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    • Measuring Growth

      “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” — Joan Didion

      “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ― Thomas Merton

      The gift of writing is not as much about putting all that you want to say on paper or on a screen for the world to read, although that is a motivation of sorts. No, the gift is in the sorting out of what you encounter in the world and finding a way to articulate it better than we might have yesterday. One doesn’t place a Didion or Merton quote just ahead of one’s own thoughts, let alone both, without recognizing that measuring up becomes ridiculous. But this is how we grow.

      Growth is measured against whatever it is we’re reaching for. Slowly chipping away at the French language for years now, I’ve picked up enough to know I’ve made measurable progress, but not enough that I’m not lost when a rapid-fire conversation amongst native speakers surrounds me. But at least I can tell them my name and ask where the toilettes are. Progress, and a clear indicator that more immersion is in order to grow into the language I too casually aspire to master.

      The meaning in the moment is derived from accumulated experience. If our experience is limited, we might not pick up the nuance in a conversation, know the double entendre, the obscure reference or an inside joke that is derived from being out there in the world and just knowing. The trick in living is to put ourselves out there in the mix, and sort things out as best we can. Writing is active processing, documented. Hopefully edited well enough to make it interesting.

      The thing is, we learn to recognize the darkness in the world, but also the light. The tenuous line between the two is where active living takes place. We become more resilient, more informed, more street-smart as we grow, and bring that to new places where we quickly discover how we measure up. The alternative to growth is stasis and atrophy. It’s more fun to grow. Plus we finally get the jokes we missed when we were someone else.

    • The Truth of the Work

      Work is a funny thing, for it represents so much of our identity, yet, if we live well, it’s only a small part of who we are. For if this life is about the accumulation of experiences, relationships, knowledge and self-understanding, work adds to each of these things but isn’t all of any of them. We want to believe that our work has purpose, and so chafe at the jobs that seem trivial, menial, unfulfilling and generally dead ends in a climb up the career ladder. But this outlook misses so much of what makes work meaningful.

      When I look at the accumulation of contributions I’ve made in my work, it’s easy to see where I made a difference and where my contribution felt insignificant to the overall progress of the companies I worked for at the time. Ultimately, what mattered was showing up and being present for the work at hand. The value derived isn’t always up to us to determine, only that we do our part.

      “Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.” ― Thomas Merton

      We derive the most fulfillment from engagement with others, not from the accumulation of more wealth than the next corporate climber. Don’t get me wrong, financial security solves problems that linger in poverty, but at some point the pursuit of wealth and status is nothing but a distraction from the pursuit of meaning. Perhaps this is why those stories of people leaving the corporate ladder to run the country store or work in a non-profit are so fascinating. Deep down most of us just want to contribute and be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

      “Consider what a company is. A company is a culture. A group of people brought together around a common set of values and beliefs. It’s not products or services that bind a company together. It’s not size and might that make a company strong, it’s the culture—the strong sense of beliefs and values that everyone, from the CEP to the receptionist, all share.” — Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

      As Walt Whitman reminded us, the powerful play goes on, and we may contribute a verse. All the meetings and the key performance indicators lumped together are nothing but a means to an end. We’re here to contribute to something larger than ourselves in our time, and showing up for work is a demonstrated commitment to that mission. What we realize in the end is that the work we choose to do is an expression of who we want to become.

    • The Way We Live

      “There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

      On Martin Luther King day in the United States, I celebrated quietly by reading some of his words and doing my part to lift up instead of pushing down. No doubt, he’d be disappointed with much of the world since he was assassinated, recognizing much of the rhetoric even if the characters have changed. But he’d be pleased at the growth in diversity, understanding and acceptance. And he might give a nod to the persistent courage of those who champion what’s right in this world.

      I’ve embraced the long game, trying to outlast and grow beyond the worst tendencies in my own life, and work continuously to pick up habits and knowledge that gradually broaden my view. If we are what we repeatedly do, and we are the average of the five people we associate with the most, and we are each a work in progress, then we must build better habits, broaden our circle of influence towards the person we wish to become and stick with it through thick and thin.

      The thing is, nobody wants to be told what to think, the only path to meaningful change is to help people see. That’s not easy to do in a world full of noise and amplified division, but the alternative is to give up. Look around and ask, what are we growing into? The only way to drown out the hate is to grow a larger chorus. The way we live, the things we tolerate and the way we treat others carries a weight far more impactful than words.

    • Identity and Place

      “You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.” — Joan Didion

      Life is change. Those of us afflicted with wanderlust amplify our lives with travel and exploration. But eventually, perhaps even relentlessly, we come home again. Whatever that means to us.

      In a few weeks I’ll have been anchored to the same plot of land for 24 years. I’ve replaced everything from the appliances to the light fixtures to the front door. Two babies became adults and, as it should be with nests, moved on when they learned how to use their wings. Everything but the two residents who hold the mortgage have changed. But haven’t we changed too?

      Having a sense of place is essential to our identity, but it isn’t the land or the house or even the collection of books on the shelves that define who we are. Identity lies in the gap between who we were and who we’re becoming. Likewise, place is in the gap between what feels most familiar and what eventually comes after. Identity, and place, aren’t the gap—they fill it.

      So as we look for that which we won’t walk away from in this ever-changing world, we ought to begin by asking ourselves—what fills that gap?

    • One’s Way

      “The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one’s contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one’s way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause.” — Gustav Mahler

      Gustav Mahler was an Austrian composer who’s work is familiar to us whether we know it or not. His Symphony No. 1 in D is the basic tune of “Frère Jacques”, the nursery rhyme embedded in our brains as children. He built his legacy as a conductor and composer in Vienna, a place chock full of legendary conductors and composers, and navigated his career through both anti-semitism and general criticism of his work, which pushed boundaries many weren’t ready for. So in this context, his quote becomes illuminating.

      There’s a moment after we’ve tied a shoe or set a sail just so when we look up and begin going where we determined we’d go in our minds just a beat before. It’s that moment of beginning on one’s way, wherever it may bring us, that is transformative. Everything that comes after is a matter of resolve: Do we finish what we started or to let it fall by the wayside and try something else?

      Most likely, the worst criticism we face comes from within. Self-doubt, imposter syndrome and fear of failure have destroyed more art than all the critics and book-burning zealots combined. In such moments, we must keep going, one way or another. Easier said than done, of course, but pushing through has a way of building confidence and resilience. We simply learn to ignore the voice inside.

      “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” — Steven Pressfield

      That moment of beginning, of breaking through that Resistance, is a big step in reaching our unlived life. But every step thereafter has its own subsequent Resistance. Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking across the floor, as the song goes. To reach our potential we must overcome all the external and internal noise that is distracting us from that voice in our head that is telling us quietly, persistently, what we ought to do.

      Today we’re beginning something, and continuing other things. Who we once were passed away in that beat. This blog post, like the 1,663 before this one, is another step for me across that proverbial floor, with the character who wrote each long gone. What remains is the sum of each, on the way to becoming something entirely new. Who we become is in so many ways up to us, determined by the choices one makes on one’s way and our steadfast resolve to arrive at what’s next.

    • Kindred Contributors of Light

      Kindred comes from a combination of kin and the Old English word ræden (“condition”), which itself comes from the verb rædan, meaning “to advise.” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary

      Talking to a friend about poetry, I mentioned a poem by Li-Young Lee, and paused our phone conversation while she read it, waiting for the payoff when one reacts to great poetry. We do this now and then; find some magic in the world and bring it to light for others to see. We each find our fellow torchbearers by the light they bring to the world. We learn, don’t we, that our light alone is not enough in the darkness? But just as the stars bring light and meaning to the infinite void of the universe, kindred spirits bring hope to us back on earth.

      Another poem, discovered in the infinite darkness of social media, drew me to Lee, and I in turn put his work out there that others may see:

      So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
      make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
      we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
      measuring by eye as it falls into allignment
      between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
      she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.

      One day we’ll lie down and not get up.
      One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

      Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
      what we love, and what it takes
      to tend what isn’t for our having.
      So often, fear has led me
      to abandon what I know I must relinquish
      in time. But for the moment,
      I’ll listen to her dream,
      and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
      more and more detail into the light
      of a joint and fragile keeping.
      — Li-Young Lee, To Hold

      We are co-conspirators, you and I, each kindred contributors of light to the universe. We wrestle with the why, make the most of the how, and reconcile our when. It’s a fragile grip we have on our moment, but our hold feels more secure when the load is shared. Eventually we all must release our hold, but think of the light we might pass along before our torch burns out.

      But let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now
      The night is a starry dome
      — Joni Mitchell, Carey

      Thanks Joni. Yes of course, there’s more: Hope. Meaning. Dreams realized. To be a contributor of light in the face of infinite darkness is to illuminate possibility. To live a full and wonderful life requires the friction of active engagement with all that this world offers us. We must wrestle with thoughts and ideas and opinion and find a greater truth than the myths we were taught to calm us in our moments of doubt. Friction creates a spark that, nurtured, brings light. Here we may warm ourselves in the glow of our potential, realized in this, our moment of fragile keeping.

    • Raw Ingredients, Transformed

      It dawned on me in the shower just the other day that I’ve chopped countless onions in my lifetime. For me, the process is meditative, and the resulting transformation of the raw ingredient is integral to whatever it happens to be I’m cooking at that moment. Inevitably, and no matter how much I wash my hands after the act, the shower I take after chopping onions, even a day later, results in the smell of onions in the shower. This naturally made me think of onions once again, and the virtual stack of chopped onion bits one can pile up in a lifetime. Funny, the thoughts a nose triggers.

      Perhaps you’ve had the same experience with onions, or with wood smoke after a campfire. These are things, like memories and moments, that linger with us well after the occasion. Within the family we still swear we can smell a sailboat we’ve long since parted from, but to be fair that sailboat’s smell was uniquely pervasive. Even writing about it I shudder at the hours spent attempting to wash that aroma away. Yet I smile when I think of that boat; how it changed me.

      We pick up things from the world. Some, like onions and memories, resonate longer in our senses than others. As fragile beings in an indifferent universe, things that resonate tend to be special things indeed. We remember certain moments always and forever, and forget other things that ought to seem important, like where we placed our wallet. Just what makes one thing echo through time and the other a cymbal choke? The weight we place on it in the moment.

      A certain song or smell often bring us back to a memory, a moment long forgotten. Our senses combine to remind us of our identity, or who we are, of who we were once. Some things aren’t us anymore, some will always be us, but it all brought us here.

      “I am pieces of all the places I have been, and the people I have loved. I’ve been stitched together by song lyrics, book quotes, adventure, late night conversations, moonlight, and the smell of coffee.” — Brooke Hampton

      What resonates within us begins with the act of being present in the moment. Moments, in turn, are the building blocks of our life, lifting us up from the earth one experience at a time, elevating our perspective and making us more whole in our time. We aren’t some pile of onions waiting for a pot to sauté in, we’re more than that. Still, those onions make a case that they’re part of us too. Each moment in our lifetime is the raw ingredient transformed into our whole. Into whom we’re becoming.

    • Sipping Coffee, Reading Poetry

      He is seated in the first darkness
      of his body sitting in the lighter dark
      of the room,

      the greater light of day behind him,
      beyond the windows, where
      Time is the country.

      His body throws two shadows:
      One onto the table
      and the piece of paper before him,
      and one onto his mind.

      One makes it difficult for him to see
      the words he’s written and crossed out
      on the paper. The other
      keeps him from recognizing
      another master than Death. He squints.
      He reads: Does the first light hide
      inside the first dark?

      He reads: While all bodies share
      the same fate, all voices do not.
      — Li-Young Lee, In His Own Shadow

      Feeling reclusive lately, too reclusive for the part played in this life, I’ve grown weary of online planning meetings and year’s end introspection. I’ve begun to reach out to the world again in earnest, just to be sure it’s still there. I’m a social being trapped in an introvert’s mind, or is it the other way around? We humans are complex creatures.

      Amongst the pile of books crying for attention was a book of poetry, purchased eagerly, stacked deliberately, shuffled downward reluctantly. We prioritize finishing what we started, after all, and then some other pretty thing catches our attention, and soon that work of enchantment is put aside for weeks on end, biding its time while we squander our own. Until the moment of reckoning when it surfaces again.

      Sitting in the morning darkness, quietly shuffling with a fresh cup of coffee back to a reading chair, my mind rebelled against the non-fiction staples demanding my attention. Mind craving sustenance of a different kind, like vitamin A to help my vision, I find what’s been calling to me all along. In the growing ambient light of morning, sipping coffee and focusing my mind for the cadence of poetry, I’m quietly floored by a simple stack of words, set just so. And forgot I’d had coffee at all.

      While all bodies share the same fate, all voices do not. The spell cast upon us through poetry is in the way it slays you in these moments of truth, a mirror of words reflecting back at you. Recovering my senses, I set about finding my own voice again, knowing the steepness of the climb before me, feeling my own shadow and the lesson to the core.

    • Fighting the Guardians of Treasure

      “Don’t forget that dragons are only guardians of treasures and one fights them for what they keep – not for themselves…” ― Katherine Mansfield, Katherine Mansfield Letters And Journals: A Selection

      These are early days and late days, all at once, for we each are in the beginning stages of the year while looking back with chagrin at the years gone by. These Are Days by 10,000 Maniacs rolls in my head, competing with These Days by Jackson Browne. One is joyful, one is tinged in regret, each bouncing around in the same brain as if coming from a juke box in hell. But that’s the nature of being human, we think too much, we hope and dream and dance with our feelings, and we wake up and do it all over again the next day.

      Writers take all of this and put it out there for the world to see, and to comment on next time the world sees you. It makes for awkward moments in the early days, when you’re still on edge about writing with your name attached. This is who I am, we say, feel free to drop a comment in at the end.

      I wonder, when Mansfield was writing in her journal, slowly dying with Tuberculosis, if she meant for them to be seen for generations? I’d like to think she’d have smiled at the thought, for the act of writing is sharing, even if at first we’re the only ones who are meant to see it. Mark Twain’s diary was released 100 years after his death on his request. It was not to be evasive, I expect, but to spare those he was writing about from knowing his thoughts on the matter.

      We fight for what we keep, and every artist knows what it is to fight with dragons. It takes courage to fight for the treasure and then give it away to those who weren’t in the fight with you, knowing they may use it in their own fight, knowing that most will never see the gesture at all, publishing just the same. It’s not our treasure, after all, it’s only our fight that matters in the end. Knowing this, one should take courage and fight bigger dragons.

    • Spending Time

      Planning is generally done in earnest this time of year, but at some point, action must take over. Too much planning becomes procrastination. We can plan ourselves all the way to the grave if we let ourselves. We must do to become. I believe it was Melissa Heisler who said living is a verb, not a noun. There’s a deep truth in that statement. We must act to live a full life.

      We must begin in earnest, today, to build on those hopes and dreams we spent New Year’s thinking about. For if not now, when? There is no other time. Baby steps turn into long strides that turn into giant leaps forward. There’s momentum in forward motion.

      “Six months from now, what you will you wish you had spent time on today?” — James Clear

      Where we spend time matters a great deal. We forget that sometimes as we go through our days getting from here to there. But where is there anyway? Is it simple here with a few more aches and pains? Time well-spent resonates differently for us than wasted time does. Wasted time feels hollow, while our well-spent time feels far more fulfilling. Who wants to look back on a day or a year or a life feeling empty?

      We intuitively know not to drink stagnant water, but forget we’re mostly water ourselves. Are we flowing towards something or settling into stagnant? Puddles stagnate then evaporate. We must find our ocean before we turn to dust. Too harsh? The point is to find the channel that keeps us flowing creatively, contributing to a greater purpose, so we might ultimately look back on this part of the journey as the point where we broke through the dam and really began making a splash.