Alexandersmap

    Month: August 2022

    • Go Be It

      “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.” — Amelia Earhart

      I woke up sore all over, with muscles tight and grumpy, protesting the last week of doing what they’re supposed to do but somehow forgot about in lazy compliance with the mind. The soreness is a lag measure of work applied, simply that, and eventually the lag will be replaced by acceptance of the new reality. It was certainly far easier to get out of shape than to climb back to shape. Such is the way.

      Decide what to be and go be it… simple on the face of it because it is in fact that simple. The hard part is hidden under the surface of those words: Go be it. Talk is cheap, and decisions without action are nothing but talk until we drag ourselves along for the transformation.

      It’s far easier to have a bit of wine and cheese after a long day than it is to change into workout clothes and earn the right to wear them. It’s far easier to start our work a bit later, and end it a bit earlier. And it’s far easier to doom scroll on our phones than to turn off all distraction and dance with the important but not urgent tasks that move the chains in our lives. But there’s a reason easy has a negative connotation. Deep down, we know it in the moment.

      So sure, I’m sore today, just as I’ve been sore for well over a week. It’s just the gap between where I am and where I want to be expressing itself. And what is expression but the manifestation of a feeling? Whatever discomfort we feel in the moment is part of the process of becoming, a manifestation of what we want to be. It’s that voice in our head reminding us that this time, if we stay with it, we might actually be it.

    • Days to Come

      “Days to come stand in front of us
      like a row of lighted candles—
      golden, warm, and vivid candles.
      Days gone by fall behind us,
      a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;
      the nearest are smoking still,
      cold, melted, and bent.”
      — C. P. Cavafy

      When you think about it, our days gone by are a stack of previous lives, somewhat resembling us today. Yet we must seek the vivid and alive, embrace our days to come, especially this one, at the expense of what we once were. For there’s no growth in dwelling on the past—we must stand ourselves on top of who we once were, we aren’t built to linger there.

      What’s done is done, what lies ahead is all that matters now. Past accomplishments and failures, all the good and bad, are like books we once read that form us in sometimes notable, and often insignificant ways. There’s no telling in the moment you pick it up for the first time what it will mean to you until you give it your attention in the moment. Such are our days—notable and insignificant, but all adding up to this.

      Days to come offer hope for a better future. It’s our time together, formed today, and nurtured in however many more we might have. Like the past, we’ll face new highs and lows, savor wins and absorb losses. Each are inevitable. All we can do is give each our singular attention and an honest attempt to make the most of the line, however long it might be.

    • Irreplaceable Instants

      “Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.” — André Gide

      Here we go again: another week beginning. Much like last week and the week before, yet we’ve changed. We’ve layered on our moments of insight and irreplaceable instants that root us in identity and purpose, or perhaps left us anchor-less and drifting. Let’s hope for the former.

      The thing is, this week is different from those weeks gone by. It’s surely more tangible and immediate, but more, this one is in our hands. We can’t get too caught up in our previous successes and failures, we can only double down on what works for us. And maybe, try something bold and new.

      I like the idea of micro-bursts: sprints of intensity where you focus on key activities that move you towards your goals. In rowing it was a Power 10, where everyone put aside personal discomfort and focused on making the next ten strokes their very best. It started with a call from the coxswain when they felt the boat needed a boost in momentum. And it nearly always worked.

      Focus on living a bold, meaningful life can start in an instant. Often it begins with a feeling that you need a bit of a boost in productivity or purpose. With the right concentration and effort, like a boat gaining a burst of speed and swing, it nearly always works to reset rhythm and concentration.

      Now seems as good a time as any.

    • Creating, Out of Yourself

      “Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.” — André Gide

      The writing comes slowly. The writing comes effortlessly. The work has bursts of creativity mixed with repetition and familiarity. The things I’m most proud of often fall flat, the hits keep getting views and likes. So it shall be.

      We must do the work, and see where it takes us. The work took me to André Gide recently, and I’m delighted with the discovery. Another stepping-stone on the journey across the mad stream of noise and nonsense that wants to sweep us all away before we’ve done the work. When you find such solid ground in the midst of chaos you celebrate the landing. Gide reminds us not to settle, but to make something of ourselves in our time.

      The work deserves our best, because it represents our best in our moment. Should it fall flat in its time or become a surprise hit matters little, save a bit of ego stroke. Work that matters doesn’t fly on the wings of a clever hashtag or marketing campaign. That may matter to a publisher or salesperson or PR firm. What matters in the creative process is how it resonates within us. And where it takes us.

      If we’re lucky, maybe it carries us to places we haven’t been before. To something unexpected and delightful in ourselves. Should be keep at it just a little bit longer.

    • The Consent to Discover

      “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” — André Gide

      The truth is, we each concede more than we consent. The truth is, discovery is a shore too far for many of us. And yet we each set sail in our own way from the past every day. What seems the same alters ever so slightly each day, imperceptibly, inalterably, and we wrestle with the truth of it whether we set our course for distant shores or futilely try to hold on with all our might to what once was.

      This is the time of year when parents post pictures of children heading off to school, on their way to discovering their own new lands. The discovery isn’t just for the children, but the parents too, as they return to a home different than it was before. At such moments the daily leap is profound in its breadth.

      So often we dwell on the gap between where we are and where we hope to be and our confidence waivers. Discovery requires a leap into the unknown, and the courageous consent to make that leap. Indeed, the thrill of losing sight of who we once were and gliding into an unknown future might be frightening, but ultimately, doesn’t it bring us to places we never thought possible?

      Sometimes we get so caught up in what we might lose that we forget about what we might find.

    • Solitude as a Path Forward

      “Society is the cave. The way out is solitude.” — Simone Weil

      We know, deep down, that our way is found in the quiet moments. It’s so easy to be caught up in the expectations and scandals of society, so easy to trap ourselves in the words so tightly shaped around the stories of our lives, that we might never really fly. Yet we must fly, whatever our flight path may be, if we are to get out of that cave. How many countless souls never fly?

      We grow up hearing we might be odd if we aren’t part of the group. As adults we hear that we’re either in the collective party of the righteous or there’s something suspicious and odd about us. To be a part of the tribe we must participate in the rituals of the tribe. And so we all fall in line, find our career path, work to strengthen our relationships, build our bridges, marry up and in, and then have kids and place them carefully into the right environments to maximize their own potential in society.

      There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a part of things. We learn and grow in society. We play our part and find meaning through our connection with others. We meet people who help transform us from what we were to what we might become. We rightfully celebrate our place in society and the people who are woven into the fabric of our lives.

      One might point to the social structure as the clearest way to find our place in this world. We get in the mix, bounce ideas off each other, collaborate, feed off the energy in the room, get a leg up with the help of others, and so on. And indeed, so it is that we thrive in a world built on maximizing the contribution of the individual for the benefit of our collective future together.

      But if there’s a shared secret we all know, it is the critical nature of solitude in finding our own path forward. It’s the voice inside your head saying, “And what of me?” We can’t really make out what that voice is saying until we step away from the din. What we find, if we are so audacious as to listen, is that that voice has a lot to say.

      Is it narcissistic to ask such questions? Parts of society would shout down such selfish ideas. The very idea of contemplation and individuality are reckless and dangerous in many corners of this world. But is it selfish to seek solitude, or selfless to find places to reflect? We don’t run away from society, we stride boldly towards ourselves. The boldest ideas are conceived in solitude.

    • Time in Orange

      The early morning is my game: fresh ideas, new hope, quiet time with the reset before the madness begins. All the petty frustrations of yesterday punted abruptly to a previous version of me, not today’s me. No, not yet.

      A rising waning crescent moon, just a sliver, dances with Venus, also rising, calling for attention herself. Behind me, Jupiter, god of the sky, living up to his nickname as he brightly dominates the western sky, not conceding any royal status as the sky brightens ever so timidly around him. A satellite glides quickly past, just below the king, brash in its intrusive busyness. “A little decorum, please?”, I think to myself, quietly admiring the boldness of technological advancement in the face of custom. Jupiter, playing the long game, remains stoic and proud, despite the affront.

      I return to yesterday, thinking today might be better. It ought to be better, with a bit more effort, a bit more applied acting the part, and maybe, like that satellite, a bit more intrusive busyness. But there I go again, dwelling on the past, cheating the present. This rusty, orange, glowing, hopeful present. It demands more from me. It deserves more from me.

      I dreamed of a TSA agent who wouldn’t set me free. I’m not someone who remembers dreams, but this one woke me at just the right moment, freshly minted in my brain as it was, that it stayed with me through the ritual of orange. I think of it still, that maddening limbo. And it made me think of fresh starts with a sprinkling of boldness.

      Time in Orange

    • Every Single Day

      “If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”― Ray Bradbury

      I went for a long walk late in the day yesterday, dodging raindrops, a rarity this summer, to power through nine muggy miles (14.5 km). The mileage wasn’t a surprise, for it was agreed upon before the walk began. The trick in longer walks is to set your expectations and pace, and naturally, to wear good shoes. The rest is just putting one foot in front of the other and observing the world as it comes to you.

      The similarities with writing, or any other mission you decide to show up for every single day, are within reach if one should be inclined to harvest them. We establish our routines, dance with the muse one idea at a time and let it run through us to become something tangible. When it’s finished we share a sense of accomplishment and loss all at once, linger for a beat and shift our mind to what comes next.

      Life is a series of days, repeated one after the other, optimized by expectations and pace. We do with them what we will. And then? We move on to whatever comes next. Yet we always return, don’t we, to the things that matter most to us?

      It would be bold to expect another 20,000 days in my own lifetime. That would make me a very old blogger indeed. But I do have this one, and maybe tomorrow, or maybe not. So I work to make this blog post count for something, maybe stand up as that final post should it be that. Of course, every sentence can’t end in an exclamation point, we’d be seen as more insane than most think of writers as already, but we can’t put our best into everything we do in the moment… just in case.

      Hope to see you tomorrow. 😉

    • Becoming That Shape

      “The ability to fantasize is the ability to grow. [For] boys and girls… the most important time of their day, or especially at night before going to sleep, is dreaming themselves into becoming something, or being something. Into being something. So when you’re a child you begin to dream yourself into a shape, and then you run into the future and try to become that shape. When I was 10, 11, 12 I began to dream of becoming a writer, and the rest of my life has been the real task of shaping myself to that boyhood thing. So fantasizing has been very creative.” – Ray Bradbury, from Day at Night Interview, with thanks to The Marginarian for showing the way.

      It’s easy to spot potential in others, when you pay attention to such things. A nephew with a knack for brilliant cooking, a niece with an eye for brilliant photography, a friend with the aptitude and attitude for finish carpentry, a son or daughter with the unique combination of empathy and talent that they bring to the world. When you look for the spark in others, often it’s easy to see. And sometimes it’s barely detectible, needing space and air to spark into something more substantial. We, witnesses to the fire burning inside others, either feed the spark or snuff it out. Which will we offer in the moment?

      And what are we with ourselves? Are we stoking our own dreams or snuffing them out? We ought to be arsonists with our spark, stoking our dreams and lighting the way for others. For in those moments alone with a dream, when we see so clearly what we might become, we discover our anima. In Latin anima refers to “a current of air, wind, air, breath, the vital principle, life, soul” (wiki). There’s magic in air as we dance with that vital principle, for there we form our (dare I say it) life’s purpose. For us humans trying to reach our potential, the question or what animates us ought to be front and center in our journey to becoming what we might be.

      In our brief dance with light and air, we must build our beacon in earnest. Shaping ourselves into whatever we believe possible shouldn’t be the stuff of childhood fantasy, it can be our lifetime pursuit. For dreams ought to be stoked, if only to see how brightly that spark might burn.

    • Input vs. Output

      We must consume books and art and bits of the universe both sweet and bitter to produce anything of consequence. From birth we’re actively consuming to stay alive and grow, to learn from those who came before us and ultimately to mold ourselves into an active, thinking adult. But we weren’t born to be sponges, we were born to produce.

      Input and output go hand-in-hand, but output isn’t guaranteed simply because there was input. We need agency, don’t we, to transform all that input into something resembling output? It’s comfortable always being the student of life, soaking in all that this universe offers. The stakes go up considerably when we put ourselves out there with our own work. To raise our hand and speak up, to offer a new twist, to boldly contribute to the Great Conversation.

      If there’s a disease in humanity, amplified in these times, it’s mistaking combativeness and criticism for output. This is “Man in the Arena” territory, where those who don’t do the work feel perfectly fine condemning those who do the work. We ought to collectively have no patience for it and turn the trolls and charlatans away. Yet too many treat the noise as input, and think themselves clever by parroting the same sound bite as their own output. These are empty calories for the brain, and distract us from building.

      We don’t need more noise, but we definitely need more insight, more contribution to the critical issues of our time, more solving of problems, and more collaboration and meeting in the middle to find a way forward. We are what we consume, this is true, and we are also what our actions demonstrate we are. We must do better, collectively, with our output.

      Input is fine, I suppose, but where are we going with it?