On Leadership and Self-Expression

Monsieur Montaigne,

I’m afraid my last letter’s exuberant tone really exposed one of my passions. After re-reading it, I even surprised myself a bit. Like I said in my first letter to you, I guess I do get carried away and frustrated from time to time. Oh well… I suppose getting carried away is just the negative side of having an intense personality. Perhaps I need to be more careful in the future however – and show better reserve before beginning one of my opinionated monologues. But, on the other hand, it seems easy to speak more candidly with you, since I know we are so much alike.

As usual, I’m continuing to read quite a bit in my spare time. I just finished a wonderful little book today, entitled The Art of Leadership, and in it, the author, J. D. Walters, outlines the attributes and characteristics of an effective leader. I found many of his thoughts worthwhile indeed. One point he made seems especially interesting – given the topic of my last letter.

A work of art reveals not only the skill, but also the consciousness, the basic attitudes, the philosophy of life, of the artist… The true success of an undertaking depends more than anything else on the spirit of the people involved in it.

I think that our old friend Seneca would concur, since he once wrote,

Our thoughts and our words proceed from our spirit… We derive our demeanor and expression and the very way we walk from it.

At the risk of sounding like a shallow flatterer once again, I’m thankful for your essays Monsieur. I think that they are a wonderful expression of your spirit. Although it is obviously impossible for us to meet face to face, I’m not so sure that this even matters. It seems to me that your essays embody your spirit, and by my reading them and agreeing with so much of their contents, in a way, I am able to meet you each time my eyes read your sentences and each time my mind relates to your message.

I hope that doesn’t sound too sentimental. Perhaps I find myself feeling lonely from time to time. Sometimes, I wonder if I should seek out a living philosophical comrade. But, other times, I wonder if my loneliness is a blessing – a healthy condition encouraging me to write these very letters. I think that if I had someone to talk to about all of these things, I would probably write less often. Actually, I know this is true because once I tell someone that I’m going to do something, I rarely end up doing it. It’s as if talking about something quenches my thirst for actually doing it.

I wonder if loneliness is an important piece of creative expression. Perhaps with each painting, poem, and essay, creative spirits are simply saying,

I am alive. Notice my spirit. And, in noticing mine, see your own.

Maybe art is nothing more than an intimate, spiritual mirror. As our old friend Schopenhauer wrote,

The nature of art is such that in art one single case stands for thousands.

And,

Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude.

And,

A man of great intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else… Like a piano, he has no place in a symphony… or if in company with other instruments, only in principle; or for setting the tone.

I wonder if I am really not lonely after all. In some ways, I remain isolated, but in others I feel a sense of community. I have friends and family to joke and play with, just none to think deeply with. Many of my friends tend to grow tired of my ponderings. For some reason, they usually find my endless curiosity tiresome.

Lately, I’ve learned to just talk with friends about more light-hearted topics such as sports, politics, and religion. Just kidding… In a strange kind of way, however, the three of these topics do seem more related than one might expect. They each lead to an easy or convenient way of viewing the world – winner vs. loser, right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, heaven vs. hell, etc. Also, they each tend to have a dramatic, exaggerated feel about them. But, I guess that’s another conversation for another time. OK. Until next month...

Brian

On Lin Yutang and Poetic Philosophy

Monsieur Montaigne,

I started writing a letter to you a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t like the way it was going, so I decided to stop and start again some other day. I guess I’m just one of those people who doesn’t like forcing things. I’d rather wait until I feel more inspired – until I feel ready to write. Plus, since I want these letters to be an uplifting personal project, I don’t really see the point of dutifully forcing myself to be creative. Generally, the whole notion of forcing something is foreign to me. I think my personality is more evasive than confrontational. For the most part, if things are not moving along at a relaxed and easy going pace, then I’d rather just opt out.

The letter I started last week was about another one of my favorite writers – Lin Yutang. In a way, I’m a little surprised that I haven’t mentioned him to you before now. I suppose that I can become so absorbed in reading a certain author that I forget about my other favorites. In my mind, Mr. Yutang’s best book is called The Importance of Living. Published in 1937, the book begins much like your essays – subjective, thoughtful, and humble. The first paragraph of the Preface reads,

This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing. I should have liked to call it ‘A Lyrical Philosophy,’ using the word ‘lyrical’ in the sense of being a highly personal and individual outlook. But that would be too beautiful a name and I must forego it, for fear of aiming too high and leading the reader to expect too much, and because the main ingredient of my thought is matter-of-fact prose, a level easier to maintain because more natural. Very much contented am I to lie low, to cling to the soil, to be of kin to the sod. My soul squirms comfortably in the soil and sand and is happy. Sometimes when one is drunk with this earth, one’s spirit seems so light that he thinks he is in heaven. But actually he seldom rises six feet above the ground.

I wonder when Mr. Yutang wrote his Preface? Do you think he wrote it before the main body of the book? Or do you think he wrote it after he had finished the book, just prior to sending it to his publishers?

When did you write your Preface Monsieur? I bet you wrote it after the first publication of your essays. In my mind, it has a somewhat defensive tone – as if it is saying, my writing falls outside the realm of the usual criticisms.

On the other hand, if I had to venture a guess, I bet that you titled each of your individual essays before you started writing them, and then you allowed yourself to stray from the original discussion. In case you were wondering, I’ve been titling each of these letters after I’ve finished writing them. Although I start with a certain author or idea in mind, I still like to think of a title after I’ve finished writing the letter. It makes it seem like I’m more organized than I really am, however.

I think one of the reasons why I like Lin Yutang so much is that he and I share the same attitude about the best kind of philosophy. We are both drawn to poetic or lyrical discussions. Much of traditional western philosophy seems pointless to us both. Mr. Yutang thinks of himself as a Chinese Humanist, and the titles of the chapters in The Importance of Living are just the kind I like. He doesn’t write any treatises or critiques, or any metaphysical or epistemological arguments. Here are a few of his chapter titles, and as you might guess, I am drawn to them all.

Human Life a Poem, On Having a Stomach, On Playful Curiosity, The Importance of Loafing, The Cult of the Idle Life, On Sex Appeal, On Growing Old Gracefully, On Sitting in Chairs, On Tea and Friendship, On Bigness, On Rocks and Trees, Art as Play and Personality, and, The Return to Common Sense.

I especially like the last title as it relates to philosophy. Here are a few quotes from Mr. Yutang’s book. A few years ago, when I originally read them, tears welled up in my eyes. After so many years of feeling intellectually isolated, I was so relieved to learn that someone else had thought so many of the same things that I had. In a way, I sometimes wonder if my intellectual and spiritual personality is more Chinese than American.

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from Mr. Yutang’s book. I hope I haven’t included too many.

The Chinese philosopher’s view of life is essentially the poet’s view of life, in China, philosophy is married to poetry rather than to science as it is in the west.

Human wisdom cannot be merely the adding up of specialized knowledge or obtained by a study of statistical averages; it can be achieved only by insight, the general prevalence of more common sense, more wit and more plain, but subtle, intuition.

There is clearly a distinction between logical thinking and reasonable thinking, which may be also expressed as the difference between academic thinking and poetic thinking. Of academic thinking we have a great deal, but of poetic thinking we find very little evidence in the modern world.

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials, in reducing the problems of philosophy to just a few – the enjoyment of the home, of living, of nature and of culture - and in showing all the other irrelevant disciplines and futile chases after knowledge to the door.

We have today a philosophy that has become stranger to life itself, that has almost half disclaimed any intention to teach us the meaning of life and the wisdom of living, a philosophy that has lost that intimate feeling of life or awareness of living which we spoke of as the very essence of philosophy… For the disease of thinking typified by Descartes’ famous discovery: ‘I think therefore I exist,’ we have to substitute the more human and more sensible statement of Walt Whitman’s: ‘I am sufficient as I am.’ Life or existence does not have to go down on its knees and beg logic to prove that it exists or that it is there.

I especially like this last excerpt. As a philosophy student 15 years ago, I regularly questioned the wisdom of what I was being taught. I was once required to take a class called Practical Logic, and as you might imagine, what we studied didn’t seem very practical to me. Not once did we discuss how to be happy or how to love people well. Instead, we learned that if A is not B and B is not X, then A and X may or may not be the same.

Maybe it’s just me, but I always wondered how A, B or X could help me to become a happy and wise person. I think that if I were ever to teach a course called Practical Logic, I would discuss things that are actually practical. For example, we might talk about how people with shifty eyes tend to be untrustworthy. And because untrustworthy people rarely make good friends, it is generally a good idea not to become friends with people who have shifty eyes.

Or, we might discuss the logic of humor. For example, we might notice that what we consider humorous is often unexpected and surprising. And, we might come to the conclusion that very predictable things are generally not very humorous.

One thing is for sure, the last thing that most students would say about modern education is that it is unpredictable. I’m sure that if we took a survey, most students would say that they think of school assignments as dry, predictable, and boring. And, on the other hand, my guess is that most of those same students would also say that their favorite teachers were funny or, at the very least, entertaining.

So given this, I wonder why so many teachers and professors aren’t happier and more carefree while they teach. I think it is really a shame that schools are often so incredibly boring. Logically speaking, I see no reason why this must be the case. Can’t learning be enjoyable? I think it can, and I would even go so far as to say that true learning must be enjoyable – otherwise, students won’t remember what they have learned. Maybe I’m just strange, but I definitely tend to learn more when I am having fun. I also tend to remember the times that I have laughed more than the times I’ve been bored.

I suppose that I just don’t understand why our traditional systems of education have to be so dry and serious and boring. Do you remember when I wrote to you a while back and mentioned the quotation about boring books being unwise? Well, let me now add that in my opinion,

Boring teachers are unwise.

Lately, I’ve been reading Aristotle’s Ethics., and although I find many of his thoughts and distinctions substantive and helpful, I must say that I am a little disappointed with his style. His writing is so categorical and predictable that I sometimes find that my mind drifts away from his analysis, and I start to daydream. Every few pages, I have to stop and re-read what I thought I had just finished reading. I think that Mr. Yutang said it well when he wrote, Aristotle was strictly the grandfather of the modern text-book writers, being the first man to cut up knowledge into separate compartments – from physics and botany to ethics and politics. As was quite inevitable, he was the first man also to start the impertinent academic jargon incomprehensible to the common man, which is being outdone by the American sociologists and psychologists of today.

I don’t know about you Monsieur, but I always hated reading textbooks while I was a student. Consequently, I don’t think that I learned much back then either. Although I mastered the art of teacher-pleasing while I was in college, I only occasionally enjoyed and took pride in my studies. Really, it has only been in the last five years or so that I’ve begun to enjoy my learning. I think, too, that writing is more memorable when it is filled with an occasional witty remark or a surprising detour.

So, with that in mind, I’m going to spend a few minutes searching through my notes of Mr. Yutang’s book, and I’m going to pick out another quotation that may or may not have anything to do with the contents of this letter…

OK. Here you are,

There is an ease, a sureness, a lightness of touch, that comes from mastery… Seriousness, after all, is only a sign of effort, and effort is a sign of imperfect mastery.

Here’s one more,

I prefer talking to a maid to talking with a mathematician; her words are more concrete, her laughter is more energetic, and I generally gain more in knowledge of human nature by talking with her.

Au revoir smart guy.

Brian