Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • The Chain of Understanding

      “A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or by genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken, we hear it not, if it is written, we read it not, or if we read it, it does not detain us. Every man thus tracks himself through life, in all his hearing and reading and observation and travelling. His observations make a chain. The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest which he has observed, he does not observe. By and by we may be ready to receive what we cannot receive now.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      We are conditioned to see by what we’ve seen. When I think about half of the country believing the current direction of our leadership is great, while the other half are horrified and angry, I can only understand it by conditioning. Those who are conditioned by fear and a scarcity mentality believe one thing. Those who are conditioned to be empathetic and develop a growth mindset in their education, spiritual, career, health and financial life believe another thing.

      Knowing this, I see that the answer lies in education and diversity. Unfortunately, the other side knows this too, and so books are banned, late night talk show hosts are cancelled, and even satellites that give us information about climate change are targeted for destruction. Ignorance is bliss. And humanity takes two steps back.

      So what do we do in a world that is so infuriating? We continue listening, reading, observing and traveling. We keep finding the truth and share it with others. We counter the momentum of ignorance with insight and mutual understanding. We are the ambassadors of truth and compassion, and we aren’t going away any time soon.

      There is no them
      There’s only us
      — U2, Invisible

      So stay the course—learn and grow and share. There is no them, there’s only us. When we stop thinking of them as different from us and simply less aware, something opens up within our own minds. We are ready to build bridges—to help them see, not simply them, but all of us. The solution has always been right in front of us, waiting for enough of us to finally receive it. We are all links in the human chain. That chain connects to an anchor of truth or shackles of mistrust. What we connect to is up to us.

    • Walk it Off

      “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
      ― Søren Kierkegaard

      As I write this, the pup is sighing behind me, expressing some minor indignation that I’m spending these moments tapping on a keyboard instead of walking with her out in her kingdom, where she can keep track of the squirrels and rabbits who dare to encroach. We each have a purpose for our walks, but we share discovery in common. She catches up on the latest action in the neighborhood, I sometimes process the changes myself, or I dive deeply into introspection. Each step is different.

      Walking is a nonnegotiable part of my life. Every day I must walk, if not for myself than for that insistent puppy who has also deemed walking a nonnegotiable. For all my focus on cycling and rowing and kettle bell weight circuits, walking remains the one activity I do every day, and sometimes several times a day. The reason for walking hardly matters now, it’s simply a part of my identity—it’s who I am.

      Philosophy and walking are natural allies. We think best when we are moving, particularly when we don’t have distractions like music or podcasts plugged into our ears. Walking is also the best way to experience a place when traveling, and I make a point of walking extensively wherever I go to. My step count always spikes up when I’ve landed in a new place for a few days. Writing that sentence, I feel wanderlust stirring inside me. Walking is a nomadic experience. Our ancestors migrated around the world on their feet. Why not us?

      All this talk of walking reminds me that the world awaits. Shall we step to it? Be still no more than is absolutely necessary, friend. For we were born to move.

    • The Whole Trip

      “E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”
      ― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

      We meet moments in our lives, one to the next, that were unpredictable just before we arrived there. We’re all figuring things out as we move through our lives, one puzzle after another. We learn that we don’t have it all figured out, but that we can figure it out when we get there. Sure, save for retirement, and eat the right foods and exercise to build a foundation of health for tomorrow, but don’t face down imaginary monsters that may never rise to challenge us. Take each day as it comes.

      Writing and publishing a blog every day, like writing a line per day in my journal, is a great way to assess whatever mile marker I’ve arrived at along the way. What keeps us present with the things that are right in front of us, and not worried or distracted by the clown show happening off to the side? Those clowns may impact our lives, but we have to remember that we’re driving our own life and focus accordingly.

      To that end, keeping ourselves to task on the essential things we need to do in any given day is a great way to force ourselves to focus on what’s in front of us. I know I need to finish writing this blog, follow up with several people in my work, complete a project that I haven’t wanted to deal with, work out twice, read and hydrate properly. Everything else that fits in the vehicle as we’re moving down this road is a bonus, but completing each of those is the engine that keeps me moving forward.

    • Narrowing the Path

      “Remember your destination. This will help you to distinguish between an opportunity to be seized and a temptation to be resisted.” — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, The Two Journeys

      There are forces at play with us daily. We form an identity based on the choices we make. Am I a writer because I write every day? Am I an athlete because I work out twice a day, no matter what? I might believe this to be so for either, or not. There is nuance in identity, isn’t there?

      We know that we are more than the one or two things that we’re identified with. We are heading towards some new version of ourselves with every step. Each day brings us face-to-face with more choices to make (or not make) in determining who we will become next.

      So on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
      So much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out
      — Cat Stevens, On The Road To Find Out

      What are the heuristics we employ to determine our next step? One ought to consider destination, as Sacks suggests in the quote above. Just where are we trying to go anyway? Are we trying to lose weight? Don’t have dessert with that meal, and maybe skip the bread and appetizer too. There’s nothing wrong with bread and appetizers and desserts if they’re each a part of the path we’re on. If they aren’t, well, why have them?

      My own heuristic is streak-based. I write every day because I started writing every day, and I don’t want to break the streak now. And 2600 + posts later, the streak continues. Similarly, I decided back in June to do a 75 day mental toughness challenge this summer, and with two weeks to go, I’ve managed to stay on track despite some strong temptations along the way. Simply put, my path narrowed considerably when I decided what to be. And so I continue to be it.

      Where is all this going? What is the ultimate destination? We know if we look far enough out that we will all end up in the same place. Memento mori. But prior to that? What is our health span? What experiences do we wish to have in a lifetime? What contribution will we make that is uniquely ours (Whitman’s “verse”)? Our destination isn’t really the best heuristic, but the path leading to it surely offers us the opportunity to thrive in our time. The trick is to keep that path just narrow enough even as we strive to experience more.

    • Only You Know

      And only you know where you have been to
      Only you know what you have been through
      There’s better things you’re gonna get into
      And I wanna be there too
      Yes I do
      — Dion, Only You Know

      There is a lot to hate about technology and how it has slowly pulled us away from each other. So many people simply stare at their phone screen instead of engaging in conversation. The act of connection is a leap across the void, and it becomes increasingly more difficult to connect without eye contact prompted by an uncomfortable gap between distractions. I get grief from some people in my life for talking to everyone. But everyone needs connection, maybe not with me, but with someone, and throwing a lifeline across the void can only be helpful. It’s a brief moment of acknowledgement that we are seen and heard before slipping back into anonymity, should they choose.

      This Dion song is relatively obscure compared to his big hits early in his career, like The Wanderer and Runaround Sue and Dream Lover. But simply dropping it into an episode of The Bear has made it rise to a place of prominence in his catalog. And that’s where technology helps the curious among us, by quickly identifying what that song is that I’m hearing right now, that we may look into it further later. And maybe share a lyric that maybe we didn’t know we needed to know.

      Connection is thus possible with technology, when technology is used to pull us together instead of distracting us from the common voyage we’re on. A bit of awareness, an inclination to share, and the courage to step outside of our shell and see what’s happening with the fellow humans around us is a way to transform a lonely existence into a life filled with affinity, affiliation, and maybe even an inclination to stick around one another a lot longer. Only you know what you’ve been through, unless you turn off the noise-cancelling earbuds, look up from the screen and connect with the world.

    • Small and Transitory Grapes

      How the clock moves on, relentlessly,
      with such assurance that it eats the years.
      The days are small and transitory grapes,
      the months grow faded, taken out of time.

      It fades, it falls away, the moment, fired
      by that implacable artillery—
      and suddenly, only a year is left of us,
      a month, a day, and death turns up in the diary.

      No one could ever stop the water’s flowing;
      nor thought nor love has ever held it back.
      It has run on through suns and other beings,
      its passing rhythm signifying our death.

      Until, in the end, we fall in time, exhausted,
      and it takes us, and that’s it. Then we are dead,
      dragged off with no being left, no life, no darkness,
      no dust, no words. That is what it comes to;
      and in the city where we’ll live no more,
      all is left empty; our clothing and our pride.
      — Pablo Neruda, And the City Now Has Gone

      Life, dear reader! We must live in our time, while there is time. That’s always been the message: Tempus fugit. Memento mori. Carpe diem. Time flies. Remember we all must die. Seize the day.

      We must remember our days are short and use the highlighter with abandon. Sprinkle these moments zestfully with awareness and joyful intent. Do what must be done immediately! For tomorrow is not our day. We believe it to be so at our peril.

      This blog will one day end. That it continues at all is an indication of the stubborn persistence of the writer. It’s merely bread crumbs placed gently in line, one after the other, marking the hour or two of who I was in the moment. These moments pass, and what is left are some memories, maybe a photograph, and some words published for all to see if they somehow stumble upon this impossibly hard to find jumble of words. But we bloggers know that the universe isn’t shifting its attention to see what our thoughts were today. The ego thus shattered, we shift our own purpose to growth, where it should have been all along.

      Words flow through us like days in a lifetime. These small and transitory grapes have found you today. But where will the writer be on this occasion? Somewhere further along, or fallen by the wayside—who’s to know? We can hope for a better place of awareness and refinement, but we know the score. It’s best to simply release these words of who we were today and not worry about tomorrows. We must each do what we can with this time, for we all know the score.

    • The Climb to Optimal

      “Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” — Plato

      That old expression “use it or lose it” has never seemed more truthful than it is now. Watching people in my life decline as either their bodies or their minds fall off a cliff is eye-opening, but watching my own health incrementally decline is a louder wake up call. The thing about wake up calls is that not everybody listens to them. Some people just hit snooze and go back to what they were doing before. For some people the wake up call is a fatal heart attack or a stroke when everything was seemingly normal. Normal is nothing but a state that we’re used to. Forget normal: aspire to optimal.

      This summer I jump-started my life with a regimented mental toughness plan. The usual workouts weren’t enough anymore. The usual reading wasn’t enough anymore. And that “all things in moderation” diet I subscribed to wasn’t enough anymore either. I’d had enough of just enough, and it was slowly killing me. And so I gave my comfortable routine the boot in favor of days filled with disciplined, consistent action. The climb to optimal is underway.

      Not wishing to talk about what I’m going to do, I favor forensics. What have I done to arrive at where I am now? What does that teach me about where I’m hoping to get to? Losing 25 pounds was necessary, but is it optimal? Optimal for what? The answers always lead to more questions on this journey through our days. Fine-tuning our goals as we fine-tune our bodies and minds is all part of the process of optimization.

      I may not ever hike the Appalachian Trail. I might not ever stroll the cobblestone sidewalks of Rue de l’Abreuvoir in Montmartre as dusk turns to night. And I may never summon up the mental discipline to complete that epic novel I’ve been toying with for years. But then again, I might do all of these things and more. Just what do we want out of life anyway? Our odds of achieving these goals are better living a life of optimal health, fitness and discipline.

    • Overcoming Currents

      “Our bodies do not take care of themselves in this environment—they need maintenance. If those of us in sedentary or repetitive jobs want to maintain our physical fitness, we have to make a conscious effort to move. We have to set time aside to walk, garden, do yoga, run, or go to the gym. We have to overcome the currents of modern life.”
      ― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

      The easiest thing to do in a current is to just go with it. But currents don’t always take us where we want to go. A rip current will send you to your doom if you don’t swim perpendicular to it to get out of its grip. Doing what feels good in the moment, or doing what our friends are doing in their moment, can be enticing in its immediacy, but we ought to ask ourselves where it’s taking us. What’s the harm of a few french fries or a beer with friends? The answer lies in the direction of that current. Is it going where we want to go?

      I know: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But the point is, we must be aware of those damned currents. Currents will pull us away from the vision we have of ourselves or that person we wish to become. Sometimes currents do their work quickly, sometimes so slowly that we aren’t even aware of the changes until we notice the pants are getting a little snug or maybe we struggle going up the stairs. Choosing a different current from the one we’ve been floating on takes some effort and mental toughness at first, but once we’ve entered flow, it all becomes so much easier.

      “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” — Aristotle

      We always come back to Aristotle, don’t we? On our journey to personal excellence (arete), we must be forever vigilant in knowing what the currents are around us. Just where do we want to go anyway? Build some momentum that counters the current that would pull us away from that. Like pushing the flywheel, soon we build momentum towards something better.

      If this blog feels like affirmation lately, my apologies. It’s just the writer swimming towards something far more compelling. One good habit leads to another, then another, and pretty soon we’re really getting somewhere. There will be more stories to build on this timeline, but those will require a level of participation only possible with a high level of mental and physical fitness. If we agree that we are what we repeatedly do, isn’t it fair to ask ourselves, what exactly are we currently doing?

    • A Quiet State of Being

      If I had another life
      I would want to spend it all on some
      unstinting happiness.

      I would be a fox, or a tree
      full of waving branches.
      I wouldn’t mind being a rose
      in a field full of roses.

      Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
      Reason they have not yet thought of.
      Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
      Or any foolish question.
      — Mary Oliver, Roses, Late Summer

      The heat of summer has propelled the growth of the Musa zebrina (blood banana) plants. Bananas have no business growing in Zone 5 New Hampshire, but they don’t follow the rules layed down by zones any more than I do. I’ve had these blood bananas for more than a decade. I bring them out after the danger of frost, patiently wait for signs of life, and watch them reach for the sky when the days grow long and hot. The season is too short for them to produce blossoms, but long enough for them to thrive in their time before I reluctantly drag them back to the cellar to winter over yet again.

      My bride and I were talking about everything that’s happened this summer, and everything that will happen if things go according to plan (we know how plans go, but we also know that some things never happen without a plan). Life is moving along thusly, and we are swept up in the current of being. We are where we are, doing what we believe we should be doing, one blessed day at a time. We may thrive in our time, or simply dance with the days as best we can while we have them. We determine what we can, and accept that whatever will be will be.

      So many people work so very hard to be happy. As if you could earn happiness by how much money you make or how many likes you have from your latest post on social media. Happiness is not an objective, it’s flows from us as a byproduct of purposeful, engaged living. Purposeful in turn is simply moving with awareness towards something. Those potted bananas are trapped in pots, reliant on my inclination to save them from dying of thirst or a killing frost. Yet they dance in the sun each summer day anyway. Are they happy? Or simply living a quiet state of being in the time that they are given?

    • Giving Attention

      “Time and attention are not something we can replenish. They are what our life is. When we offer our time and attention, we are not merely spending and paying. We are giving our lives.”
      — Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

      Many get it wrong when they think about making changes in their lives, believing they’re giving up something instead of the other side of that coin: choosing something better. Transformation begins with what we focus our attention on. Just imagine what we could do if we simply paid attention to the right things for a year, or a decade, or a lifetime? But that’s too broad a spectrum. Focus on today instead. Today will always be the day that requires our full attention.

      So what do we pay attention to? Inevitably, that’s where our time goes. Time in itself is a measure, but we can spend time without giving our full attention. Consider a casual restaurant on a busy night. How many scroll their phones while sitting at the dinner table? Are they giving attention to those they are dining with, or is it merely spending time together? When we pay attention to those we love, we are giving more than just our time, we are putting the rest of the universe on hold for the person in front of us. Isn’t that the ultimate gift?

      What gift are we giving ourselves today? What are we consuming that will make us better? Not just food, but information, and feedback from the network of people that surround us. What are we telling ourselves in these moments, or are we distracting ourselves to drown out that inner voice? Maybe we ought to pay more attention to that voice. Surely it has something it wants to tell us.

      Attention is a muscle that we may develop. It brings us to awareness, which is essential to our growth and development. This idea of personal excellence (arete) that I write about frequently in this blog is not some clever affirmation, it’s a daily ritual of discovery and reach. Decide what to be and go be it. What are we waiting for? More time? Our time is right now, waiting for us to finally pay attention and get to it already.