Alexandersmap

    Month: March 2025

    • Stop Taking It for Granted

      “A man took his new hunting dog out on a trial hunt. Presently he shot a duck that fell into the lake. The dog walked over the water, picked the duck up and brought it to his master.
      The man was flabbergasted! He shot another duck. Once again, while he rubbed his eyes in disbelief, the dog walked over the water and retrieved the duck.
      Hardly daring to believe what he had seen, he called his neighbor for a shoot the following day. Once again, each time he or his neighbor hit a bird the dog would walk over the water and bring the bird in. The man said nothing. Neither did his neighbor.
      Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, he blurted out, “Did you notice anything strange about that dog?”
      The neighbor rubbed his chin pensively. “Yes,” he finally said. “Come to think of it, I did! The son of a gun can’t swim!”
      It isn’t as if life is not full of miracles. It’s more than that: it is miraculous, and anyone who stops taking it for granted will see it at once.” ― Anthony de Mello, The Prayer Of The Frog, Vol. 1

      We may choose to see what we want to see in this lifetime. The world at the moment offers many things from which we may react. But the reaction itself changes the way we see everything else in our lives. Thus, we move through our lives seeing everything through the lens of our beliefs and our reaction to things that challenge or support these beliefs.

      I can know that I’ve been held captive by my own beliefs, and also see what I believe holds others in theirs. But there’s the trap. One belief influences the other, and we move through life blind and captive behind our lenses.

      This way of seeing the world holds us captive until we release ourselves from this state. But it feels easier to just stay sheltered in our beliefs. When we stop trying to validate all we believe we may finally see just how miraculous this whole state of being alive truly is.

      At least that’s what I believe.

    • Little Flower

      “The little flower that opens in the meadows lives and dies in a season; but what agencies have concentrated themselves to produce it! So the human soul lives in the midst of heavenly help.” — Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

      Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was a teacher and a publisher, born in Billerica, Massachusetts, tutored in Greek by Emerson, the first to publish Thoreau, a leading voice in the education of children and the philosophy of transcendentalism. A little flower who moved with the giants and made her mark in her season.

      We are moving through time, together for this brief moment and then apart. Perhaps we’ll meet again on our timelines, perhaps not. We may savor the moment for all it offers or leave it grateful for the lessons we’ve accumulated.

      Learning is a lifelong mission, honed through self-awareness that in turn stirs a belief within that we must become more than this. May that feeling last a lifetime. For that which is not growing is dying, and we have more to do in this world, you and I. Grow and produce something of consequence. Our season is not over yet, little flower.

    • Creating Amongst the Foolish

      “Are these sandcastles my triumphs? Of what divine substance are castles that are not sandcastles made?” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

      “A child knows that the doll is not real, and yet he or she treats it as real, even weeping disconsolately when it breaks. The art of the child is that of making things unreal. Blessèd is that mischievous stage in life, when love is negated by the absence of sex, when reality is negated by play, treating as real things that are not. Let me return to childhood and stay there forever, caring nothing for the values that grown men give to things or for the relationships that grown men establish between them.” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

      There are many ways to navigate the world. We can feel in control of our fate or feel like it’s all meaningless anyway and float through life without agency. Existentialism vs. nihilism (with an assist from nihilism’s close friend absurdism). Pessoa leaned closer to nihilism and absurdism for my existentialist tastes, but I know that the truth lies somewhere in between our strongest beliefs on either side. So two quotes from Fernando to kick us off.

      We may believe that the world is currently being run by children playing with toys. That the adults have been kicked to the curb and we’re entering a regressive period in our collective history. Looking around, it’s easy to get caught up in the childish absurdity of people in positions of power. We must recognize that they’re building their sandcastles and one day they will all be swept away like the grains of sand that they are. Planet Earth and the universe beyond it will continue indifferently without any of us.

      The existentialist in me believes we ought to carry on discovering our own meaning and purpose anyway. To create beauty in a world craving it, even as the nihilists work to tear down those old castles. Where they favor chaos, we may find deeper meaning in creating order within our own lives, or at least within our own minds. Remember Viktor Frankl:

      “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

      As I was writing this, I thought I’d see what artificial intelligence would do in this instance. ChatGPT offered an answer so aligned with my way of thinking that I thought I’d simply quote it verbatim. Here it is:

      “An existentialist in a world dominated by nihilists would likely focus on three key things:

      1. Personal Meaning and Authenticity – While nihilists might argue that life is inherently meaningless, an existentialist would counter that meaning is something individuals must create for themselves. They would emphasize living authentically, making choices that reflect personal values rather than succumbing to the indifference of nihilism.
      2. Freedom and Responsibility – Existentialists believe that individuals are free to shape their own lives, but with that freedom comes responsibility. In a nihilistic world where others may see no reason to act ethically or strive for purpose, an existentialist would insist that each person is responsible for defining and upholding their own values.
      3. Engagement and Action – Rather than retreating into despair or apathy (which nihilism can sometimes encourage), an existentialist would advocate for active engagement with life. Whether through art, relationships, or personal projects, they would see action as a means of affirming existence despite the lack of inherent meaning.

      Essentially, where nihilism sees a void, existentialism sees an opportunity to create.”

      The thing is, I don’t believe the world is full of nihilists. I do believe that they’re dominating the conversation now, having ascended to positions of power where they can kick down the castles built by others. It’s best to take the long view in such moments as this. Instead of focusing all of one’s energy on reacting to the castles they’ve kicked down, build a new one, stronger than the one before.

      Remember Whitman’s poem amidst the nihilism and strife of his time:

      Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
      Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
      Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
      Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
      Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
      Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
      The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
      Answer.
      That you are here—that life exists and identity,
      That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
      — Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life!

      Here we are, the existentialists amongst the endless trains of the faithless and foolish. What are we to do in such a world? Create, friend. Create beauty in this maddening world. Carry the torch, that others may find their way too. For this too shall pass. The powerful play will go on.

    • Sublimity Above Scorn

      “Scorn trifles, lift your aims: do what you are afraid to do: sublimity of character must come from sublimity of motive.” — Mary Moody Emerson

      We’ve all pondered some variation of the question, “who in history would we most love to have a conversation with?” We can easily come up with our short list of fascinating characters. One can easily derive who tops my list by the frequency with which I quote them in this blog. But not all. Consider Mary Moody Emerson, the aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson and by all accounts a delightful, energetic and fascinating woman who could talk circles around her nephew and the thought leaders of the day residing in or around Concord, Massachusetts.

      She was born in Concord at the beginning of the American Revolution and passed away in the middle of the American Civil War. She saw a few things in her time, and was an avid reader and practitioner of commonplacing, which is essentially the format of this blog for the last several years. For all the bitterness that those two wars represented in our history, she sought enlightenment and sublimity through reading and conversation to better understand the great thinkers of the time. One can easily say she played a strong part in the rise of transcendentalism.

      The America of today is again splitting apart on ideology and scorn. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the ugliness of the moment, and I’m not advocating ignoring it (we’ve seen what happens when authoritarians are unchecked). Awareness and resolve are essential characteristics of the resilient mind. But we must be aware of the cost of participation in the war of words. Perhaps we should listen to someone who saw the worst and the best of humanity in her time and chose to lift her aims. We too may seek sublimity over scorn, knowing it will not easy, but nonetheless essential work.

    • Says I to Myself

      “To-day you may write a chapter on the advantages of travelling, and to-morrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not travelling. The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another, I fear a less ethereal and glorious one, to him who has. That blue mountain in the horizon is certainly the most heavenly, the most elysian, which we have not climbed, on which we have not camped for a night. But only our horizon is moved thus further off, and if our whole life should prove thus a failure, the future which is to atone for all, where still there must be some success, will be more glorious still. ‘Says I to myself’ should be the motto of my journal. It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      The thing about writing a blog every day is that it can feel like a journal pretty quickly. That’s not the intention at all, especially given the number of wonderful people in my life that read the blog. Sure, I’ve made this bed now I’ve got to lie in it. But it will never be a journal, even if people occasionally comment on it as if it was.

      We reach a place in our lives, look off to the horizon and see another mountain to climb. We reach that one and it all starts again. A life lived in pursuit of personal excellence is a constant process of seeing the next goal and setting out for it. When do we get to rest? In our graves? But so goes the journey of becoming. It will always be action-oriented, it will always be a climb. But oh, the view!

    • Our Kit of the Here and Now

      “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      The easiest way to become angry or bitter at the state of the world is to focus on the latest affront to logic and dignity. But that anger and outrage is how we got here. We know this to be true even as we mourn for days when the world seemed more logical and dignified.

      We must zoom out, beyond the shuttered healthcare clinics and deportations, beyond the smirk on the faces of autocrats and oligarchs, and even beyond the ticking time bomb that is our changing climate and unregulated exploitation of the natural resources on this planet. We are in a moment in time—profoundly troubling though it may be sometimes, and we must zoom out to a longer timeline and see just how small all of this really is. The infinite remains indifferent about our troubles.

      Knowing the truth in this, we may switch the lens out to a microscope. How do I react to this moment? We don’t have all the answers, we only have the kit that brought us here. We may aspire for a better kit someday in the future, should we survive that long. It’s nice to think so. But right here and now, with all of this swirling around us, we’ve only got the tools and accumulated knowledge and emotional intelligence developed to this moment with which to choose how to react. We must do the best we can with what we have, right here and now. Alternatively, we could simply waste our moment with distraction and another round before the tariffs make it unaffordable. That’s the kit so many choose to draw from.

      Life is about playing the long game. Life is about this moment with no right to expect another. Life is what washes over us and life is what we make of it. All of this may be true. The universe remains indifferent, even as we are each aware of our small place in the vacuum. The miracle is in this kit, and our agency to react and act with what we’ve become, that we may step towards something else entirely new and equally miraculous.

    • Where Am I?

      “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ― Lao Tzu

      I was prompted to look at an old blog post I’d written back in 2019 because it showed up in my statistics. That one post has garnered hundreds of views, which isn’t exactly Seth Godin numbers, but it was one of the ones that got more traction than most. Historical, introspective and curious. I’d like to think I’m still those things, even if my focus has changed a bit.

      Back then I was traveling a lot more, we hadn’t had a pandemic yet, and life hadn’t thrown a few more gut punches our way. We all accumulate experiences over time—the good, bad and ugly. In general, I liked the way I wrote back then, I just hadn’t experienced the changes that would wash over me yet.

      The thing is, back in those days exploring place, I was asking the same questions I’m asking now: Where am I? What happened here and what can it teach me?

      Everything changes, and so must we. Each experience accumulated changes us in some way minutely or profoundly. It’s like that river analogy, where both the river and we are not the same each time we visit. And flow we must, always having been somewhere, always on to the next, and yet right here in this moment. What have we learned this time?

    • The Optimal Moment for Yes

      “Time and energy are limited. Any successful person has to decide what to do in part by deciding what not to do.” — Angela Duckworth

      I recently stirred the pot in my community of friends by questioning the viability of outrage. One person’s call to action is another’s endless distraction at the latest assault on what’s good in this world. I choose to put all outrageous acts into the same bucket of atrociousness and simply focus on what I can control. Acknowledge they’re bastards doing bastardly things and don’t let them drag us down into the time-suck abyss. To do otherwise concedes effectiveness. Use that emotional energy for useful productivity.

      Deciding and doing necessarily demand deciding what not to do as well. As I write this, I have notifications pouring in on my phone, a long list of priorities written out to check off today and a lingering awareness that time is rapidly ticking away. And that’s exactly why we must learn to say no. We only have so many grains of sand to work with, so why waste it being unfocused on the things that will matter most in the end?

      Case in point: I postponed writing this blog post until some essential work was completed. It quietly gnawed at me knowing that I deferred writing for other work, but the work was important enough for me to say yes to it, while the writing of the blog wasn’t a “no” (!) but a “not yet”. Will the work matter in ten years? Maybe. Will the blog post? Again, maybe. But both are are important enough to me to warrant prioritization. In the end both will be completed and I’ll move on with my life knowing I’ve honored a commitment to myself.

      Everything essential has its time, and all the rest distracts us from focusing on optimally meeting this moment. What feels essential today may mean nothing when we’re on our deathbed. Yes, there are some things we can say yes to now that we’ll never be able to say yes to again. But what are we saying no to to attain it? Which is more optimal for a yes in this moment? Perhaps that’s the ultimate filter for what we say yes and no to. Because those grains of sand are flowing oh so fast and we may never pass this way again.

    • Trust, But Verify

      “Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      It would do us all good to live by the adage, trust, but verify. The world is full of wonderful people who live beautiful lives filled with generosity and goodwill towards others. The world is also filled with charlatans and evil characters who think only of themselves at the expense of all that is good in this world.

      Knowing that both are true, we may choose to move through the world with cautious optimism armored in strength, resolve and a sharp eye. Put another way, it’s okay to walk into the theater to enjoy the show, but always know where the closest exits are and never turn your back on the bad actor holding a grudge.

      Trust, but verify apparently has its roots in an old Russian proverb, which tells you a thing or two about the Russians. They aren’t all bad, but they also won’t allow anyone to stab them in the back. We should naturally view them with the same level of caution. The Ukrainians have a proverb that goes, “the malicious cow disturbs the entire herd.” And here we are.

      The thing is, we must make our way through this world prepared to meet both the best and worst of us, because we have and will again. To live heroically, we must be both ambassadors and a trusted friend to others while also working diligently to develop resilience and Taleb’s concept of antifragility that we may fend off the malicious intent of humanity’s worst actors. To reach our full potential we must climb and hold the high ground, prepared to defend it when the barbarians make their charge.

    • Floating Off the Edge

      “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      May your hands always be busy
      May your feet always be swift
      May you have a strong foundation
      When the winds of changes shift
      May your heart always be joyful
      May your song always be sung
      May you stay forever young
      — Bob Dylan, Forever Young

      I rewatched The Last Waltz last night, secure in the knowledge that I could turn up the volume as loudly as I wanted to with my bride on the other side of the country (she may still have heard it playing). I was struck by how young each of the performers were. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, and even Director Martin Scorsese—they all looked like kids because really, they still were. And The Band, every last one of them gone now, all were at the height of their productive youth. How quickly it all flies by… Tempus fugit.

      That film was the amber of that moment for them, and they’re locked in time. So it was fitting for Dylan to sing Forever Young, and for Scorsese to provide the amber. The Band knew what they were walking away from—the grind of the road, true, but also their youth. There’s lingering sadness at what was left on stage revealed in conversations with each member, especially Rick Danko. No, we aren’t Peter Pan, forever young and living the life of adventure, we all must grow up one day. And so it is that each of the performers have aged and faded away one-by-one. Memento mori.

      Why did I rewatch this film? Maybe it was the music, or maybe to have my own look back on a different time. An industry friend passed away this week. He was twenty years my senior and cancer took him away with a mind as sharp as someone twenty years my junior. Age is just a number—health and vitality are our true currency in life. The body or the mind will surely fail us all one day, so be bold and dance today. And while we’re at it, turn up the volume as loud as we dare. Carpe diem.

      “We’re all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world” — The Band, Life is a Carnival

      Maybe I write to capture my own moments in amber, or maybe I’m just leaving breadcrumbs of where I’ve been. We all have our body of work and our faded photographs (or increasingly, lower resolution JPEG’s) that whisper of who we once were in the height of our own productive youth. The trick is to keep producing, to keep dancing, and to lock some particularly shiny moments away in amber while we can, until one day this boat floats off the edge to join all the stars in infinity.