Alexandersmap

    Month: September 2024

    • Thou Hast Thy Music Too

      “Give me books, fruit, French wine, fine weather and a little music.” — John Keats

      Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
      Think not of them, thou hast thy music too
      — John Keats, To Autumn

      Keats only lived to 25, but his life was memorable because he had productive energy and talent and used it to churn out enough poetry to capture the world’s attention. Had he lived another few decades, I wonder where his voice might have taken him. Perhaps less flowery and more pointed? Our voices change with time, having lived beyond the illusions of our youth to a place more… earthbound.

      I’ve long ago abandoned any idea that writing a blog post every day would net a million followers. That’s Seth Godin territory. Blogging is a daily practice in writing, and thinking more deeply about consequential things. The idea of advertisements and diligently churning other platforms for clicks is not my game. Frankly, it’s not a game at all anymore, it’s simply the practice of writing every day. A steady climb to a better place.

      If life is short, but hopefully not as short as Keats’ life was, then to live it with joie de vivre seems vital. Ah, the poet has joie de vivre—but does the blogger? I think so, friend, but taking oneself less seriously and learning to enjoy the discoveries one makes about the universe along the way would surely carry us to a more joyful place than overanalyzing one’s key performance indicators (KPI’s) ever would. We don’t always have to know where we’re going or even why, but we ought to feel something stir deep within us when we move through our days. For ’tis true, thou hast thy music too.

    • Mine the Magic

      “Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

      Earlier this morning, still before the sunrise, I sat out with a cup of coffee trying to determine what kind of bird was making a very unusual call when the pup decided I’d lingered long enough without throwing the frisbee and put me to task. That lengthy sentence alone indicates how blessed I am to have a moment like that, one that repeats regularly, despite all the madness in the world. There are plenty of people who would trade places and I’m not so wrapped up in my storm of minor problems that I don’t recognize that. Circumstances arise that change our trajectories, but we largely determine who we become. We mustn’t forget to savor such moments when we find ourselves living them.

      The question of next is always weighing on us, even as we tell ourselves to immerse ourselves in now. Humans are built to ponder the future, with hope or dread or maybe chagrin, but the future isn’t anything but a script that hasn’t been played out yet. We may yet sharpen the pencil and draft something clever for our future self. And isn’t that the hope for all of us creative types? We anchor ourselves to the moment while drafting the exciting, implausible next. Drafts are always rewritten as the editors in our universe play their part, but we may still influence the final scene.

      I never did figure out what that bird was. It flew away to sing its strange song somewhere else, and I was left with another missed opportunity. Life is full of such things, and yet we still have agency. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves to stop grasping for magic feathers and simply mine the magic within ourselves, that we may realize it one day. Don’t let that dream be another missed opportunity that flew away with time.

    • The Lifetime Study

      “Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

      When I was an undergrad I took a Philosophy class that turned me upside down. I promised myself at that time that I’d go back to school someday, maybe after retirement, to study it more completely. I was young then and it never occurred to me that philosophy is a lifetime study, not something you do in school.

      This weekend was productive. In fact, far more productive than my work week last week was. That says a lot about the state of mind I was in last week in my chosen career, as well as during the weekend when I channeled all that untapped productivity into getting things done. Reflecting on it now, it makes me reassess how I’m spending my Monday through Friday. We’ll see how this week goes. I’ve started it with two of the three things that kick off a great day: reading and writing. And a brisk walk with the pup is just around the corner for the trifecta.

      But what then? We must schedule our productivity, lest we slip into bad habits. There’s a whole list of things that must be done, but what’s the one thing that, having done it, would make this day as good as one of our best days? Focusing on productivity seems far more effective than dwelling on philosophy. But really, the two go hand-in-hand. We must know how to optimize our what, but surely we must begin with understanding our why.

      So it is that I dive deeply into philosophical works that challenge my casual why’s, and dare myself to write about them here on this blog. Travel and history and observations about my current fitness challenges will surely be a part of this blog for as long as I’m capable of writing it, but they’re all means to an end. We never stop being a student, we just pay more taxes as we grow. Understanding just why we’re here in the first place, and what to do with that realization when we reach it, was our thesis all along. It’s fair to ask ourselves regularly, how’s it coming along?

    • Borrowed Experience

      “It is far better to borrow experience than to buy it.” — Charles Caleb Colton

      Our lifestyle is roughly the same most days. My bride and I have nomadic tendencies, but circumstances are keeping us local lately more than in other ports of call. The pup and aging parents are our chosen anchors at this season in our lives, and we largely embrace the opportunity to spend time we won’t get back with each. Still, those nomadic tendencies stir under the surface. And this is where strategically borrowed experience can fill the gap.

      Most of us borrow experience, through reading great novels, watching immersive media, taking a weekend in a bed & breakfast somewhere or living abroad for an extended period for work, school or simply to change the landscape we walk out to each day. Often these borrowed experiences are a right of passage at different stages of our lives: going off to summer camp, going off to university, moving to a new place to start a job, and finding the religious, philosophical, political and social structures to wrap around ourselves to make that experience more fulfilling for us in that time in our lives.

      When does borrowed experience become a wholesale change in lifestyle? Probably the moment you stop thinking of the experience you’re having as borrowed at all. We grow into our lives, don’t we? Those structures we build around ourselves become our normal: physical structures like the roof over our heads or the boat we bob around in, social structures like the people who act as our touchstones in the world, each become part of our identity as we root ourselves into living that experience. At some point we aren’t borrowing the experience, the experience is who we are.

      Isn’t it better to try on the shoes before you buy them, just to see how they fit? We may find that once tried is just enough, or alternatively, that we love how we feel in them. Either way, we’ve had the experience and, if we’re fortunate, have the agency to choose what to do next. Life is change, after all, and those things we dabble in for a weekend getaway can easily become who we have become. The thing is, once we become that next thing, we begin to borrow other experiences and the whole thing begins again.

    • Opening Doors

      “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
      —Frank Smith, To Think: In Language, Learning and Education

      I’ve been skimming along with multiple languages for years now. Visit a country, try to learn some of the language. Visit another country, do it again with their native language. The similarities are easy to see when you do this with several languages in this way, we’re all connected after all. The thing about skimming is you pick up just enough to ask for the bathroom at a cafe or say please and thank you, but you aren’t immersing yourself in it long enough to keep up with rapid fire conversation, let alone mastery.

      I recently surpassed 1600 days in a row of learning on Duolingo. It’s a bit of an artificial accolade because there are streak busters that patch up a missing day here and there. Just before that 1600 day mark I missed two days in a row while on business travel and thought the whole thing would reset to zero. But no, it just repaired itself and here I am, a master of French, German, Portuguese and Italian (the languages I’ve been learning off and on during that streak). Which is nonsense, because dabbling in an app makes you a master of nothing but casual productivity.

      Still, there’s something about meeting someone halfway by learning their native language just enough to maintain a slow roll through a pleasant conversation. They almost certainly know some of my native language, but my speaking theirs informs them that I have some measure of respect for their identity that I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone and give it a go. Opening doors to new experiences begins with a bit of discomfort about what we’ll find when we step through. But I have yet to have it slammed in my face.

      My nephew teaches Spanish, and goes to Spain every summer to guide students on an immersion experience for several weeks. I think immersion is my own next step towards competency in another language. French is the likely candidate since I’ve been most consistent with it, but really any place that would have me sounds like a great candidate to me. Don’t we owe it to ourselves and those we may interact with to step out of the corridor we’ve been settling for and open some doors?

      When we dabble in anything we never develop the calluses earned through grinding it out. An athlete knows when another athlete has put the work in just by looking at them. A native speaker may appreciate us meeting them halfway by attempting a few words in their language, but would delight in a full conversation at natural speed with someone who put the work in to master it. To reach that point is something to aspire to on this road to becoming something more in our brief go with living. Life should be ever expansive as we grow into our potential. Tu ne serais pas d’accord ?

    • The Evasive There

      “The surface of the water is beautiful, but it is no good to sleep on.” — African proverb

      Lately I’ve been assessing next moves. Surely that’s been telegraphed in this blog for long enough now that none of you are floored by that statement. But next moves are tricky things. We don’t just say yes to every opportunity that comes our way, do we? Most opportunities are merely future problems with lipstick on. We ought to look hard before we leap.

      The future always looks beautiful and full of possibility for the optimist, and dark and treacherous for the pessimist. We’ve got to be objective in assessing which direction we’ll go in next to truly see what is in front of us for what it is. Our “there” will always be evasive if we won’t ever take the leap from “here” into the unknown. Then again, leaping is all fine and good so long as we know what we’re landing into. We must choose our leaps with the landing in mind.

      And so it is that most people keep looking for the next thing and never actually leaping into much of anything at all. We can easily find reasons to just keep doing what we’ve done for years, because things are working okay and why change now? It’s rather easy to talk about most people, but when you recognize that you’ve been one of them it’s a tough mirror to look into. And this is where philosophy and poetry and writing assist greatly in the journey from here to that evasive there. We all must sort out who we’re becoming in the most thoughtful and deliberate of ways. Just don’t forget to leap now and then.

    • What Are We Ready For?

      “Conquer yourself rather than the world.” ― René Descartes

      Yesterday wasn’t particularly productive. I mean in some ways it was very productive, but in the trading work for money way it wasn’t a stellar day. Blame it on Wednesday, but really it was my own inclination to do other things that felt more essential in the hour at hand. We ought to follow our gut more than the demands of the world. We know what we must do.

      Looking at it a completely different way, yesterday was very productive. I knocked out a blog post before breakfast, brought my favorite pup to play with her friends, spent a few hours doing some research work that mattered a great deal to me and had a good conversation with my bride after cooking her dinner. I also bought groceries, but hey, I don’t like to brag.

      The thing is, each day we move in the direction we want to go in with our lives is a good day. The ebb and flow of productivity in any particular activity isn’t as essential to our value as simply moving the chains from one hash line to the next. Get through this day largely intact and with some semblance of forward momentum, and survive to fight another day tomorrow. Insane productivity will have its time, or it won’t, but either way it’s telling us something about the direction we’re going with our life.

      Descartes popped up in my media feed this morning, just when I was telling myself roughly the same thing. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, as the expression goes. We ought to ask ourselves each morning when we face this gift of being alive, what are we ready for?

    • The Hidden Bond

      My memories of him
      are the ones
      of which I am
      most fond.
      And I’m fearful they
      will fade away
      like ripples
      on a pond.
      But then…
      if I’m the pond
      and he’s the stone
      then we share
      a hidden bond.
      For he’s there
      beneath the surface
      if I dare
      to look beyond.
      — Ranata Suzuki, Reflections

      Within each interaction of consequence with another, there is connection hidden in plain sight. We scarcely think of it in the moment, but when we recall the person, the interaction floods back over us in a wave of memory. Life is a series of such interactions, formed with characters in our life play representing long term relationships, the briefest of transactional conversations and those who fall somewhere in between. The key is the bond made in the moment.

      We transcend the physical body through those we leave behind who remember us. How do we scrap together something to fill the void left behind in the absence of those we care deeply for? I think about people who are very much alive but no longer in my life. They remain a part of me even as they fade as the touchstones grounding me to place and time. Those who have passed occupy a similar place in memory, without the possibility of reunion one day. And that’s where we feel the loss—in the absence of future possibility.

      Someday, when I leave this lifetime, perhaps those I leave behind will leave this small poem on the memorial cards given out on such occasions. A reminder that while I may no longer be there I’m very much at the party, buying them a drink and prompting a story about that time when, examples of looking beyond the surface and finding that we’re still there, if only in spirit and those blessed memories. Hidden bonds continue on for as long as those who remember them do. Questions of whether this is our only pond together are meant to be answered beyond this surface.

    • Time Horizons

      “The longer you can extend your time horizon the less competitive the game becomes, because most of the world is engaged over a very short time frame.” — William Browne

      Time horizons are largely an investment concept. It’s the amount of time you leave your money in investments to reach your financial goal. I’m no financial wizard, but I’m smart enough to put my own investment money into places where it can work best for me and I leave it the hell alone for long periods of time. And to double down on that exponential growth, choosing the right life partner who compliments one’s own contribution offers the best long term investment potential I can imagine. The sum is clearly greater than the individual parts.

      In a world full of people looking for the quick win, the easy hack, the secret shortcut to success, those who instead choose consistent daily effort applied to habits and routines that will pay dividends over time often come out way ahead. Simply put, showing up every day and doing the things that must be done to stay on course towards our goals is the only true secret to success. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

      The thing is, when we set that point off on the horizon for which we’re putting a lifetime of consistent effort into reaching, we surprise ourselves when we actually get there one day. Time flies, and horizons are reached before we know it so long as we aren’t zig-zagging from one point to the next with no clear plan. Consistent daily action in the direction of our goals remains the fastest way between two points. We look around one day and think to ourselves, “How did we get here so quickly?” May that moment of realization be positive.

      We come to understand that one horizon leads to another, then another, until we reach that final destination one day. The journey is the thing. We ought to enjoy this ride from here to there, while ensuring that there is worth the work we put in to reaching that place. The game all along is to maximize our return on our very short time invested on this planet. To live a life full of great memories and enriching experiences from which we reach that final horizon with few regrets is the epitome of true success.

    • The Bright Side of the Road

      “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” — Joseph Campbell

      Walking the dog yesterday, we came across two women; one pushing a baby stroller and the other walking two dogs. It was immediately obvious that one of the dogs was aggressive towards our dog. He pulled at his leash and snarled at our pup. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and he backed between the legs of the woman and squirmed out of his collar. Game on! As he charged towards our pup I quickly scooped her up in my arms and turned her away from the jaws of the charging dog until its owner was able to regain control of him. After some abundant apologies we each went our way on an otherwise pleasant walk.

      I get frustrated sometimes when close friends and family dwell on the darkness in the world. It’s always been there, and it always will be there. To believe otherwise is to believe in fairy tales or the flowery lies of politicians. The underlying truth is that joy has also existed in the world since the beginning of humanity. Quite often we get precisely what we seek in this life.

      “The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see.” — Barry Neil Kaufman

      I’m not advocating blindly navigating the world without awareness of the darker side of humanity. We must be aware and resilient to thwart threats against all we hold dear, but we can be aware of evil without wrapping our lives around it like a cloak. We may still trust in the inherent goodness in the world while still locking the door at night. Even still, we may be the light that illuminates the darkness that others may navigate to something better. When enough of us choose the bright side of the road the world may indeed become a more joyful place.