Alexandersmap

    Month: April 2024

    • Like All the Rest

      “If you say “no” to one little detail of your life, you’ve unraveled the whole thing. You have to say “yes” to the whole thing, including its extinction. That’s what’s known as “joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.” It’s my little theme song.” — Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      Memento mori, friend. This is the whole thing. We must dance with the light we receive today knowing the party must eventually come to an end. For when we are aware of the fragility of the moment and our place in it, we learn to savor it.

      It’s easy to say this, harder in practice when we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders.. Life can be hard, after all, so who are we to blissfully enjoy it all? We don’t need to enjoy the hard days, simply to accept the truth of the moment. Amor fati—love of fate. The most joyful people are the most present and aware.

      When we know our time is short in anything, or with someone, we may become fully aware of the importance of the experience. It’s here that memories are born. We are but accumulated memories molded into identity. So carpe diem—seize the day, whatever it brings. For it will soon be gone like all the rest.

    • A Visit to Red Rock Canyon

      The region I live in was experiencing a total eclipse on April 8th. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada with an opportunity to see a partial eclipse. I might have been chagrined by this at another time in my life, but now? Amor fati friends. I watched the eclipse I had before me and made the most of the place and time I had available and visited Red Rock Canyon.

      Red Rock Canyon more than lives up to its name, but red is just one of the many colors in this desert environment. Calico might have been a better choice, and one section of the scenic drive does have that name. It’s a stunning departure from the ugliest parts of humanity you might find elsewhere in the city.

      The scenic drive is a one-way, 13 mile loop winding through the canyon. The one-way nature of it is a blessing as drivers are distracted enough already by the scenery without having to worry about cars coming at them head-on. But it does mean you should take the time to stop at every point of interest for there’s no going back.

      A drive is nice, but I was here to hike. There is a nice network of trails throughout the area, but we spent the bulk of our time at Calico Hills scrambling and hiking amongst the massive sandstone formations. It was similar to Joshua Tree National Park in many ways, without the scale of that place, but more than making up for it with convenient proximity to Las Vegas.

      The region is very popular with rock climbers and we watched dozens of them climbing the cliffs on our hike. Like gambling, rock climbing is not my game, but I can appreciate the skills of those who pursue it. Hiking and scrambling are enough for me, and in a place this beautiful this close to the Vegas Strip, I found the experience both exhilarating and immensely enjoyable.

    • The Momentum of Trust

      “The individual in the organization who collects, connects and nurtures relationships is indispensable. This isn’t about recording the information in a database somewhere. This is about holding the relationships as sacred as they deserve to be.” — Seth Godin, Graceful

      There’s no substitute for hard work and consistency in our work, but life is a lot easier when we also have a network of alliances and trusted relationships developed over time. The very best way to build any momentum in anything is to build a network of trusted people around us. The network becomes our path to greatness, as those who trust us grow into greatness themselves. They pull us up just as we pull them up.

      The moment we change industries, we lose the momentum of trust. Like Sisyphus, we essentially go right to the bottom of the hill and start pushing once again. As someone who has reinvented myself several times over in my career, I know the power and absence of a strong network all too well. Nowadays I hold on to my trusted relationships for dear life, and go to great lengths to keep developing new ones.

      As people grow and change companies it impacts the people who remain as much as it does those who leave. Trust is earned over time. Momentum may slow or disappear altogether. We may choose to be the glue or the acetone in such moments. Nothing ever stays the same in something as dynamic as a career, but we can be consistent in our reliability and presence as a friend, peer and trusted associate. In the end it’s our relationships we’ll celebrate in our time.

    • To Follow the Call

      “When one thinks of some reason for not going or has fear and remains in society because it’s safe, the results are radically different from what happens when one follows the call. If you refuse to go, then you are someone else’s servant. When this refusal of the call happens, there is a kind of drying up, a sense of life lost. Everything in you knows that a required adventure has been refused. Anxieties build up. What you have refused to experience in a positive way, you will experience in a negative way…
      Your adventure has to be coming right out of your own interior. If you are ready for it, then doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It’s the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.” ― Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      We have people in our lives who would read that passage from Joseph Campbell and shudder at the very idea of answering the call. They’ll throw all kinds of logic at you about why this is not a good idea at all, not nearly as good an idea as staying the course and following through on the path chosen for us. It’s an attractive rut to stay in place, doing what is expected of us, with a promise of retirement and a few healthy years before we die. It’s a Siren’s song that has lured many a soul to the rocks.

      Thoreau said something unnervingly similar, didn’t he, when he observed that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”? We may either look inward and refute the observation or find it rings true, but we may never be fully the same having seen the truth within us. Still, every day is a new opportunity to step into who we really are. Every day we may follow the call or go on killing the dream. We must choose wisely which voice we follow, remembering that the rocks are closer than we might believe.

      Alone on a midnight passage
      I can count the falling stars
      While the Southern Cross and the satellites
      They remind me of where we are
      Spinning around in circles
      Living it day to day
      And still 24 hours may be 60 good years
      It’s really not that long a stay
      Jimmy Buffett, Cowboy in the Jungle

      Joseph Campbell is very much in the “follow your bliss” camp. He’s largely the originator of the term. There are many who mock this following your bliss strategy as impractical at best and self-deceptive folly at worst. The question is, if we may have our 60 good years doing something we absolutely love—that calls to us—or if we will forever shelve that for what the world wants of us. What will it be, for you and me?

      Perhaps the answer is to follow our call, instead of bliss. Sure, it’s the same thing, but the optics are better for the person who knows what they want and seizes the moment attempting to achieve it. What is the difference between a start-up entrepreneur in the garage and a poet writing in a cabin in the woods? The former have better marketing budgets. We glamorize the chase for a personal fortune but mock the chase for personal enlightenment.

      Whatever our path is, whatever our call, we ought to feel the urgency to follow it immediately. For the rocks are getting closer and there’s no time to waste. Decide what to be and go be it.

    • To Shed, and Grow

      “We must be willing to get rid of
      the life we’ve planned, so as to have
      the life that is waiting for us.

      The old skin has to be shed
      before the new one can come.

      If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
      When we hang onto any form,
      we are in danger of putrefaction.

      Hell is life drying up.”
      ― Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      Walking on the beach last week, I picked up two shells. One was tiny and in perfect shape, the other larger and more surf-beaten. Shell identification is not my game, but I like learning new games.. Based on a helpful shell identifier web site I found, we’ll call the small one a Threeline Mudsnail, the other a Shark Eye. I regret not holding on to the Shark Eye if only for the name… but I digress.

      We know that Hermit Crabs swap out old shells for new as they grow. We know that snakes do something similar with their skin thus making Campbell’s analogy resonate so well. Potted plants grow pot-bound and begin to fade if we don’t repot them into something bigger. So what of us? Why do we try to hold on to so much of our past instead of growing into the next version of ourselves? When we create a life for ourselves, parts of that life are going to fall away from us. People come and go. Favorite restaurants close. Developments are built in woods that used to speak to us. Everything changes and so too must we.

      Lately, a few friends have left the company I work for in favor of greater opportunity for themselves. In each case I cheer them on to do great things with their lives, even as I feel the loss of their contribution to the place where I still work. We must grow or risk drying up in the old shell we’ve built around ourselves. Like my kids growing into adulthood and moving to other places, these work friends will still be in my life, just not every day. It’s not a goodbye, it’s until we meet again.

      The trick, I believe, is to stop feeling so comfortable with the character we once were and begin feeling comfortable with the idea of a new identity. When we decide who we want to be and begin the process of becoming that person, we are shedding our old skin. We often wonder after we’ve left it why we held on so very long to something we were so ready to leave behind.

    • Grid Luck

      Yesterday, just as I was about to click publish on a blog post, the power flickered one last time and died completely. As it turned out, the Internet held out a little longer before it too finally passed into that deep night. After no winter at all during winter, winter had arrived in force for one last reminder of who’s boss.

      After a few storms like this, most people learn to build some resilience into their lives. Certainly, food, flashlights and candles are important, but so too are generators for those extended outages. As it turned out, our power was restored after 14 hours. Others in town aren’t as lucky and remain in the dark. The fact that I’m writing this now says something about the response of both the energy utility and the Internet provider and the courage of the crews working to fix everything in adverse conditions.

      They say we make our own luck in this world, which is another way of saying we may take steps to mitigate the impact of bad luck while maximizing the potential of good luck. This is applicable in every part of our lives: health, wealth, education, relationships and our overall safety and security. Having redundant systems in place should the primary system fail is a good practice in every part of our lives. Knowing how to use them is an obvious next step on the path to resiliency.

      If we’re driving an automobile, we ought to know how to change a tire. While we’re at it, we ought to make sure we have a usable spare tire. This same logic should be applied to other areas of our lives where resiliency and a bit of know-how can make the difference between getting on with our day or having a very long one. Amor fati is the starting point for resiliency (we must accept the cards we’re dealt), but it’s a lot easier to love our fate when we’re prepared for it.

      All of this got me thinking about this blogging thing. I’m set up to write it wherever I am, with whatever device I happen to have in front of me, with or without connectivity to the rest of the world. The trick is in publishing without an Internet connection. WordPress offers tools for this too, that we may write ahead of time and simply set the date and time of publication. Personally, I like to live on the edge a bit and publish when I complete the blog. The blog, to me, is evidence of daily contemplation followed by the immediacy of shipping the work come hell or high water the same day. That may come back to bite me when I travel internationally again soon. We measure risk in such ways and determine whether it’s worth changing our routine to mitigate the impact of the worst case scenario. In publishing the blog when it’s completed, I’m essentially saying I’m still here—somewhere. Lucky me.

    • A Walk a Day

      “Walking five miles a day or more provides the type of low-intensity exercise that yields all the cardiovascular benefits you might expect, but it also has a positive effect on muscles and bones – without the joint-pounding damage caused by running marathons or triathlons.” ― Dan Buettner, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest

      Last summer I had a goal to walk 200 miles for a charity and found the time simply by getting up early and getting out there. Nowadays I’m not walking for a charity (perhaps I should) but I’m walking for life. Initially I recruited the pup, but she’s flipped that script around and now recruits me. She’s quickly learned just the right look to give me to get me off the chair and out the door, where she may survey the neighborhood and remind the rabbits and squirrels that she’s the queen of the cul du sac. She’s more of a runner, this pup, and I can tell she’d rather leave the slow guy behind. But a walk is better than a snooze any day.

      Walking five miles is time-consuming, so most people simply won’t take the time. I often won’t take the time either, but I’ve learned that a bit of multitasking helps to get the wheels in motion. As with any habit, once you’ve got a bit of momentum the routine takes hold. I may not be running marathons, but I can walk the length of one in a week. In this way, those walks add up to something substantial. As a bonus, it does both the body and mind a lot of good.

      When we say that we don’t have the time to walk, we’re really just prioritizing something else. When we think of the brevity of this lifetime, just what is so important that we must rush through it? Besides, that walk a day just might extend our lifespan, and more importantly, a healthy and vibrant years. Isn’t that worth a daily investment? So lace up and get out there, for there’s no time to waste.

    • Stay the Course

      “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      I’d been saving this quote for the day I finished writing the blog. It seemed as good as any way to close it out. Perhaps this will be the last—since I’m using it and all that. Perhaps.

      It seems I share a birthday with my old friend Marcus Aurelius. Not too far away now, really. He has a few years on me, of course, but reading Meditations was a catalyst for making some changes to my routine of the time, including writing this blog every day. Blogging sometimes feels like shaving for me: I don’t always want to do it, but I feel better after having done it so I keep on doing it. Then the next morning there I am staring at myself in the mirror once again.

      The answer, Marcus suggests, is to stop worrying about process and routine and obligations and just be what you aspire to be. Just do the things that make us good people. The things that make the world less good will be there either way, so we are the counterbalance to all that we wish were different. Our answer all along has been to stay the course, friend. And so it shall be.

    • Songs of Freedom

      Old pirates, yes, they rob I
      Sold I to the merchant ships
      Minutes after they took I
      From the bottomless pit
      But my hand was made strong
      By the hand of the Almighty
      We forward in this generation
      Triumphantly
      Won’t you help to sing
      These songs of freedom?
      — Bob Marley, Redemption Song

      We forget, sometimes, the progress we’ve made generation-to-generation through the years. In my own lifetime I’ve seen the pivot towards acceptance and inclusion, and of course the strong, often violent reaction of those who don’t want to change. It’s always been this way. Still, we progress.

      Call me an optimist, but I take the long view on social change. There is a growing awareness of the stakes, even as there’s been growing momentum on the side of autocracy. Populism swings to and fro like a pendulum, fueled by whatever information or disinformation is consumed. The old ways die, but so do memories, and we often repeat the same mistakes over and over again. It can be frustratingly obvious how manipulated we all are at times.

      Once someone is free it’s pretty difficult to ask them to put the chains back on. That requires force. And there are plenty of examples of that in the world too. Places where democracy never took hold, or extremists grabbed power. It can happen here too, should we let the pendulum swing too far.

      Sure, I’m an optimist, but I can’t even convince some of my closest friends that the guy they want to be king is a conman. These are dangerous times for freedom. Never trust someone who tells you they know what’s best for you. They’re almost certainly talking about what’s best for them. But enough have bought in that half the country thinks we’d be just fine slipping backwards. American authoritarianism has legs and some powerful financial backing.

      Really, I can’t even believe I’m writing this blog. It seems so obvious to so many of us what the logical path is that it’s hard to see that we’re just consuming a completely different information diet than the other half of the country. Half. The. Country… Good God. If there’s one thing true about humans, it’s that we don’t always do what’s logical. And so it’s clear that we have to look to the next generation for help. I think that they’re paying attention. Aren’t they? Aren’t we?

      Logic only takes us just so far. Emotion is what always brings voters out on election day. Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?

    • To Give Light

      “What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow-man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born.
      Who knows what other planets we will be visiting and what new wonders there will unfold? We certainly live more than once. Do we ever die—that is the question. In any case, thank God we are alive and of the stars—into all eternity. Amen!” — Henry Miller

      The thing about stars that may interest only me is that they give light to the eternal darkness of the universe for however long they exist. They aren’t relying on other stars for their energy—perhaps a little gravitation pull now and then, perhaps a bit of orbital spin, but their energy is all their own. Stars shine light into the vacuum of space with no expectation that anyone will receive it someday. That’s of no concern to the star—all their energy is put into giving light while they dance in their orbit to infinity and beyond.

      And here we are, stardust ourselves, receiving that light and mixing it with our own. We too are here to shine; we mustn’t ever worry where our own light goes, just that we give it freely to the universe in our time. The question is never whether to give light, but what our light should be. Perhaps, as Miller suggests, the answer is simply to enjoy this life eternal in our time and solve more problems than we create. Maybe it’s enough for us to put positive energy into the universe that illuminates others in their darkness, that they too might shine.

      Sometimes I wonder if I’m spinning in the right orbit or perhaps even burning out. There are days when I don’t want to do much of anything but find when I stop focusing on the void and begin the process something worthwhile eventually arrives to greet me. Something like the little note to himself Miller wrote in 1918 find their way to me and now to you, to serve as a reminder: Who are we to keep the light to ourselves?