tavis: good evening and los angeles. tonight a conversation with world traveler and acclaimed author pico iyer. ,e examines life's questions influenced by gramm green. the latest is called "the man within my head." will also get his thoughts about a recent op-ed about the need to unplug from our 24-7 world. pico iyer coming up, right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it is the cornerstone we all know. it is not just a street or boulevard, but a place wal-mart stands with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs statatnsns fromm v vwers lie

you. thank you. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis:i's -- pico iyer's books include "video night in kathmandu." his latest is "the man within my head." the mr. with the obvious. this references? >> gramm green -- graham greene. we all have characters inside our heads. it could be a writer or a figure from history. somehow, we feel they know a

specter than our friends and family. tavis: for you, graham greene is that figure? he has haunted you? >> i was in a little hotel. i got into a car to look around. as soon as i did, in man flipped into the passenger seat to show me around. that was disconcerting. i was reading a biography of graham greene. he had the same experience at the same hotel. i remembered when i was a teenager the man responsible for my spiritual welfare for four years.

i went on reading. i found out that in the 1970's he was planning to write a play on an obscure romantic 19th century printer. in the 1970's, i had decided to write a dissertation. it went on and on. something theory. when he was in his 30's, he had always had this terror of seeing his house burned down, which is a strange thing, growing up in suburban england. during the blitz, a german bomb did hit his house and reduce it to ash. when i was in my 30's, i was walking up the stairs in my parents' house in california. suddenly, i saw the california wildfire. three hours later, the fire had wiped out my house. i began to think this correspondences are not always pleasant. it is remarkable. it is as if he scripted my life.

tavis: what you make of those coincidences? >> i love the fact that i have a connection with him the sometimes feels as strong as with my own parents, but there is no reason. it is like sometimes you walk into a crowded room and see a stranger, and feel you know her. the very fact that you cannot explain it gives it this power. it makes it seem deeper and more mysterious. tavis: speaking of a deeper and more mysterious realm, what are we to do? i know what you have done. as i was reading more about this during the book, i started to think about this person i carry around with me, carry in my head. a month to ask what your recommendation is for what we ought to do with those persons, the rest of us, the person we carry around.

>> i think many of them are inspirations. it is gondi, or bishop tutu, or the dali lama. by keeping them in our hands, we are reminding ourselves of what we hope to climb toward. otherwise, or more unsettling, i think it is a way of seeing ourselves the way we never can otherwise. if i said, let me look at tavis, it is hard. once what is inside yourself is outside, you can begin to make sense of it, and even come to terms with your contradictions. when i read his books, a relate to him so strongly, a few he is addressing all the questions i have inside myself. use him as a guide. tavis: how did using graham greene as a guide -- say that fast three times.

how did using graham greene as a guide lead to, if i can say that, lead you back to looking at your father and your relationship with him? >> i began thinking about why i am constructing a shadow father, a ghost father in my head, in response to the father who created me. what is going on here? when we were kids, we imagine that we define ourselves, charging your own individuality, running away from your parents. as the years go on, we come to find that we become our parents. i looked in the mirror and hear my own voice and recognize it as my father's. in a way, we are rebelling against their parents until we become our parents. we rebel against them by saying, "i want to become graham greene

." tavis: strange question, i admit, but how did looking at graham greene cause you to reflect differently toward the plate on your relationship with your father? -- differently toward your relationship with your father? >> i think they were both people very interested in the religious. i also think they were different. graham greene presented himself as a skeptic. i think my father was a man of faith. i was drawn to the skepticism. that is a kid's way of rebelling. but the down, i carry my father inside me. in some ways, i should turn away from graham greene and embrace the fact that i am my father's son, and not graham greene's. if you are courting a woman and say to her, "you look just like your mother," she would slam the

door on you. but if you say "just like virginia woolf," even if that person is less beautiful than a mother, she will be thrilled. we want to attach ourselves to something great. we are who we are. essentially, you cannot run away from your show. that is what the book is about. tavis: should do father have been offended, in salted, or belittled by this affair you are having with graham greene? >> every father has to tolerate a son rebelling against him. but the sun will always come back in the end. my father died 16 years ago. at that time, he might have been wistful that i spent so much time on the other side of the world. if you read this book, he would see the more the years go on, the more i come back to him.

in this book, i was in a little house in india. i happened to meet an old friend of my father's. this man said, "i remember when your father was 14 years old, he was in love with this girl -- with this book." that same morning, i had mentioned that obscure book as my personal favorite. i realized i was connected the cleanup with -- deeply not with graham greene, but with my father, with what he had done 30 years before. tavis: the perfect word for you, this journey. what has this journey caught you, revealed to you, but the similarities to your father and the differences to your father? your father was the person of faith.

you had your own misgivings, for lack of a better word, about religion and faith. what has this journey allow you to see about the similarity you had, and the divergent parts? >> i think it is the similarities i see more. 30 years ago, of would not have seen anything. now, we are unexpectedly similar. faith is a perfect example. because my father was a man of faith, i wanted to believe in nothing. as the years go on, more things happen that i cannot explain. i find myself writing the same sentences he would have. writing is about a journey of understanding. you take something far away. the more you travel into it, you see it from within. writing this book is an attempt to understand my father better, to see and acknowledged to myself how close we are. tavis: listening to you, and

thinking about this in a way i never have before. i see things differently. i appreciate you for challenging me in that assumption i hold. i think about rebellion in this way. but is rebellions ultimately redemptive, or can rebellion leave -- lead to reduction? does that make sense? >> i think you have to leave to come back, see the other options, and get a fuller sense of the world. it is only going through that that you can come back to who you are, after trying the other options. i think if i had stayed at home and and very devoted to my father all along, something would have to propel me out. now i think it fits perfectly. tavis: further regrets about what might have been lost during those years of rebellion? if you live long enough, as you have been blessed to do, that

rebellion can lead to redemption. if, on the way, on the journey to redemption, your father passes away, or your mother passes away, while you were still caught in that state of rebellion, then what? >> i think progress is exactly what. we often in life understand things too late. this is a perfect example. while my father was alive, all i could see was how much i disagreed with the things he said. it was only after he passed away that i could see the truth of things. maybe in a larger universe, we can understand and appreciate that. i am glad in my case to come to that position. it is a hard one to come to. you have to swallow your pride and say, "i was too young." at least writing this book and spending many years on it got me that far. there will always be significant differences between him and me.

he grew up in a very modest circumstances in india. i was able to grow up in comfort in england and california. tavis: what have you learned about the preconditions, the prerequisites, for swallowing one's pride? >> i am not a wise man, necessarily. i will address that. but you have to do it with honesty. it is easy to run away from ourselves. it is an excuse, as in this instance, to look at who you are. i think most of us have a keen sense of our virtues. graham greene always look honestly at his deficiencies. i think the more you do of that, the more you can accept other people. when i was 25 years old, i wanted to be somebody like

nobody else. maybe in the eventuality is overrated. -- individuality is overrated. at 50, i realize i am like everybody else. tavis: there are similarities in your journey and his attorney. what is it about his work? >> i think it is in excess of kindness and realism. -- a mix of kindness and realism. one thing i admire about the dali lama is he looks at the world as it is, but he believes in hope and possibility. that is what i get from graham greene, compassionate realism. he spent time in the most difficult parts in the world, but never gave up faith, hope, or believe that each of us can act better than he imagined. that has been an inspiration, partly because it is grounded in reality. he was not a romantic.

but he went into the most poor situation. the classic graham greene is a whiskey priest, as he is called, who does everything against the laws of catholicism. he drinks too much, has a girlfriend. in the critical moment, when somebody reaches out to him for help, or he has to perform in mess for a woman who has died, somehow he rises to a heroism greater than the more obviously pious. graham greene had faith in people even in the midst of their confusion. tavis: you have traveled the world more than most. i wonder whether or not, to that beautiful phrase, compassionate realism, given the conditions of the world today, it is increasingly important to be that.

to have compassion. >> i hope it leads to a better world. it is important to do that. we are living in a more global neighborhood than ever. the dollar and thomas says because our destinies are visibly dependent -- the dali lama says because our destinies are visibly dependent, there is no me and them. if we were to bomb iran, the first victim would be the u.s. we are moved and forced to look out for the other, whether it is an individual or a nation on the other side of the world. a great blessing of the modern moment is you and i can travel. once you travel, the bad notions you have in your head flight out the window. as soon as you do, you see how much you have in common. when you are 6,000 miles away from someone in india -- when you meet them, you find common

ground. this is a time for us to use compassion and be aware of our responsibilities not just to our neighbors, but across the planet. tavis: this is a sad statistics, as you know, being well- traveled. the majority of americans do not own a passport. most of us have not, will not, if this pattern continues, travel outside our borders. the causes two problems i see. one is you cannot really appreciate your own country. the cannot appreciate it for what it really is. but you also cannot see its deficiencies. to your point, it means you cannot develop compassion or understanding and embrace respect of the other. given this global world we live in, and the tradition of america, the fact that we are not loved around the world -- it is not as bad under obama as

during the bush years, but we are not as loud as we once were. how do americans make that, if we want to get out of our country, to appreciate that? how do you do that? >> one great thing of the modern moment is the whole world comes to our doorstep. i, neighbors in california if you do not have the time, resources or inclination to go across the world, go across the neighborhood. you can learn about vietnam. four days ago, i was in a succession of times -- of taxicabs and got the history of ethiopia from the man taking the to the airport. you can learn a lot about the world if you're in new york or los angeles. but i am with you. there is no substitute for traveling.

you should go everywhere around the world to create an enlightened society. people everywhere, in cuba or iran, want to come to america, but will never have a chance. i think it is really up to us to take the first step, those of us who have enough resources and freedom to initiate the conversation. in any small neighborhood or planetary never heard, there is one person who knocks on the door and another cowers behind the sofa. the first sensible thing in any neighborhood is find out who the neighbors are and tell them who they are. then you can start finding a common ground you have. i once traveled to north korea. it was the scariest place i have been because it was so isolated. you cannot imagine. i think we do not want to be guilty of the same thing.

tavis: when you started an answer -- here is the problem with judging people, i thought you were going to offer the internet. when you said the world comes to us. i thought, "here is a guy who does not have a cell phone." here is a guy who is the most un-facebook guy i know. but i thought you were going to say the internet as a way for people to learn. you can get on the internet and never leave your house. that is not your way. >> it is not my way. it is better than not having internet. somebody here can access afghanistan. the person in afghanistan can access us, and we think we know them. but really we know just as little as we did 100 years ago. i think those substitutes for human contact -- but you are right. in a few years, we have gone

from having too little information about the world to too much. it is as if people are on a roller coaster they never wanted to get on. you can only make sense of the online world by going off line and getting the wisdom, immersion, and clarity. tavis: there are some folks who are classic examples of technophobia. you are not. you have by choice, and deliberately, unplugged. why that choice? >> it is not that i trust -- but distrust technology. i distrust myself with technology. if you give me a bag of groceries, i will eat and eat and get a headache. tavis: i am with you. >> if you have 6 billion people in your living room, it is hard to resist. more and more time with the laptop. less and less time with the kids

and neighbors. i like to keep a distance. i am not against technology. i could not live the way i do with the. i could not live in japan and speak with my mom in california and send articles by e-mail to my editor. i am glad it has helped with my life. but we have to strike a balance. when something new comes into our live, we instantly feel new horizons open up. but there are other things that have not changed, the virtue of the gold. -- the old. we embrace a new invention. a few years later, we think it has not transformed our life. it happened with cars before, tv. tavis: while we are talking about unplugging, i saw the piece you did for "the new york times puzzle fit wonderful piece, i thought. what kind of response did you get?

>> it is about how they have rescue camps. many people observe internet sabbath so they can have family conversation. you can check into a hotel room for $265 a night just to have a room without a tv. the luxury is getting away from it. i got a lot of response. almost everybody who broke into the newspaper was describing ways to have tried to come to peace with this acceleration. some meditate. some take long hikes. all of us are having to create, so consciously, ways to remove ourselves. otherwise, we get sucked in. we wind up feeling more frazzled and without time. it is a big challenge. tavis: go back to your father, the book "the man within my head."

your father gave advice i thought was beautiful. i wrote it down. i love it. to achieve the impossible, sometimes you have to do the absurd. >> he was a college professor. but as a favor "used to share with his students. -- that was a favorite quote he used to share with his students. i am not sure i have never listened to the bat and vice. it comes from a wise spanish philosopher. tavis: you do not think you have gone far enough away from shore? not enough trying different things? >> i have done that, with all my travel. but i think we all have much more potential inside us than the knowledge or than we know. -- that we acknowledge our than

we know. tavis: the book is called "the man within my head." the book, like any conversation with pico iyer, is full of wisdom and ideas, things that might challenge you to see the world in different ways. >> it has been a delight. tavis: that is our show. since then, thanks for turning into pbs. -- turning into pbs. -- tuning into pbs. >> for more information, visit pgs.org. tavis: join me next time for a conversation with a former advertising except on her new book, "i would rather be in charge." >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it is the cornerstone we all

know. it is not just a boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be