presidents we’ve ever had.
Courtney and I decided to do some gardening in our backyard this month. My mom came over to help. She taught us about tree suckers and Lantanas and directed us as we dug holes, mixed fertilizer into the soil, and laid cedar mulch. As I was pushing in a rod for the drip irrigation, Courtney told me to make sure I was putting it in straight.
“Oh yeah, I know, I am.”
“So the reason I said something was because I’m actively watching you not putting it in straight.”
It was hard work, but I enjoyed every minute of it. We talked and laughed and we were all together.
“Your Ma did the cooking, and I hustled for things to cook. . . . It was pretty rough sailing, you bet, but one way and another we managed to get a huge deal of satisfaction out of it, because we had made up our minds to take our fun as we went along. With most people happiness is something that is always just a day off. But I have made it a rule never to put off being happy till tomorrow. Don’t accept notes for happiness, because you’ll find that when they’re due they’re never paid, but just renewed for another thirty days.”
I just love that. Don’t accept notes for happiness.
It’s so easy to rush, to see the day as something to get through, to be anxious about what we still have to do, to think something’s lacking. It’s alarming how easy it is to remember to slow down and enjoy it. (On our fridge I wrote a reminder: Are you enjoying the day?)
When my time is up, when the next generation takes over, when the next family moves in with their own dreams and expectations and hopes and gardens, I want to be able to say, Have fun! I sure as hell did. I enjoyed my time here. I enjoyed the shit out of it.
Last month, I finished reading Seneca’s Letters on Ethics, which I’ve been making my way through since April. (See below!) He, of course, had a lot to say about enjoying life. He said that a tranquil mind is the ultimate good for a human being, the ultimate joy. And here’s the kicker: because tranquility is the ultimate good, any further delights are mere seasoning. Once you’ve satisfied hunger, eating more won’t make you more satisfied. What good is more water when your thirst is quenched?
But look at the hell we put ourselves through for what amounts to mere seasoning. We sacrifice time with the people we love, time doing the things we love for…what? The possibility of a slight enhancement? And usually, it’s not even that. Usually, it’s the complete opposite—a diminishment. A person will work a humdrum 9 to 5 to help pay their $600 car note. We stay up late watching TV and then are too tired to rise early and work on something we love. We TikTok without noticing the clock doing the same.
Tranquility. I’ve been thinking about this word nonstop. It’s beautiful. It’s our own inner source of strength and comfort. When everything around us is chaotic, it keeps us at peace. It’s light-hearted and cool-headed in adversity. It’s built on how we view things like happiness, virtue, anxiety, death, desire, and envy. And the best part is that tranquility is something you can have anywhere, anytime.
I found 21 ideas from Seneca’s Letters that have helped me to be more tranquil:
1. All virtue is equal; it can’t be measured in degrees. “Its magnitude is fixed”, it’s complete in itself. And because virtue is the foundation for happiness, happiness cannot be measured in degrees either. To think that you’re “less happy” than someone means you’re not happy at all. In fact, you have the ability to be as happy as the happiest person in the world at this very instant because the happiest person in the world has nothing in terms of goodness—the source of true happiness—that you can’t claim for yourself right now. In a prison or mansion, each moment contains an opportunity to practice a virtue, so each moment is an opportunity for total happiness. “If one is not happy [in every situation] one cannot have attained the highest good.”
2. “The happy life is just one life.” It’s an error to think that someone who lives longer and more far-reaching lives better. The measure of a life is based on its fullness. If you’re fulfilled, what does it matter how someone else is fulfilled? One eats less, the other more. What difference does it make? Both are filled.
3. Death can happen at any time—far into the future or in the next instant. So if we fear death, it follows that we would have to be in constant fear. Same with anxiety. Anything can happen at any moment. If you’re anxious about one thing, what’s stopping you from being anxious about everything else?
4. Do whatever you can to get rid of your vices, even if it means ripping your heart out.
5. The healthier we think our mind, the sicker it is.
6. Suffering is not a good thing. But courageously suffering what we must is a good thing. I used this idea on the treadmill the other day (and have used it since). My legs were in pain and I was out of breath and I still had more to run. I thought about how nice it would be to lie on the couch with a cold bottle of Powerade. But then I thought, wait, Powerade on the couch might sound pleasant but it’s not actually good. My body might feel better on the couch, but it won’t increase my tranquility. If anything, it will diminish my tranquility because I didn’t follow through on something important. At this moment, the ultimate good is to stay on the treadmill.
7. The most dangerous threats are inherently short-lived.
8. What good is it to have done something great but against your will? If you complained while doing it? This is how people tear themselves apart; the body goes one way, the mind another. Reluctance is a foolish way to do anything. Willingness is the key. We should approach each task on our toes, not our heels.
9. Feelings cannot exist in the past or future; therefore, pain cannot exist there either.
10. A person’s excellence is found only in what is unique to human beings: sound judgment. It’s what separates us from plants and animals. Dogs can be louder than us. Whales can make a more soothing sound. Our uniqueness lies in our ability to judge properly. Only by sharpening our reasoning can we hope to attain the excellence of a human being.
11. Don’t give your mind over to whoever or whatever happens to be in your vicinity. Whether it’s people or advertisements or something online, keep your mind on the highest things. Have a conversation in your head with a philosopher instead of Joe Schmo you find yourself next to.
12. If you wish to be richer, don’t add to your riches, lessen your desires. If you wish to be more honorable, don’t add to your honors, lessen your desires. If you wish to have more pleasure, don’t add to your pleasures, lessen your desires. If you wish to live a full life into old age, don’t add to your years, lessen your desires.
13. It’s no big deal to shun extravagance—what’s admirable is to shun even necessities. It’s one thing to have contempt for fancy meals. But what about contempt for bread and water, even when you’re hungry and thirsty? ‘But I’ll starve!’ It’s unlikely you’ll actually starve. What’s more likely is that by lacking contempt for your bodily urges, you’ll lose something more important than a meal: you’ll lose command over yourself.
14. It’s rare that a person fears what he should.
15. If all of your actions are directed toward the right things, there is no need to fear anything because everything you do is simply what needs doing. Like the ants who go about their day putting the world in order as best they can, you simply do what you were made to do. What could be scary about that? I used this idea the other day at work, and it boosted my confidence and helped me think on my toes. I was giving a presentation, and a small hint of anxiety started to warm my chest. I thought, oh my gosh, stop being silly and overthinking it. This is my job. It’s no different from eating and sleeping and driving and being myself—I’m just doing what I do. There’s nothing to think about.
16. This led me to another thought. If everything you do is simply what you do, then there’s nothing to calculate, no reason to hesitate. There’s no “being brave”, there’s just being yourself. ‘That was a really brave thing for her to do.’ No, that was a really her thing for her to do. That’s what she does. She moves from one necessary activity to the next and regards the outcome for each as irrelevant.
17. Until you know what to pursue and what to avoid, all your traveling is wandering.
18. Our lifetime is short, a mere blip, the length of a pinprick. There are no vast amounts of time in our lives; how can there be a vast amount of basically nothing? When we say something happened “just now,” that covers a fair portion of our lives, including the past, because our whole lives are so short. So we must be mindful of how we spend even “small” amounts of time—they account for much of our life!
19. Wisdom means always wanting the same things and always rejecting the same things.
20. Not wanting is the same as having; either way, anxiety is relieved.
21. Grateful is the best state of being. It is divine. At the end of my life, I hope to leave grateful and without complaint, as Marcus Aurelius said, “like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.”
Books Read This Month:
–Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis is hilarious. The protagonist, George Babbitt, is caricature-like—an outsized image of the American businessperson. Lewis Sinclair is hilarious in the matter-of-factness he describes what makes his characters tick. Like how Babbitt—the ultimate conformist—is proud of his top-of-the-line alarm clock, happy to wake to such a quality piece of equipment. On paper, he has it all. A lucrative job, a loving family, a big house. Still, he dreams of mistresses and is easily annoyed by his wife and kids. He rides high on boisterous small talk and hearty back-pats with people in his community, only to be irritated moments later when an old lady cuts him off in traffic…only to forget all about it when he gets into his office. It made me think about the silly things we get worked up about. Things we won’t remember next week. Things we won’t even remember in the next hour! Why not save ourselves the trouble and just not get worked up in the first place? The other day, I couldn’t find a parking spot at work and I found myself getting annoyed. Then I thought, Really? You’re getting irritated about this? That’s how Babbitt would react. And I immediately smiled and felt grateful that I have a wonderful job and it’s such a beautiful day and I’m so incredibly lucky to be alive and experience it.
-As I mentioned above, I’ve been working through Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) by Seneca since April, and I finished it last month. It’s 124 letters Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius on things like joy, gratitude, friendship, ambition, tranquility, how to cope with grief, how to think about death, how to spend your time wisely, what’s worth desiring, what’s worth avoiding. You wonder, how can a book contain so much wisdom? How can a person contain so much wisdom? Reading his letters is like having a conversation with him, and who wouldn’t want to converse with one of the wisest people to have lived? There’s a reason his works have endured through time and why people continue to turn to his writings for comfort and guidance.
–So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson is hilarious. And deep and eye-opening. It’s about, well, public shaming—why it’s a problem and its scary, hidden costs. It’s also superentertaining.
-Oh my goodness, I LOVED When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead by Jerry Weintraub and Rich Cohen. I learned so much about how business works and how deals are made. Weintraub shares how he went from an industry nobody to taking Elvis Presley on a national tour—completely changing the touring business model in the process. And that’s just the start. It’s one entertaining story after another from a guy who had all the top celebrities—Sinatra, Elvis—on speed dial. You realize as you read that it’s a masterclass in confidence, coming up with ideas on the fly, building relationships, and getting things done. And that persistence is even more important than intelligence and connections. Above all, enjoy it. At the age of 72, he reflects, “Savor life, don’t press too hard, don’t worry too much.”
–Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I LOVED this one too. I’m obsessed. I was hesitant to read it for some reason, but I’m so glad I did. It’s one of the best books on creativity and authenticity I’ve read. Gilbert says the creative life is the best life, how we have treasures buried within us and that hunting for those treasures and bringing them forth is the most fulfilling way to live. I also loved her humility in her personal stories. While working on her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, she asked her then-boyfriend if she could include him in it. “What’s at stake?” he asked. “Nothing,” she replied. “Trust me—nobody reads my books.” To the reader, she continues, “Over twelve million people ended up reading that book.” It’s funny and inspiring. I highly, highly, highly recommend it.
A few weeks ago, Courtney and I were getting ready to go to a Mercury basketball game when I remembered a quote by Henry David Thoreau that I really love.
“Bubs.”
“Yeah.”
“Our shadows never fall between us and the sun,” I smiled.
“Which shoes should I wear?”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Our shadows never fall between us and the sun. Which shoes should I wear?”
—
Ah, Thoreau. The great philosopher and bucker of convention. His mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said that the ultimate morality is to be a nonconformist. Not in the sense of shirking responsibilities or being “different” for its own sake—that’s just silly—but in following your natural inclinations.
Thoreau lamented how a person works their whole life to earn the right to follow their calling, but by the time they’re able to follow it, they’ve lost the desire to do so:
“This spending of the best part of one’s life, earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have [become one] at once. ‘What!’ exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land, ‘is not this railroad which we have built a good thing?’ Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt.”
The more I read, the more I see this same idea: living a happy life means living authentically.
What mainly stands in the way of living authentically is what Ray Bradbury called the enemy of life itself: self-consciousness.
—
In the 1980s, Leonard Mlodinow was beginning his career as a physicist at Caltech. He was given total freedom to research whatever he’d like. This sounded great at first—complete freedom—but it soon became clear he had a problem: he didn’t know what to work on. He became increasingly anxious to find a subject to research. String theory was popular, should he study that? What about that other theory that was gaining traction? That would be good to research, right? Desperate to figure out what he should work on, he sought out Nobel Prize winner and fellow physicist Richard Feynman to ask him what he thought. After some probing, Feynman finally said to Mlodinow, “Look, selecting a research problem isn’t like climbing a mountain. You don’t do it just because it is there. If you really believed in string theory, you wouldn’t come here asking me. You’d come here telling me.”
Knowing what to work on is often the hardest part. But at least there’s a good way to know if you’re on the right track: you won’t be looking around to see what everyone else is doing. You’ll have confidence.
That’s what Bryan Cranston, when he’s working as a director and hiring an actor, looks for. “This whole business is a confidence game,” he says. They need to have a little arrogance about them. Not in their private lives, of course, but in their work. Like an athlete who says, I got this, with the game on the line. “If an actor comes in, and I feel flop sweat and need from them, there is almost no chance I will hire them. Not because they are untalented, but because they haven’t yet come to the place where they trust themselves, so how can I trust they’ll be able to do the job with a sense of ease? Confidence is king.”
To not trust ourselves, to dismiss what we think, Alain de Botton said, is to unwittingly ignore the greatness of our own minds. This is extremely sad. He pointed out that Aristotle was peerless because he placed his faith in the fruits of his own thoughts.
Of course, it would be absurd not to read and learn from the wisest people to have lived. But to not supplement this learning with introspection is also unwise.
Take Montaigne. He believed that we could derive more wisdom from our own life than anywhere else. Relying solely on books, for instance, to explore our curiosity and intellect is detrimental; they cannot account for our own thoughts and feelings. “Were I a good scholar,” he said, “I would find enough in my own experience to make me wise. Whoever recalls his last bout of anger . . . sees the ugliness of this passion better than in Aristotle. . . . Even the life of Cesar is less exemplary for us than our own. . . . we are richer than we think, each one of us.”
In one of my favorite books, The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton quotes Montaigne in saying that great men and women are often not seen as great by their spouses or those who live with them. This might be because they see the private, less pretty moments of life up close. But it also might be due to our curious nature to not find interest in people too close in proximity and age to us. De Botton notes that Montaigne was not saying this out of pity, but as a way of pointing out the “deleterious impulse to think that the truth always has to lie far from us, in another culture, in an ancient library, in the books of people who lived long ago.”
The wisdom is right here, he was saying. In front of you and, more importantly, inside of you. After all, if wisdom begins in knowledge, it must first be perceived within. It’s why the truth always rings true. “In the minds of geniuses,” Emerson said, “we find—once more—our own neglected thoughts.”
It’s not that geniuses have all these great thoughts that the rest of us don’t have, de Botton says. It’s that they take them more seriously.
Again, this doesn’t mean we have all the answers or that we shouldn’t learn from others. That would be ridiculous. But we do need to trust ourselves more, especially with our own callings and aspirations.
We need to do, as Feynman suggested, less asking and more telling.
One of the best ways to live authentically is to grow in confidence. And the best way to grow in confidence is to take action. Do the thing now, not tomorrow, not when you retire. Wake up a few hours earlier if you have to.
There’s no shortage of pursuits that are comparatively good. But what’s the point of that? Why not pursue the ultimate good and follow your own nature? Why not start now?
—
We got to the basketball game earlier than expected, so we walked around downtown for a while.
Courtney checked her phone. “We still have time to kill.”
She must have noticed me tense up. “I know, I know,” she sighed. “We can’t kill time because time is literally killing us.”
I laughed. “Hey! Now you’re getting it!”
“Fill is what I meant to say,” she said. “We still have time to fill.”
Books Read This Month:
–The Writing Life by Annie Dillard is a short read on writing from one of the greats. One of the things she said that I keep thinking about is how all writing is hard—whether you’re writing a recipe or an email or a text message. All writing takes effort and concentration, so why not work on writing something substantial?
-I really liked Natalie Goldberg’s Writing on Empty, about a recent time in her life when she felt no inspiration to write, and what she did about it. I got some good stuff and enjoyed reading it. If you’re in a writing slump, it may be just the book you need to get you out.
The following books—all highly recommended by Ryan Holiday (he literally never disappoints)—were the best ones I read this month.
–Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. Long before she became one of Japan’s most famous TV personalities, Kuroyanagi, adorably called Totto-Chan in her youth, attended an elementary school that was run by a teacher with a unique approach to learning. Expelled in the first grade from her previous school for her hyperactivity, she excelled in this new one. She tells her story through the eyes of her child self: each day is full of possibilities, everyone is a friend, everything is exciting. Her enthusiasm for every little thing is heart-warming, and it rubbed off on me. I just loved it.
–Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, period. It’s seriously so good. It might be too good. I told a few people they needed to read it, and when they asked me what it was about, I was a little stumped. It’s hard to put into words. But talking about it with someone who’s read it is a different story. Courtney (a tough critic) read and loved it, and we went back and forth. Oh my gosh, do you remember this part? Wasn’t that hilarious? Oh man, wasn’t that deep? Isn’t that the meaning of everything? Also mixed in is a bit of a murder mystery. Mary Roach called this book perfect. And I agree, it’s just perfect.
–In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger. Wow, what a crazy story. A few years ago, Junger was on the brink of death on the operating table. He describes his experience in gory detail and then meditates on the possibility of an afterlife. It’s a thrilling and hopeful read. I sent it to my dad and he loved it too.
Seneca said that wisdom is always wanting the same things and always rejecting the same things.
You don’t even have to add the stipulation that they are the right things. If they are consistent, they are right.
Consistency. I’ve been thinking about this word a lot with the upcoming presidential election. Its polarity has made inconsistencies stand out like tolerance at a MAGA rally. To value your rights but not a transgender person’s…that’s inconsistent. To love your gay friend but look down on Pride celebrations…inconsistent. To claim to support African Americans by protecting “black jobs”…inconsistent.
Our steps will vary, but our path should remain the same. Laws and policies are debatable. Humanity isn’t.
The people who fight for civil rights and women’s rights are the same people who fight for gay rights and transgender rights. They’ll be the same people in the future, fighting for the next minority group that will be attacked once the mob inevitably loses interest in its current targets. And they will lose interest because passions of the day don’t last. Kindness does.
Take Euripides, the ancient Greek playwright. Wildly unpopular and dismissed in his day (what modern mind isn’t?), his plays made people uncomfortable by challenging their long-held prejudices. He wanted them to think. He wanted people to question conventions, as they were often masks for injustice. His love and compassion for people, especially those unlike him—women, the elderly, peasants, slaves—was so deep that the sadness it caused nearly incapacitated him.
What’s interesting, as Edith Hamilton writes in her phenomenalbook The Greek Way(see below!), is that not long after his death, his popularity swung completely in the opposite direction. People were told incredible stories of what a great man he was. (To this day, more of his plays survive than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles combined.)
“Dogmatisms of each age wear out,” Hamilton writes. “The heterodoxy of one generation is the orthodoxy of the next. The ultimate critique of pure reason is that its results do not endure.” Even Euripides’ biting indictments of the social structure were forgotten. What wasn’t forgotten, what people remembered and so loved him for, found solace in him for, was his sympathy for humanity’s pain, his “courage to tear down old wrongs and never give up seeking for new things that should be good.” It was his kindness that outlasted everything.
Kindness. That sturdy thread that runs through the long line of great men and women. Through the people who root for others and watch out for them. The people who are eager to understand, eager to…
Be a benevolent interpreter
In An Emotional Education, Alain de Botton notes how quickly society judges a person’s worth based on their status. If a person falls on hard times, they’re told to pick themselves up; failure means they didn’t try hard enough. People mostly get what they deserve. “Those who are condemned and broken did something wrong; those who succeeded worked hard and were good.” Their status is an indicator of their decency.
But the ancient Greeks saw it differently: You could do all the right things and still fail. This was the idea behind their tragic dramas. Playwrights like Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles wrote of honest, decent people who made an understandable mistake or were victims of chance and were left ruined or put to death. Audiences were thrilled and frightened. If it could happen to him, they realized, it could happen to any of us.
That’s why we must be generous in our interpretations of others, give them the benefit of the doubt. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have.
This thinking, Alan de Botton says, is an exercise in being kind, yes. But it’s also a way of getting to the truth. Two things which, “when you dive deep into psychology, might be the same thing.”
Lift them up
There was one theme running through Rosanne Cash’s eulogy for her stepmother, June: her kindness.
“In her eyes, there were two kinds of people in the world: those she knew and loved, and those she didn’t know and loved. She looked for the best in everyone; it was a way of life for her. If you pointed out that a particular person was perhaps not totally deserving of her love, and might in fact be somewhat of a lout, she would say, ‘Well, honey, we just have to lift him up.’ She was forever lifting people up. . . . She saw into all your dark corners and deep recesses, saw your potential and possible future, and the gifts you didn’t even know you possessed, and she ‘lifted it up’ for you to see. She did it for all of us, daily, continuously.”
Fight hate with love
On her way home from school each day, Totto-Chan (whose full name is Tetsuko Kuroyanagi and is one of the most famous talk-show personalities in Japan) would walk by the tenements where Koreans lived. She didn’t know they were Korean, of course, as she was in the first grade. One day, a boy from another school named Masao-chan, who was maybe a year older than her, was standing on top of an embankment. With his hands on his hips and feet apart in an arrogant stance, he shouted at Totto-chan, “Korean!” His voice was full of hatred.
When she got home, she told her mother about it. “Masao-chan called me a Korean,” she said. Her mother put her hand over her mouth. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and her nose reddened. “Poor child,” she said. “People must call him ‘Korean! Korean!’ so often that he thinks it’s a nasty word.” He’s too young to understand, she continued. He probably thinks they are calling him a fool. And because it is said to him so often, he wanted to say something nasty to someone else. “How can people be so cruel?”
Wiping her tears, her mother calmly said to Totto-chan, “You’re Japanese and Masao-chan comes from a country called Korea. But he’s a child, just like you. So, Totto-chan, dear, don’t ever think of people as different. Don’t think, ‘That person’s a Japanese, or this person’s a Korean.’ Be nice to Masao-chan. It’s so sad that some people think other people aren’t nice just because they’re Korean.”
Totto-chan didn’t fully understand, but she did understand that people were mean to Masao-chan for no reason. She decided that if he called her ‘Korean’ again, she would reply, “We’re all children! We’re all the same.” Then, she would try to make him her friend.
Be fair
In his beautiful book Right Thing, Right Now, Ryan Holiday tells the story of famed lawyer Clarence Darrow. Late in his life, needing money, he agreed to do a speaking tour around the country debating other speakers onstage. His contract was $500 per event and $50 for expenses. After the first event, Darrow learned that the promoter made only $150 after costs and fees. Darrow was aghast at the unfairness of it. He gave his $50 expense money to the promoter and another $100 from his own check. Even later, when the profits had risen, Darrow kept his speaking fee to the original agreed on price. His partner explained, in admiration, “Mr. Darrow always leaned over backward to give men the best part of the deal.”
“At the end of our lives,” Ryan writes in the afterword, “we won’t care that much if people think we were hardworking or that the risks we’ve taken in our careers have paid off. We’ll want someone to say, ‘That was a good person. They were honest and decent and generous and loyal and kind. They made the world a better place.’”
Books Read This Month:
–Left of Bang by Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley is a good supplement to The Gift of Fear, which, as I’ve said, reads in part like a thriller and is one of my favorite books. I think everyone, women especially, should read it. A favorite takeaway: be wary of unsolicited promises. Anyway, Left of Bang is also about spotting signs of potential danger. I mostly skimmed the more military-oriented chapters, but the stuff about people and how surprisingly predictable they are is fascinating and potentially life-saving.
–The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton is SO good. Oh my goodness, it’s phenomenal. (The pile of notes I’ve taken is almost an inch thick.) The ancient Greeks were the pinnacle of human excellence. The way they thought and the art they produced “has never been surpassed and very rarely equaled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world.” The Greeks LOVED life. They loved work, and they loved play. They loved leisure, which they used for intellectual pursuits. They were sociable. They thought for themselves. They found truth in both the rational and the spiritual, science and poetry. (A radical notion even today.) The mind and spirit were one. They were wise but not reclusive, lovers of wisdom with the charisma and vigor of a high school football captain. Seriously, this book is a masterpiece.
-I randomly came across The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr while browsing at Changing Hands Bookstore this month and was surprised I’d never heard of it. I blazed through it and got loads of good stuff on what makes a story—specifically a memoir, one of my favorite genres—work.
-I loved This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff. He shares his experience growing up with his free-spirited mother and his unpredictable, emotionally abusive stepfather. From reading Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir, I noticed specific reasons why this memoir works so well: One, Wolff’s adolescent voice is so distinct we don’t question it’s him talking to us. (Similar to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird). Two, he doesn’t tell us only the bad things his stepfather did. That would put us to sleep. What drives the story are the moments of hope mixed in, the times his stepfather was nice to him. And three, he endears himself to us with his candid telling of his shameful and embarrassing moments. Such a good read and one of my favorite memoirs.
-I usually plan which books I’ll read next, but I pulled Creativity Sucks by Phil Hansen off my shelf randomly during a break from writing. Thirty minutes later, I was still standing there reading. It’s an easy read about balancing the demands of daily life with creativity. What’s interesting is that I almost quit reading it a few times. Not because I wasn’t enjoying it, but because I thought I should be reading something…denser? But then I remembered (because the day before, I had read some of my journals from 2013) that a relatively light book played a part in where I am today. Had it not been for Jeffrey Gitomer’s The Little Black Book of Connections that I bought (with my mom’s credit card because I had no money) on a whim at the O’Hare airport, there’s a good chance I might never have started talking with Courtney. It’s a long story but my point is that if you’re getting something from a book, keep reading it. Anyway, one of my biggest takeaways was Hansen’s method for creating on demand, systematically. How else can we create consistently? I also loved his idea of separating the mental work from the physical. The mental work can be done during your commute, washing dishes, etc. That way, when you get to your desk, you can spend your time physically creating. Highly recommend!
