Alexandersmap

    Month: July 2022

    • Memorable

      If it’s easy it’s not memorable. Sure, we remember things that just come to us, but remembering isn’t memorable. Memorable must be earned with effort and iteration over time.

      If you’re a parent you’ll never forget when your children were born, or when you figured out a car seat for the first time, or that first epically challenging diaper. Like scoring an Olympic gymnast, it was memorable because of the level of difficulty involved.

      We all have our lifetime and then its gone. What will make it memorable? Challenges accepted and overcome. Worthwhile relationships stuck with through thick and thin. Hard lessons and leaps of faith. A bias towards action and the will to see it through.

      We should never take the easy route, for it doesn’t lead to memorable.

    • An Urgent Summons to a Larger Life

      “One of the virtues of mortality, if one wishes to look for such a virtue, is the reminder that choices really do matter and that the issue of permission to make those choices is now critical and necessary. It may well lead one to realize that a life managed by fear is a life unlived. In the cases where I attended those overtly dying, most came to conclude that the interim provided them an urgent summons to a larger life.” — James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

      “Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?” — Robert Greene

      After a string of noteworthy experiences this year, mixed with a series of body blows to the soul, I look at the world differently than I did when it began. Perhaps you feel that too? There’s no doubt we’ve been through a lot the last few years, and the universe keeps piling on. But we have this opportunity to do something radical in our brief time—to answer the call that only we hear.

      Most of us are blessed with choices in this modern world, choices that billions of our ancestors would have cherished. But most live lives of deferment and low agency. The universe remains dispassionate to our individual quest for meaning and fulfillment in this world. It’s our job to make something of our time.

      We’re all being eaten alive by time. We can’t stop the clock but we can fill the moment. The answer always has been to awaken from our lethargy and take action. We all have our personal collection of fears and biases that hold us back from the urgent and important contribution we must make to feel our lives have meaning. What we do next is truly up to us.

    • Riding the Storm Out

      The town of Rockland, Maine is a popular summer destination for cruisers, wealthy yacht types, and vacationers from around the world. Many of these land-based guests stay at The Samoset Resort, a classic 1902 hotel resort on the waterfront. Near the Samoset is the historic Rockland Harbor Breakwater. The 1200 meter long, granite breakwater was built to help shelter ships in the harbor during the rougher weather that inevitably rolls in from Penobscot Bay. As you might imagine, putting a long granite breakwater 1200 meters out into the middle of the bay makes the breakwater itself a hazard, and a lighthouse was constructed at the end of it to help ships navigate into the harbor. Walking to the end of the breakwater is a rite of passage for visitors to the region and offers spectacular views.

      A couple of us joined Fayaway for a weekend of cruising around the Penobscot Bay islands. Rockland was our expected destination all along, but the weather forecast brought us there earlier than originally planned. A thick fog greeted us as we rounded Vinalhaven and retraced our route from a few days earlier. The fog lifted and temperature grew noticeably warmer as we motored past the Rockland Harbor Breakwater Light into the mooring field. Well over a hundred people were walking the breakwater, proving that the weather was better on land than it had been on our journey there.

      But we all knew what was coming. Severe storm warnings made it clear for anyone paying attention, and when you’re on a boat you pay attention. We weren’t the only ones seeking safe harbor. Mega yachts began anchoring in a billion dollar conga line. Smaller boats filled the mooring field and local anchorages. The desire to shelter from a storm is universal. Nobody reviews your bank account when the wind starts blowing.

      A late lunch in town got us back to the mooring just as the first raindrops fell. Soon the light patter became a roar as the heavy rains came, and later sustained wind and the heavy gusts. Those gusts capped out close to 60 knots overnight, which might have made it adventurous on an anchorage but on a solid mooring more a curiosity.

      A solid boat like Fayaway and knowledgeable Captain like Chris goes a long way to eliminate potential stress, but you still tend to wonder about the state of other nearby boats on their moorings and anchorages. Each lift and slap of waves on the hull made an impression, making you run through your action plan should something happen like a boat dragging its anchor ramming into you. But as the night wore on and Fayaway shrugged off the wing gusts and wave action, I put aside things I can’t control and appreciated where I was. And with a stormy soundtrack playing in the background I dozed off content and confident. Life is a collection of experiences, and this was surely one to remember.

      Rockland Harbor Breakwater & Light

    • Stacking the Positives

      “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.“ — B.J. Neblett

      On a beautifully still morning I watched the fish in the bay react as a seal hunted for its breakfast. Perfect stillness broken by panicked splashes. The seal must eat and the fish must leap to survive. The story evolves around me, yet I have no meaningful role in it but to bear witness.

      There’s no denying the last few years brought plenty of negative experiences, and each shaped us in ways we might eagerly trade for an alternative outcome. But life isn’t gingerly holding our hand for this ride, it grudgingly allows us a seat on this train. The rest is up to us as the hits and highs come at us. What we make of our lives depends on how the sum of our experiences shapes us.

      The stakes aren’t always so dire, but in life we’re either breakfast or having breakfast. Our story will play out one way or the other, and based on how we react, in subsequent choices made in the balance of our days. We must fight for what we believe in yet accept what we can’t control.

    • Sunrise and Mosquitoes

      Seal Bay, Maine. 04:30 and a brightening sky. There’s a strong probability of magic in the air. To get up or to linger awhile in the finally-comfortable position I’d found? The answer is obvious by now—up and at ‘em.

      Moving slowly as not to awaken the crew (who inevitably were awakening anyway), I slid open the hatch with an unwelcome bang that turned my intentions upside down. “Sorry,” I mumbled quietly. There’s just no sneaking around on a sailboat.

      Outside, the sky began to glow, as a light breeze carried wispy clouds of fog across the cove. Sitting a few beats, I heard the familiar song of a mosquito buzzing nearby. Damn. Soon another. We take the good with the bad in this world, and reconcile it as best we can. I celebrated a pristine, quiet cove distracted by a hungry swarm of fast flyers. “Such is the way,” whispered an understated sunrise rising above it all. And so it was.

    • Greeted With Joy

      “If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success.” — Henry David Thoreau

      I frequently tout the value of each day, going to great lengths to remind myself and anyone who’ll listen to seize it—Carpe diem!. Memento mori! It’s a system for being forever in the moment, maximizing each day as best you can as life throws its curveballs. And it immediately sorts obligations and opportunities into appropriate buckets.

      I’m not always sympathetic when others value perceived obligations over the opportunity to amplify living, but I’ve learned to accept that it isn’t my life but theirs. Still, the question remains, as we begin another day, what will we make of it? We ought to do our best to make it successful, whatever that means to you.

    • Writing the Unforgettable

      “I want to write a book that people won’t forget. I want to make them take a stiff slug of booze, or go outside and look at the stars.” — Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

      “I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.” — Erica Jong

      Damn you Mr. Harding, your words still echo in my head, almost 40 years after you read a short story I’d written about balloons, looked up and declared in front of the entire class (to my teenage horror): “Some day you’re going to be a writer.” Well, I ran from that for years, didn’t I? But living a few extra decades makes you stop worrying about what the world thinks of you, and blogging every day forces your hand and makes you actually say something. And so we become what we repeatedly do.

      When you do anything with intention in this world, you want it to mean something—to resonate and shine and be timeless and unforgettable. That’s true whether you’re building a deck or writing a book. Inevitably, we’re our own worst critics and see our mistakes more clearly than others do. I still look at things I’d have done differently on my deck, and I rarely look back on previous blog posts. Who we once were is not who we are now. Apprentices learn and grow and refine their craft, and so it is with us in our work.

      When do we become masters of our craft? Mastery is evasive, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t diligently do our work and inch towards it anyway. We create our best work and hope that it resonates, and then we go back to the drawing board and try to improve upon it tomorrow. Blog after blog we learn to trust ourselves and ignore the judge. And maybe in our time we’ll make something unforgettable.

    • Opening Up This Moment

      “Our choice at every second: will we cut up this moment with chatter or open it up with silence?” — Pico Iyer

      We suffer from too much noise. Clutter, really, demanding our attention. And as with clutter, most noise imposed upon us eliminates skating lanes for our mind to wander. Noise often betrays insecurities or impulsiveness or disrespect. Noise reveals even as it repulses. Do we wonder, in the shattered moment, what retreats?

      When I walk with my bride, we talk of the future, about home renovation plans to plunge into or punt for a future homeowner someday, the progress of our children as they wade deeper into adulthood, money, our days… and frequently, blessedly, nothing at all. When you’re with the right person you don’t feel compelled to complete thoughts or otherwise step over what the other is saying. You don’t fill the gap with trinkets. You respect the quiet space between you and let it do all the talking.

      The thing is, silence has a lot to say. Things that so many are afraid to listen to. But not us.

    • Finding Soulfulness in Inefficient Places

      “Everything that feels soulful in life is inefficient. All the vacations that we find very soulful are inefficient places. The food that we really, really like and find soulful are inefficient to cook… maybe soulfulness is a function of chaos and inefficiency... It is impossible to imagine scaling in life without standardizing. And standardizing is the enemy of soulfulness.” — Kunal Shah, Interviewed on The Knowledge Project

      Don’t you feel the weight of truth in Shah’s words? Don’t we feel the lack of soulfulness in a “corporate” vacation destination versus the times we march to our own beat? Who seeks out a national restaurant chain for soulfulness and individual expression by the chef? No, we go to places like Disney World and Applebees for the predictability—good product delivered as expected. No need for translation or a Google search, it’s. just. as. expected. <yawn>.

      We all seek predictable when we can. Heck, I stayed at a Hilton in Vienna instead of a boutique hotel because I could use points and I knew there would be an iron and ironing board in the closet—because there is always an iron and ironing board in the closet of every Hilton property I’ve ever stayed in anywhere in the world. Sometimes you don’t need soulfulness, you just need to iron a damned shirt yourself.

      Contrast this my hotel in Castelrotto, Italy, where our room didn’t have a window but a skylight, no air conditioning or fan, uneven floors and a reception desk in another building down the street. The bell in the tower right above our heads through that open skylight would begin ringing at 06:00 sharp. And you know what? I loved it. The building was older than the United States, that bell was ringing long before I entered this world and the breakfast was a lovely spread of soulful local expression I’d never have found in a hotel chain. There’s something to be said for inefficiency too.

      So how do we create soulfulness in our own work? We don’t do it by parroting whatever business book we just read in our next meeting with coworkers or customers. And we don’t do it by following the corporate handbook to the letter (but don’t you dare stray a step too far). No, we create soulfulness when we find our unique voice in the process of turning chaos into order and eliminating inefficiencies. Ironic, isn’t it? But meaningful work isn’t chaotic, it’s expressive yet contributive. We don’t add to the Great Conversation by shouting over the crowd, nor do we help a company meet its quarterly objectives without following an informed policy or two.

      Here’s the twist: we find soulfulness in our work through routine. This isn’t standardization, this is disciplined dues-paying to reach a place where we might transcend the average. We write a million average phrases to turn one clever, soulful phrase that resonates. We refine widgets over and over again until something perfect emerges. Soulfulness is developed through routine but released through individual, and thus inefficient, expression.

    • Glimpsing Infinity

      “If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine — galaxies galore within a grain, including light from galaxies that traveled billions of years to us!” — @NASAWebb

      As the James Webb Space Telescope begins to share images from deep space, doesn’t it feel like we’re glimpsing infinity? We reach deeper into deep space than we’ve ever done, using the most advanced telescope we’ve ever sent into space, and it reveals billions of years of history (if you want to call it that), and yet indicates what we already knew—that it all keeps going further still. That glimpse of infinity reveals how immeasurably small our brief dance in the universe really is.

      So why do so many fixate on misery, pettiness and scarcity? The implications of this vastness indicate our smallness, forcing us to either recoil further back into ourselves or tell ourselves fairy tales that overinflated our place and power in the big scheme of things. Alternatively, we might simply accept and celebrate our small part in the infinite universe. I choose door number three, thank you.

      In a world with so much conflict, wouldn’t it be something if we all paused a moment and looked up at the universe. Our dance is ever so brief, and it doesn’t matter whether you lean left of center or right of it, the whole ball of wax is infinitesimal. We are indeed stardust—minute specs of life in a vast infinity. Isn’t it extraordinary to be alive to see it? To be a part of it?