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    • The Attractiveness of Adventure

      “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” — Christopher McCandless

      Watching the eclipse of the moon this morning, I thought about how beautiful it was, but also about who was actually seeing it with me. The adventurous are always attracted to others with the same gumption to do outrageous things. Those who seek to wring the most out of life are appealing to those who aspire to add vibrancy and sparkle to their days.

      Right on cue my bride stepped outside, groggy and unsteady, but willing to give it a go with the moon and binoculars. It’s not the first micro adventure I’ve coaxed her towards, and I appreciate her willingness to subtract sleep for experience. Box checked, she was back to her appointment with her pillow.

      Lingering with the moon a bit longer, I thought about the attractiveness of adventure. We seek adventure to feel most alive, and naturally feel the energy emanating from similar spirits. This is true in youth, but equally true as we age. Some of the most vibrant people I’ve known are most attractive because they live a full life. They live outside the norms of society, breaking the established “rules” for living a typical life in favor of adventure. You simply can’t live your own full life inside the box someone else built for you.

      A sustained, vibrant life builds upon itself, it doesn’t subtract years from our lives through poor choices. Aliveness and vitality are the opposite of self-destructiveness and living on borrowed time. Bad habits will choke the life right out of us, so we ought to choose wisely in our quest for adventure. By all means, listen to your mother and wear sunscreen, but don’t hide behind the shades your whole life.

      We never know what we’ll attract into our life until we step out of the cage. Joyful experience is indeed attractive, and we become more attractive in our aliveness. The living are most attracted to those who live a full, adventurous life. A richer life experience, engagement with others living on a higher plane, and deeper realization of our full potential await us when we live our lives with an adventurous spirit.

      I’ll see you out there.

    • A Fight for Democracy in an Autocratic World

      “Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.” ― Robert A Heinlein

      “Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

      If you’d asked me ten years ago if I could imagine the end of democracy in the United States, I would have laughed at the very idea. We weren’t a perfect union, something the Founding Fathers envisioned when drafting the U.S. Constitution, but we were at the very least unified in our belief that we were making progress towards a better democracy. Or so I thought.

      A decade of sipping increasingly toxic poison on extreme media sites has created an undercurrent of madness in the United States and other countries. The vast majority of people want the crazies to shut up and crawl back in their hole of misery, but they have a platform and momentum that is hard to deny. The only way to shut up a crazy person in power is to vote. The appropriate way to shut up a crazy person spewing divisive rhetoric or conspiracy theories is to leverage the legal system. There have been encouraging examples of each this year, but discouraging examples of crazies getting away with things too. Who’s to say what will happen next?

      Well, we can. In the United States of America we have a mid-term election to choose who represents we the people in Congress and in the individual states. This is an opportunity to do the right thing and slam the door on the worst tendencies of humanity, or surrender to the whims of madmen and conspiracists. What a choice.

      When you see a country like Ukraine, with everything they hold dear at stake, fighting for their freedom against an oppressive autocratic state, shouldn’t that serve as a reminder of what we ourselves fight for in our own country? It ought to be. And when we see a rise in violent acts applied against the political or cultural opposition, we ought to view that with horror and decisive corrective action too. We become what we amplify, and we become what we allow on our watch. We forget sometimes that we are the adults in the room.

      This week we get to live history in the United States of America. We either repudiate the rising antithesis of democratic union, or we surrender to the turbulent winds of outrage and conspiracy. It doesn’t seem like a tough choice, really. But here we are. Could the adults in the room kindly control the children?

    • Keep Thy State

      “To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice.” — Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

      “At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—’Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

      Being an advocate for solitude doesn’t mean one is antisocial, it means embracing the potential of the moment. We ought to embrace our time alone, and stop reaching for distraction at any sign of discomfort with the practice. Solitude isn’t the same thing as loneliness, they’re quite the opposite of one another. We can be alone and be productive with the circumstance, or retreat into the comfortable friction of others. We aren’t bait fish, friends, there may be anonymity in numbers, but that isn’t safety, merely avoidance.

      Writing requires solitude—there’s no getting around it. We must wrestle with our thoughts without interruption if we hope to mine anything of consequence from ourselves. Most of us don’t have the luxury of a cabin in the woods in which to dream and scheme. We seek the edges of the day and make them ours. Some of us thrive early in the morning, others late at night. The time is inconsequential, it’s the willingness to tap into the moment that matters most.

      Solitude is a productive state of being in a world intent on drawing you back to the pack. Solitude isn’t retreating into our selves, it’s a deep conversation with an old friend, the one who knows all our traits and sticks with us anyway. We only have so many such moments in a day or in a lifetime, and ought to explore them fully. The best thing about writing is sharing a wee bit of that with a few interested collaborators. In that respect, we transcend aloneness completely.

    • Personal Summits and the Pursuit of Vibrancy

      “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.” — Jack London, Call of the Wild

      Usain Bolt is 36 years old as I write this. He’s a young man, nowhere near his peak in life, but well past his peak as the fastest man alive during a string of unforgettable Olympic performances. Some people, like gymnasts and figure skaters, reach their physical peak even sooner than sprinters. Are they all past their moment of ecstasy? I should think not. They’ve descended from that summit and begun their climb up another.

      There are naturally many peaks and valleys in a lifetime, but two obvious benchmarks are physical fitness and mental fitness. When do we reach our peak with each? Physically it’s likely when we’re younger, relative to a lifetime. Mentally, well, who’s to say we can’t reach our summit towards the very end of life? The combination of the two equals a level of vibrancy worthy of the pursuit, for in pursuing vibrancy for our entire lifetime we’re extending the potential of ecstatic living well beyond the norm.

      In my mind, there are few sins so egregious as extending life without health. This is important. It does not matter if we can extend lifespans if we cannot extend healthspans to an equal extent. And so if we’re going to do the former, we have an absolute moral obligation to do the latter.
      David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To

      If there’s a call to arms in Jack London’s Call of the Wild quote, it’s to remember that we’re alive for a very brief time, and we ought to work to extend our functional vitality for as long into our senior years as possible. And as Sinclair says, there’s an obligation to improve health for the long haul, not just the healthcare industry’s obligation, but ours. That begins with fitness and nutrition, exploration and stretching our perceived limits, and of course moderation and omission. We weren’t put here to live in a bubble and eat nothing but kale, that’s not ecstasy, instead we ought to seek activity that enriches us, gaze upward and climb towards higher summits than we might have otherwise. And in the process, use the climb to look around and appreciate just how far we’ve come.

      Slàinte Mhath!

    • Home, and Away

      “Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.” – Isabelle Eberhardt

      Well past dark, I completed the relocation process for thousands of fallen red oak leaves that had blanketed the front lawn with the muted satisfaction that comes with not seeing your finished project and knowing it will likely be covered again soon enough. This is fall, but it’s also folly to believe you’re ever done with yard work. The trees giveth in abundance, and on their own timetable.

      The thing is, I like the chores of home ownership even as I contemplate my next move on the bucket list. Restless spirits are always moving, whether at home or in travel. I’ve never sat still very well. Meditation for me requires movement, and there is already an abundance of travel booked or in the works. Schemes and dreams of places near and far haunt me, it isn’t something that can be flushed out of your system like too much drink. Travel perpetuates, as reading does. It’s a positive addiction, trading mundane routine for more worldly experience. Many of us have nomadic tendencies running through our blood.

      And yet we can’t imagine nomads raking the leaves and putting away patio furniture. Having a home base isn’t such a bad thing when it doesn’t dominate the conversation. One can happily manage home chores and segue immediately into the next adventure if one structures a life properly. We can have our cake and eat it too. As with all things, balance is the key.

      Go
      And beat your crazy head against the sky
      Try
      And see beyond the houses and your eyes
      It’s okay to shoot the moon
      — John Sebastian, Darling Be Home Soon

      Like sharks, I suppose, restless spirits must move to live. Being fully alive isn’t passive: energy doesn’t rest. So we too should rest less. But fear not, for we’ll be home soon.

    • Something More Than Hope

      “You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” — Jim Collins

      At a mass of remembrance recently, a Catholic priest, speaking on faith in the face of loss, said that there are two sides of the coin with regard to hopelessness: despair and practicality. His point was that, not surprisingly, we lose hope when we reside in despair, but we also do when we succumb to logic and believe that there is nothing that can be done about the matter. There’s a place for hope in this world, he suggested, and it requires the antonyms of despair and practicality: faith, confidence and maybe even a small but healthy dose of idealism.

      His words triggered a memory of the “Stockdale Paradox”, which Jim Collins explains quite effectively in the quote above. Faith and hope are great, but we have to be practical too. There are sometimes things out of our control that must be dealt with. When we balance those two sides of the coin, we might realize the optimal outcome given the circumstances. Or we might not, but we gave it a good fight. Life isn’t fair: We must reconcile ourselves to that fact and do with it what we can to stay afloat. The alternative is to sink.

      Surely, there are things we have no business hoping for. Sometimes the brutal facts make hope a frivolous distraction. Then again, sometimes we get so caught up in things like despair and practicality that we give up on hope too soon. The world is full of stories of epic comebacks fueled by faith in the outcome and decisive action despite ridiculously bad odds. Being from New England, I can quickly think of two favorites:

      “Don’t Let Us Win Tonight!” — Kevin Millar, Boston Red Sox, before the game 4 comeback against the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series. The Red Sox were down 3 games to none and came back to win the series.

      “Let’s go, baby. It’s going to be one hell of a story.” — Julian Edelman, New England Patriots wide receiver, prior to the Super Bowl comeback from a 28-3 deficit against the Atlanta Falcons to win the Super Bowl.

      In both situations, the logical thing to do would be to sink. But each team flipped the script and did whatever they had to do to win in the end. Granted, sports aren’t life, but they represent the dynamic nature of living in a contentious, competitive world that doesn’t care about our feelings, only the results.

      Brutal facts are indeed often brutal, and mandate clear thinking and deliberate action. There’s no going through the motions in such moments. Unwavering faith may fuel you, but surviving and thriving require heightened awareness and strategic execution. And even then things don’t always go our way. But then again, sometimes—sometimes, they do.

    • That Which Has Wings

      “There are those people who try to elevate their souls like someone who continually jumps from a standing position in the hope that forcing oneself to jump all day— and higher every day— they would no longer fall back down, but rise to heaven. Thus occupied, they no longer look to heaven. We cannot even take one step toward heaven. The vertical direction is forbidden to us. But if we look to heaven long-term, God descends and lifts us up. God lifts us up easily. As Aeschylus says, ‘That which is divine is without effort.’ There is an ease in salvation more difficult for us than all efforts. In one of Grimm’s accounts, there is a competition of strength between a giant and a little tailor. The giant throws a stone so high that it takes a very long time before falling back down. The little tailor throws a bird that never comes back down. That which does not have wings always comes back down in the end.” ― Simone Weil, Waiting for God

      Our spirit need not fall to earth, if we give it wings to fly. People forget, sometimes, that to take off isn’t a casual affair. We must work for the dream we’ve built for ourselves. The dream itself is built on something true deep within us that fuels our fire. Whatever your beliefs, we might agree that there is an ease that comes with living a good life, filled with good people and good intentions, pared with applied and consistent effort towards worthy objectives.

      The thing about religion is that some people work way to hard to express it outwardly. When you wear your religion like a badge there’s some truth missing inside. Like a magician using sleight of hand, the people banging the Bible loudest are working to distract you from something else. True spirituality soars above such trickery. We must avoid those who would clip our wings or put us in a cage. Seek instead to find our own truth and whether it might bear our weight.

      “Some people insist that ‘mediocre’ is better than ‘best.’ They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can’t fly. They despise brains because they have none.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel

      When we think we have all the answers, we’re probably way off the mark. We aren’t in that kind of race, friends. First to the finish doesn’t win, for we all finish this race in our time. Helping others to fly seems a better use of a lifetime than scrambling to be king of the mountain. A mountain of what?

      To be successful means more than flapping wings. It’s stepping up to meet what resonates within us and using that as a platform to launch into our potential. But we aren’t here to fly alone. To live a rich and fulfilling life we must help others find their way in a world full of schemers. Together, just maybe, we may just soar in our brief lifetime. And sort out what comes next in good time.

    • Sensing November

      November. Stick season in the northern hemisphere. The big reveal as the trees grudgingly go to sleep for winter. The weather begins to sort itself out, and we come to terms with what it brings us. For there’s no denying the seasons now.

      As with everything in life, we reconcile ourselves to the changes and choose how we react. Snowbirds retreat to the comfort of the tropics while the rest of us add layers, peel them off, and add them back again based on the height of the sun and the strength of the breeze. For some of us, November brings up memories of family coming together. For others, it means escape. Some use it as an excuse to stop shaving, others to write in earnest. November is what we make of it.

      When you think back on your lifetime, what comes to mind when you hear the sounds of November? Rustling leaves? Whistles and cheers at a football game? Relentless political attack ads? Laughter around the Thanksgiving table? Crackling fires and splitting wood? Shots fired deep in the woods at dawn? The furnace churning away in the background? November, of course, sounds like all of these things.

      When you think of the smells of November, do you think of piled leaves decomposing or freshly split oak? Isn’t it more the aromas of the kitchen that dominate the senses this time of year? Roasting turkey and baking pies? Nutmeg and apple cider and eggnog? This month is a calorie-counter’s nightmare, and fresh off the Halloween candy no less! You can practically smell the waistline growing.

      Pausing to reflect for a moment, you can also feel something else in the air. For November is associated with aging and decline. You can see it in the shorter days and beauty of the more glamorous days of September and October falling emphatically to the earth. We know what is coming, don’t we? It’s a gift, really, an opportunity to use this, our time, to do what must be done, say what must be said, and love one another while we can.

      Whatever we feel this month, doesn’t it make sense to be fully aware of all it brings? These are days we’ll remember. The sights and sounds, smells and the very feel of November are upon us. Ready or not, we ought to make the most of this time.

    • Realizing the Benefits of Repetitive Action

      “One thing I’ve found… the road rarely rises up to meet you until you’ve begun walking.” — Michele Jennae

      On my one day off this weekend, on a day of rest no less, I walked twenty thousand steps around my house while pruning trees and shrubs, raking up leaves onto a tarp and hauling them into the woods beyond the fence out back. For good measure, I mowed the front lawn with my push mower to get every last leaf off that lawn. As I write this it’s still dark outside, but I imagine that it’s chock full of leaves again. The oak trees delight in teasing me just so: waiting until the day is done and sprinkling their gifts all over. I’ve come to accept this as the price of keeping the trees when I built this house almost 24 years ago. They were here first and deserve to have their say.

      We either have a bias towards action or we don’t. Is life meant to be spent doing things or lounging around in leisure? I know plenty of folks who embrace the latter. That’s not my way. Spending my one day of rest actively cleaning the yard may seem useless at best, and a frivolous abuse of my brief time on this earth at worst, especially considering that there will be even more leaves sprinkled on the lawn today. Action ought to be married with productivity or it ought not be done, you might point out fairly.

      Yard work should be viewed in the same way that we view doing the dishes or making the bed. Eventually we’ll have to do it all over again, and over and over again still, but that doesn’t make it less worthwhile for having done it today. It’s the price of greatness in a world filled with average performers. We either pay someone to do the work or do it ourselves. There’s an opportunity cost in either choice, and we must ask where we receive the best return on our time investment.

      The thing is, we often know what we’re missing out on when we choose one thing over another, but a bias towards action requires we make a decision and embrace all that comes with it. This applies equally to a career, a marriage, raising children, writing, or a hundred other things. Things like raking leaves instead of hiking or watching a football game. Life is what we make of it: to be meaningful and productive, it requires that we follow through on one decision after another to the best of our ability.

      Showing up for our work every day can feel a lot like raking those leaves. We know that there will be more to do tomorrow and the next day. But repetition pays dividends through discipline. The benefit of repetitive action isn’t just the momentarily completed job at hand, it’s the person we become by following through on our commitment to ourselves day-after-day. As Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do.

    • What is Beautiful

      “The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.” ― Simone Weil, Waiting for God

      Two things I rarely write about are religion and love. The meaning of each is in the eye of the beholder, and the fastest way to divide a room is to carry on too much about either. Even writing that statement will turn off a true believer or two. So be it. We each wrestle with ourselves and our place in this world. Relationships, whether with God or science, your true love or platonic love, are complicated. We’re not on this earth long enough to know everything, but our journey isn’t about the finish, it’s about who we become each step along the way.

      Some people want certainty in their lives. So they only marry someone who believes in the same god, or goes to the same church, or no church. Or maybe it’s politics or nationality or favorite sports team that dictates who they choose to associate with. This is inherently limiting, of course, for it keeps us in a box of our own making. They might as well make it a casket.

      The thing is, we all have our core belief systems and tend to seek out that which reinforces that identity. Over the years I’ve wrestled with strong feelings about everything from musical genres to whether the house lights are left on at night. None of it matters in the long run, it’s just positioning of the self in an indifferent world. Writing every day is the miraculous clarifying tool which brings me closer to understanding it all. Perhaps it is for you too.

      When the year is over, barring some last-minute heroics, I will have read fewer books than last year. And yet the lift is heavier this year, with some significant philosophical works in the mix. This may be my What’s it all about Alfie stage of life, but I think not. I’ve always been this way; I just make better choices now. As you grow you tend to explore your openness to new influences a bit more.

      As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above
      Alfie, I know there’s something much more
      Something even non-believers can believe in
      I believe in love, Alfie
      Without true love we just exist, Alfie
      Until you find the love you’ve missed
      You’re nothing, Alfie
      — Burt Bacharach / Hod David, Alfie

      The world is wrestling with nihilism and division at the moment. It will eventually swing back towards unity, hopefully before too much damage is done. All we can do is be active ambassadors for openness and unity. What is beautiful in our lives may wreck us, but it might also be our salvation. What is life but a journey to discover that which resonates most for us? We reach awareness in our own time, and learn to cherish the experiences and influences that bring us there.

      Whatever the package it comes from, that which is derived from true love and honesty is beautiful. We may learn from it, or turn away from it, but the truth remains. Our obligation to ourselves and the world is to be open. What is beautiful will find its way to us.