Alexandersmap

    Author: nhcarmichael

    • Of Sharks and Auroras

      Some people are shark people. My bride is one. Shark people follow every shark sighting, have the Sharktivity app on their phones, watch Jaws every time it’s on and are completely locked in on Shark Week. The fact that there’s a week+ of programming dedicated to sharks tells you that there are a lot of shark people out there. I appreciate sharks, but I rarely think about them until the shark people mention them yet again. On Shark Week I sequester myself in the office with a good book.

      Some people are sky people. I’m one of them. I have a ritual of walking the dog after dinner and spend most of the time looking up to see what the sky is doing. And it’s always doing something interesting. I have an Aurora app notifying me at all times of night. My favorite movie is Local Hero (if you know you know). Like any self-respecting sky-gazer, I follow things like meteor showers and eclipses and the occasional comet. And naturally I closely monitor solar activity that offers opportunities to see the aurora borealis.

      We all have something we’re fascinated with. Call it a harmless pursuit of something that is larger than our particular niche. Those shark people are fascinated with the serial killers of the sea—mysterious creatures that emerge from the deep to challenge our belief that we are at the top of the food chain. Meanwhile, we sky people look up to the universe for perspective and enlightenment. Who’s to say which is the better pursuit? Do we draw inspiration from cold-blooded killers* or the heavens above?

      * Of course I’m just kidding. I appreciate sharks too. It’s the shark people I’m poking fun at.

      Aurora Borealis

    • Beyond Clever

      “There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.” ― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

      Clever is one-upmanship. It’s not really listening to what someone is saying, it’s waiting for them to stop talking so you can say something to show how on-the-ball you are. Clever is different from bright and funny. It doesn’t take very long to know you’re in the presence of someone working to be clever. Like porn, we know it when we see it. And we aren’t the better for having stumbled across it.

      I used to work to be clever, until I began to see that clever was weakness on display. It’s a way for insecurity to escape and join the conversation. Whoever really said that it’s “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.” was on to something.

      But then I changed again. When everyone is silently waiting for someone to speak up, there ought to be someone who speaks up. Not to be clever or foolish, but to be engaged. To draw out the perspective of another soul and mix it with our own, just to see what develops. Sometimes nothing much develops, and sometimes there’s magic. Who’s to know which unless we practice a little alchemy?

      The practice of conversational alchemy utilizes empathy and focused listening to draw out deeper conversations with others. Which sounds like a clever way of saying that one is a good listener. But being a good listener doesn’t mean much without having something to offer to the conversation as well. Listening skills are one of the leading indicators of success in life, but so is a willingness to go out and experience things from which to build one’s own knowledge and skill, insight and perspective.

      Unless we have a career as a therapist, socialite, salesperson or investigator, aspiring to be a conversational alchemist shouldn’t be our primary aim. But it’s a life skill worth developing to maximize the experience of living through deeper and richer conversation. We ought to engage with others and learn from their experience as well if we are to reach our own potential within the tribe. The tribal experience isn’t everything, and surely not the only path to personal excellence, but engagement with others offers a broad and rich life, perhaps more than simply going it alone.

      Henry David Thoreau, retreating to his cabin by Walden Pond, had regular visitors and a curated ability to communicate with others. That perspective made him a better writer, even as his inclination to retreat to the woods made him an oddball to some in the community. But that retreat also made him a better writer. We can be both engaged with society and strategically removed from it. The right balance is intuitive. Listening to ourselves is another essential skill developed over time.

      “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.” — Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

      There’s a reason that seeking to understand makes us highly effective people. Each person we effectively engage with becomes another ally in our growing tribe. It was never about being clever, it’s always been about development of the self in a social world. We may sometimes have a desire to go free solo, but in reality we’re all in this together. Our bond is somewhere well beyond clever waiting for us to reach it.

    • 50 Years: SS Edmund Fitzgerald

      Does anyone know where the love of God goes
      When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
      The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
      If they’d put 15 more miles behind her
      They might have split up or they might have capsized
      They may have broke deep and took water
      And all that remains is the faces and the names
      Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

      — Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

      I’d be remiss to let the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald pass without a mention. It would be a footnote were it not for the Gordon Lightfoot song that made ship and crew immortal, but tell that to the families. We all pass eventually, preferably peacefully in our sleep a long time from now. An abrupt, tragic end was not on anyone’s mind when those 29 men sailed off into history. One wonders what their final moments were like, but what is certain is that all hands were lost and the ship broke in two. It was the final straw for shipping on the Great Lakes, prompting higher safety standards and oversight. And perhaps that is the ultimate legacy of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

    • A Brief, Salty Moment

      I love a great beach as much as anyone, but given the choice, give me a rocky ledge with an steady ocean roll crashing into it. The bigger the swell, the higher the foamy spray, the happier I am to be there to witness it. This eternal battle between land and sea will go on as long as there’s an ocean. We only get to witness if for our finite moment—roughly equivalent to the time as that foamy spray leaping into the air for a brief, salty moment before returning to the sea. What is a few seconds or a hundred years to infinity? All the same. It is us that feels the thrill of the brief flight.

      Knowing the score as we do, we might choose to be a little saltier today. There is nothing but now. Make a big splash.

    • Sunrise at Sea

      When the mild weather came,
      And set the sea on flame,
      How often would I rise before the sun,
      And from the mast behold
      The gradual splendors of the sky unfold
      Ere the first line of disk had yet begun,
      Above the horizon’s are,
      To show its flaming gold,
      Across the purple dark!
      — Epes Sargent, Sunrise at Sea

      I’m not often at sea for sunrise, but as an early bird snug up against the eastern coast, I go out of my way to find a sunrise over sea whenever possible. Put yourself in the way of beauty, as Cheryl Strayed’s mother whispers. And so I rise.

      Getting an early start to the day has its perks, but also its price—generally paid at a time night owls find hilarious. Precious night owls! They don’t know what they’re missing. What’s missing is the crowd. And in that solitude we may hear the whispers of the coming day. We may witness the miraculous beginning of a new day of light and consequence.

      Lately I’ve wondered what to do with the time after I click publish on this blog. One answer is to keep on writing. Another is to keep things the same—a measure of stability in an uncertain world. We have agency in how our day —and our life—unfolds. Is this enough, or have we only just begun? Whatever the answer, don’t waste the day away staring at the horizon wondering when to begin.

      To show its flaming gold,
      Across the purple dark!

    • To Do Bold Things

      “All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.” — Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

      Risking all that we’ve built for some uncertain future is a fool’s game—at least that’s what we’ve been taught by our mothers and other well-meaning influencers in our lives. But tell me, without risk when exactly will we leap? We must develop our leaping ability through a series of calculated risks. This, friend, is our hero’s journey personified.

      “Do or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda

      Culturally, we celebrate the risk-takers because we know deep down that the leap they’ve taken is available to all of us in some form or fashion, but the leaper is unique for having done it. We may be inspired to take risks having witnessed theirs, or we may recoil back into habits of safety and assurance. We learn something about ourselves in either case.

      We all take calculated risks at some point in our lives—even our mothers risked it all to deliver our sorry ass into this world. It’s okay to be careful, and it’s good to play it safe in certain circumstances, but there are many times when we ought to let it ride. To go for it when the leap is worthy of a bold measure of risk honors those who risked it all to make our lives possible, and ultimately it honors our future potential and eventual legacy. We become the type of person who does things like this.

      Boldness is developed. But so is suffering. Decide what to be and go be it.

    • And So On

      The Lorax: Which way does a tree fall?
      The Once-ler: Uh, down?
      The Lorax: A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.
      ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

      I saw a bumper sticker on a car at a red light that was meant to goad the left. Something along the lines of: Straight. Conservative. Christian. Gun Owner. Is there anything else I can piss you off with? I looked at her in the mirror as she smoked a cigarette like she had to beat the light, then threw it on the pavement to burn out and roll around in the traffic. I thought to myself, maybe a few more things. If I ever wanted to concern myself with that level of self-celebratory misery anyway.

      We are each leaning the way we lean, however things may fall. I don’t put bumper stickers on my own vehicle, but if I did, it would be in the form of a question. Perhaps borrowing from old friend Mary Oliver, who asked the ultimate question we all ought to ask ourselves today and every day in The Summer Day:

      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?

      Plans have a way of changing, because life changes and so do the living. When I was younger I was a master planner in all the things I would do one day. I’ve learned to stop planning so much and simply do. Do something right now that tilts that future possibility in our favor. Want to write that novel? Write. Want to lose 20 pounds? Move and make better choices in what goes in your mouth. And so on.

      And there’s the thing: And so on. And so each of our days is filled with habits and ritual, on and on to wherever they will take us. Be sure to lean in to the right habits and rituals. We are what we repeatedly do, as Aristotle once said and this blog has repeated, well, repeatedly. Aristotle quotes would make great bumper stickers too (tell that to the spent cigarette litterer).

      November is already a week old, and candidly, it’s not slowing down anytime soon. Life leaps forward even as the soul asks us to slow down and take it all in. To do a lot of things in a lifetime requires us to lean towards positive habits and productivity. But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. When we lean into any one thing too much we tend to lose our balance. Don’t forget to fold something precious into each day.

    • More Than Virtual

      I always feel like somebody’s watchin’ me
      And I have no privacy (Oh-oh-oh)
      I always feel like somebody’s watchin’ me
      Tell me, is it just a dream?
      — Rockwell, Somebody’s Watching Me

      It was raining hard overnight, with a full moon to boot, but that didn’t stop my aurora notification from alerting me to the possibility of seeing the northern lights right now if I’d only get out of bed and step outside! Nope. Not taking the bait, thank you. But thank you for contributing to my not-so-excellent sleep score.

      If we let it, technology will increasingly control our lives. We learn to live by number of steps, VO2 max, heart rate, active minutes and rest. My Kindle app helpfully informs me that my reading streak ended (I don’t want to break it to the app, but I’ve been reading actual books behind its back). I get a notification telling me how much screen time I’ve had this week, and the irony of being notified to look at my screen doesn’t escape me. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t use these damned devices.

      We take our wearables with us everywhere, and increasingly, our phones as well. The other day I deliberately left my Garmin on my desk when I went to bed, just so I wouldn’t be scolded for my sleep score the next morning. The void in my data history will likely haunt me forever, but it was nice for one night to not be followed along every step of the way.

      Right. Not being followed. Who am I fooling? I walked into an LL Bean store to buy a new belt to replace the one that was now too big for me and now my Instagram feed is full of LL Bean advertisements. We have a virtual heat map of everywhere we’ve been whenever we wear or carry our technology. There is no escape save shedding it all and going analog.

      It’s not like I don’t appreciate the statistics. As a data-driven spreadsheet nerd, I love tracking trends, maintaining positive habit streaks and the like. But I like it on my terms. We’ve let the genie out of the bottle, and technology is not going back to the mainframe server room. We either dance with the devil or unplug completely. Which is worse? Ask AI, it will surely tell you.

      Maybe I’ll just begin by turning off the aurora notifications. Maybe. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is alive and well in such notifications, and they’re helpfully suggesting that we stop living a real life and look at the screen again. But just who do we want to be anyway? More than virtual, for starters.

    • Fully-Valued

      “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” — Mark Twain

      Joy shifts time. It locks moments in amber. It makes years seem like days, even as days seem like minutes. It’s all a collection of joyful minutes, sprinkled with the jolts that life throws at us all. We learn to value our time together for the shared experience of living as the world sweeps past us like a swollen river after a storm.

      Now everyone dreams of love lasting and true
      Oh but you and I know what this world can do
      So let’s make our steps clear that the other may see
      And I’ll wait for you, and if I should fall behind wait for me
      — Bruce Springsteen, If I Should Fall Behind

      We live in our time machine, my bride and I. I know it’s a time machine because I look at old photographs, or think back on certain moments, and when I compare them with the date they were taken I’m shocked by the time that has flown by. We are betrayed by years, but we aren’t yet old. But tell that to the kids and they’ll laugh. Tempus fugit, indeed.

      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

      Printing out a wedding photo, the clerk commented that I look the same as when the picture was taken. Looks are deceiving, I laughed. Health is its own time machine, and for the most part we’ve been blessed with good health, coaxed by fitness and nutrition and good-enough genes. We know that time always wins, no matter what time machine we fly about in. A joyful life softens the landing, but we’ll land one day like all who have come before us.

      Maybe time running out is a gift
      I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift
      And give you every second I can find
      And hope it isn’t me who’s left behind
      — Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, If We Were Vampires

      We learn not to worry about what we cannot control. To always be worrying is to forsake joy for uncertainty. The only certainty is this moment together, so make it count in quiet gestures and unspoken ways. Joy is rooted in love: love of life, love for another, love of the moments built one upon the other for as long as this ride may continue. Nothing lasts forever—we know this all too well. But enjoying each something for all it offers is a path to a fully-valued, joyful life.

    • Worthy of Its Own Passion

      “What else is love but understanding and rejoicing that another lives, works, and feels in a different and opposite way to ourselves? That love may be able to bridge over the contrasts by joys, we must not remove or deny those contrasts. Even self-love presupposes an irreconcilable duality (or plurality) in one person.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

      We all understand the concept of the battle of good and evil. It’s deeply embedded in every aspect of our lives, from religion to politics to movies and literature. Good and evil always gets our attention, which is why dualism is used so frequently by those who would divide us. As a society and as individuals, just who do we want to become? If there is an evil in this world, it surely resides in those who would divide us.

      The rhetoric of good and evil is a red flag for extremism. Such all or nothing, black and white language is designed to call us out. We’re either with the crowd or we’re suspect. They used to burn people at the stake for such things. Now we cancel people, deport or ostracize them. The outcome is the same with less screaming. If we aren’t good we must be evil, and evil must be wiped out. The voice of reason gets drowned out in the fervor.

      Manichaeism was a religion founded on this idea of light and darkness, good and evil and all that. It lasted a thousand years before being swept away by Christianity, which has it’s own dualistic tendencies. Manichaeism may have died out, but dualism is alive and kicking. We know it when we hear it, because it’s just so commonplace in our culture.

      Being a voice of reason in an unreasonable time is a lonely path. People want us to pick a side, and dismiss anyone who attempts to weigh the opinion of others deemed woke or MAGA or some other version of dark and evil. Isn’t it a pity that we’ve reached a point where reason isn’t heard? The thing is, dualism stirs the survival instinct within us, where “fight or flight” overpowers the nuance of reason.

      We ought to turn off the noise that would draw us away from reason. We ought to find more creative ways to influence and help people to see that most of the world is good, and very little of it is evil. That those who would use dualism to divide us are stoking that fire for their own gain. Is it so unreasonable to see that unity is a path worthy of its own passion?