Alexandersmap

    Month: March 2023

    • Others

      “In order to be the person I want to be, I must strive, hourly, against the drag of the others.” — Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Four*

      Some of them mean well, wanting nothing but the best for us. Some don’t care a lick about what we want, only that a glow might reflect on them. Some mean us nothing but harm in their own devious way, feelings born in some moment of contempt. We learn who some of these characters are over time. Some we go to our graves believing are one but are really the other. In the end they may scarcely matter, or they may matter a great deal. It depends, always, on us.

      We must find our own way. Sometimes this is with the help of others, sometimes despite them. We can’t be carried to our potential, we must reach for it ourselves. This is how we grow into the person we want to become.

    • Keep It Simple

      “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” —Jack Kerouac

      Simple seems so complicated some days. Mondays often openly mock the very idea of simplicity. Want to do big things in this lifetime? Meet your wrestling partner, complexity. Complexity usually doesn’t play by the rules.

      Of course, Kerouac danced with eloquent simplicity in his writing through applied effort. For him to point out he too was a work in progress is a generous gift to those of us fighting the same battle. If there’s a takeaway, it’s to do the work anyway. It won’t write itself, no matter how complicated our lives are. Simple isn’t easy, it’s only meant to appear that way.

      My own rulebook states I click publish every day. I always aim for morning, but that’s negotiable, while publishing daily is very much nonnegotiable for as long as life and luck allow. We all have our lines in the sand and our own idea of what simple means. Writing every day, each day becomes an incremental step towards our own version of simple.

    • The Next Circle

      As we become whatever it is we’ve decided to become, we naturally grow into who we’ll be next. Like a tree, the easiest analogy to reference, we might have some years where we grow a lot, and some years where we grow very little. But each season we grow nonetheless, building the next circle that will be part of our identity.

      It occurred to me that all this restlessness is just me pushing on into the next circle. We’re well into the new growth season now, not with trees and such, but within ourselves. What will this next season bring for us? The answer lies within. And friends: we have work to do.

    • More of This

      As I publish this, it’s the 18th of March, or the 77th day of the year. Lucky sevens, if you will, falling just after St. Patrick’s Day. The luck of the Irish following us? Let’s hope for that, but get back to living with purpose just the same. For we make our own luck, don’t we?

      We can usually predict the future by looking at what we consistently do. With that in mind, I’ll likely be writing every day, barely keeping the Duolingo streak alive and will have read my share of books (though never quite enough). It’s easy to see those filling in from now until the end, whatever that looks like. But what of the gaps? The inconsistencies also predict who we become, don’t they?

      It’s clear I need to get a dog soon if I want to maintain a walking streak, as walking the neighborhood at night without a dog just makes me feel like the weird neighbor. I probably don’t need to enhance that reputation. Alternatively, I could move to a place where walking is just the most obvious thing to do with your time. Kudos to friend and fellow blogger Joe, who managed to find a job and home in close enough proximity to each other that he can walk or snowshoe between the two. Joe doesn’t seem to complain about finding time to walk, he just walks. He proves every day that we can create the situation that works best for us when we focus on it.

      Life can surely be unpredictable, but we can safely predict that our life will mostly be more of this if we keep doing the same thing every day. The question to ask is, is more of this okay, or is it carrying us to a place we’d rather not go? Almost a quarter of the way into the year, we can see the trend we’re setting for ourselves, can’t we?

      “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
      ― James Clear, Atomic Habits

      When the year is over, it would be great to have written all I’d like to write, to have read all that I’ve got on my reading list, and to finally hold my own in a rapid-fire conversation in French. But it would also be great to be in better shape than I began the year, to have positioned myself for a successful year in my career, and to spend meaningful time with exceptional people. These are things we can look back on the blank spaces with regret, or we can celebrate as small wins strung together just so. More of this can be a positive statement, if we create the right situation for ourselves.

      So what’s the trajectory? Is more of this a good thing or bad? With this answered, we’ll know what to do next.

    • Become the Maker

      “Applauding yourself for the small successes, and taking the small bow, are good ways of learning to experience life each moment that you live it. And that’s part of inventing yourself, of creating your own destiny. To become a leader, then, you must become yourself, become the maker of your own life.” — Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

      There was a moment while driving when it came to me. I must do more. I must rise to meet the moment and determine what happens for the balance of my days. I’ve been too lenient with myself in my writing, in my work, and in my lifestyle. I must become the maker of what’s next.

      Now these words weren’t exactly what I said to myself, but they were suggested to me by old friend Warren Bennis, in another one of those books that sits ready for me on the shelf for moments like this one. We each draw inspiration from something, don’t we? I generally find mine in ghost whispers. Those who have come before us have seen this all before. We ought to listen to them more. We all know that when the student is ready the teacher shall appear. The teachers who endure leave their advice in writing.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in the business of becoming what’s next for some time. But the root of my impatience with myself was the belief that I’m settling into a steady state instead of pushing harder—living more, and doing more. And so it is that I’ll take a small bow at the incremental progress I’ve managed to make towards the goal, while reminding myself that there’s so much more left to do. And this is the root of all major progress in this world, isn’t it? Isn’t our life a progression?

      Bennis suggests celebrating the small wins, embracing the joy in each moment, but to then press on. Action is what carries us forward to what we aspire for ourselves. To become this version of ourselves, we must become the maker.

    • All the Delightful Conditions

      “Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all the delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built. To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve.” — James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

      James Allen published As a Man Thinketh in 1903, 120 years ago as I publish this today, so forgive the flowery language in his prose. Blame it on the Victorian era. But it remains a book that packs a punch. We’re all humans trying to figure out this life, aren’t we? That remains timeless even as styles change. The Avett Brothers, by contrast, get right to the point:

      “Decide what to be and go be it.” — The Avett Brothers, Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise

      The pages on my copy of Allen’s book are yellowed and largely forgotten, as I’d first read his book maybe 25-30 years ago. It sat on the shelf, patiently awaiting my return, since then. Well, here I am: different in almost every way from the person I was then, transformed by time and habit and environment to this character you’re lingering with now. People change. What directs that change is the vision we have for ourself.

      Looking back on this time since I first read the book, it’s easy to see the dead ends and detours, mistakes and inertia that took over at times. In this way our desires can be distractions from our aspirations. It’s easy to dwell on what didn’t go right, but we ought to celebrate what we’ve accomplished too. Transformation is a heavy lift, after all. What becomes apparent in looking back is the progress we make from who we once were to who we’ve become.

      With this in mind, we ought to look at the obstacles and frustrations we have today through the lens of who we will become by following through on our aspirations. Decide what to be and go be it, for as we thinketh, so shall we become. Set the compass, do the work, and the rest will follow. All the delightful conditions await, but they’ve also been here all along.

    • Where Is This Going?

      “A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.” ― Carlos Castaneda

      It’s fair to ask ourselves, “where is this going?” now and then. We already know, deep down, where things are going. The question merely raises to the surface things we bury in busy.

      If we only seek answers about the path we’re on, are we giving the path itself time to reveal itself to us? Yesterday, we considered the fact that the road doesn’t move, we do. Thus, the path is merely a path. We’re the ones who change. When we ask, “where is this going?” we’re really asking, “where am I going with this?”

      When Castaneda asks, “Does this path have a heart?”, he’s really asking, “Do I have the heart for this path?” The question is the same for all of us, whether we’re building a career, stacking words together just so in a blog or novel, hiking a seemingly infinite list of trails or sailing around the world. When we put everything of ourselves onto the path, we figure out just where we’re going. And whether it’s right for us.

    • These Roads

      These roads don’t move;
      You’re the one that moves.
      — Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard, These Roads Don’t Move

      Jay Farrar framed this song around the words of Jack Kerouac back in 2009. I’d first heard it while driving around the northeast, trying to make things work in a job I’d eventually leave. The song has been a favorite ever since. Jobs come and go, songs and memories stick with us for a lifetime.

      Back when this song was released, I often thought I ought to write more, but never got around to it. Mostly I felt I didn’t have enough to say. I wonder what that me would have come up with? I can guess, being me at the time, but not really the me of now. Somewhere there are old journals full of quotes and restless thoughts of a younger man, then, as now, trying to figure things out. What was missing was the act of publishing. But the universe wasn’t exactly feeling the void. Only me.

      Writing is simply a routine developed over time. So it is with collecting experience. We move through the world bearing witness to all that we stumble upon, while doing our best to rise to meet the moment. Each road brought us here. But we’re the ones that moved.

    • Building Familiarity

      Everything that was broken has
      forgotten its brokenness. I live
      now in a sky-house, through every
      window the sun. Also your presence.
      Our touching, our stories. Earthy
      and holy both. How can this be, but
      it is. Every day has something in
      it whose name is Forever.
      — Mary Oliver, Felicity

      Recently I received a new laptop computer from the company I work with to replace a Surface Pro that was beginning to show signs of duress (blue screens and such). The nice thing about technology is it’s easily transferrable from device-to-device. Apple seems to have mastered this with iPhone and Mac. The PC world isn’t quite as elegant but the process of transferring your life from one device to another is largely seamless… and yet disruptive at the same time. Fingers tap at places once familiar and now foreign. Something as simple as the angle of your wrists makes all the difference in the world. And don’t get me started on screen sizes.

      We build familiarity in our lives through the action in our days. The chairs we default to when we sit for dinner, where we store the plates or the raucous collection of Tupperware. Which side of the refrigerator holds the ketchup. And of course, how we coexist with life partners, children and pets in this space are what make it a home. When things change, we feel it viscerally. Something is amiss.

      If we’re blessed with a good foundation and sound choices, we might build something that lasts for a very long time. But everything changes when you sprinkle enough days together. Most notably, we change. Our preferences and appetite, our bodies, and those of the characters around us too. We are at once shaped by our environment even as we shape it. Every day has something in it whose name is Forever.

      Every interaction with the world is an opportunity to linger, if only for a little while. Or maybe a lifetime. We have a say in what becomes essential to us. We can’t always control its durability. Familiarity is another form of seeing things through to its natural end. Or maybe ours. This, of course, is our forever.

    • Finding the Way

      Nobody ever says of a painter that he has lost his way. It is said of writers. But when one is talking about a painter one says, “He is finding his way.” — Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Six

      The curse of restlessness, as described yesterday, is a burning desire to pile on more and more to the to-do list. How much can we fit in? More, more, more! The worker bee in me seeks to do more. The philosopher in me wishes to still the madness and listen to the universe. The writer in me finds his way tactfully between the two, looking for just the right way to sum up the day.

      And so it is that the words come. Today, before the wave crashes, I delight in the colors in the clouds as I listen to the growing roar. And click publish before I’m swept away.