Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • Getting to Deeper Work

      “In an age of network tools… knowledge workers increasingly replace deep work with the shallow alternative—constantly sending and receiving e-mail messages like human network routers, with frequent breaks for quick hits of distraction. Larger efforts that would be well served by deep thinking, such as forming a new business strategy or writing an important grant application, get fragmented into distracted dashes that produce muted quality…. Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work.” – Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

      I think the reason I get up early is to think, uninterrupted. And when I am interrupted, by other early risers or by something as simple as the cat meowing for food my own deep thinking is disrupted, often to a point where I have to put away the work and find a way to reset myself. The beautiful thing about posting a blog every day is I’m forced to find a way through the shallow pool I find myself swimming in back to deeper waters, distractions be damned. But the work never feels the same.

      Noise-cancelling headphones help a lot. When I go deep I’ll play the same song on repeat until I’m done with whatever project I’m committed to finishing. For me, two songs work particularly well for this, Mark Knopfler’s Wild Theme (no surprise if you know what my favorite movie is) and Claude Debussy’s Clair de lune because they both quietly soar and have no lyrics to draw me out of my focused state. After years of this trick, playing one of these songs becomes Pavlovian in snapping my mind to attention.

      Long walks in nature help reset the mind when you find yourself in frenetic shallowness, and I have my go-to spots for this too. Walking helps you sort out the puzzle pieces in your subconscious mind, putting all the pieces on the table and shuffling them one step at a time. If the walk goes well you sort things out just enough. But sometimes I find myself dwelling on another puzzle altogether, and realize the distraction wasn’t swimming shallow at all but this elephant in the room that you’ve got to remove before you can properly focus on the original project. Long walks help sift the pieces enough for you to see what you’ve been staring at all along.

      Another trick of the trade that countless brilliant minds subscribe to is strict daily application of Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages. Write whatever comes out of your mind onto the page for three pages in a gushing stream of consciousness until you’ve gotten all the noise out of yourself, and then shift to creative output. I’ve tried this a few times but find myself frustrated by the time spent on Morning Pages that I could be spending on the work itself. The fault isn’t in the process but in my commitment to it. Enough people swear by it that it must work, and to go deeper I might have to recommit to this process myself.

      “The way to live is to create.
      Die Empty.
      Get every idea out of your head and into reality.”
      – Derek Sivers,       How to Live

      Whatever gets you there, deeper work is where we mine the very best of ourselves. Eliminate as many distractions as possible, retreat to your proverbial cabin in the woods and do the work. While there’s still time.

    • Live & Learn

      “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” – Will Rogers

      Don’t look now, but we’re approaching the last month of the year. What has this year taught us? That we’re more resilient than we thought? Or more fragile? It’s both, isn’t it? And while we’re at it, we’re capable of more than we thought and far too distracted to maximize our potential. Global issues seem too complex to solve so we focus on rich people flying into space instead.

      We humans get a lot wrong on our quick dash across time, but we usually get just enough right to keep ourselves on track. That is the promise the new day brings, this sense of optimism that comes with not screwing up too much so far, and believing it will be so again today. The lot of us are collectively peeing on the electric fence and learning some shocking lessons. So far the voltage on that electric fence has only been set to stun.

      Instead of kicking the can down the road into next year, what if we rolled up our sleeves and tackled our biggest challenges now? Spin up a bit of positive momentum towards our collective future with applied effort now. Imagine the lessons we might learn about ourselves if we focused on doing what desperately needs to get done?

    • Let Me Live Until I Die

      “Lord, let me live until I die.” – Will Rogers

      This is the kind of daily prayer or affirmation I can get behind. Said daily as I open my eyes to a new day. Let me live until I die is a bold stake in the ground to make the most of every moment. And shouldn’t we celebrate the possibility of the new day? What’s the alternative, to dread the commute to work, or the work itself, or what we come home to afterwards? To distract your life with media and alcohol and empty calories? No, thank you! Let me live until I die.

      It’s easy to slip into the dark melancholy of the world. It’s easier to slip than it is to climb. But slipping only leads you to new lows. Far better to climb, as tough as it might seem, to reach new heights and see new vistas. To leap out of bed to see what we might accomplish in this new day seems a far more interesting way to wake up to the world than to hit the snooze button and hide under your pillow.

      Life isn’t easy, we all know that. But the world bows to those who climb to the top, look around and light the way for the rest to see. To be a beacon requires energy and an unquenchable desire to burn brightly. You can’t burn brightly if you’re drowning in misery. Get up and get out there, where the oxygen is. Be fit and passionate and embrace life in a full bear hug.

      To live is to move, to embrace, to laugh, to love, to explore, to learn, to dance, to take a chance and to grow. Get out into the world and make the most of living while we can. I’ll see you out there.

    • Give a Lift

      “You can’t actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Ultimately you are lifted by those around you.” – Derek Sivers

      It’s that time of the year when people are more open in expressing gratitude and displaying generosity. It’s a great time to take stock of who helps you the most and to express appreciation for that lift of the bootstraps they give you. And to look around and see who needs our help the most in lifting themselves up. The last couple of years haven’t been a cake walk, and there’s more people who need help than ever before.

      Give a lift to those in need. Lend an ear, or your time, or sure, sometimes a few bucks to help someone when so many are on the edge. You never know who needs you the most until you step in at just the right moment. As crazy as the concept might seem sometimes, we’re all in this together.

    • The Trick In the Compass

      “It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.” — Simone Weil

      The quote above is making the rounds on Twitter again, stirred up first by Maria Popova and recently by Tim Ferriss. When the student is ready the teacher will appear, it is said, and whatever brought the quote back to my attention, I was ready to receive it. Maybe you are too.

      The last time I consulted my compass, I was sitting in a parking lot in front of a sporting goods store, hearing the truth. He told me to stop writing about death so much, but accepted my answer that stoicism isn’t a preoccupation with death, it’s a reminder to live with urgency. It would be the last conversation we’d ever have, and I wonder at the exchange even now.

      The trick in the compass is that it doesn’t show true north, it shows magnetic north. The difference between the two is called the magnetic inclination. Magnetic north, simplified, changes with the molten core of the Earth. Its more fluid, if you will. We change in just such a way. Just like the compass, we must adjust our heading based on how far from true north our core has shifted our magnetic north. No wonder so many find themselves off course.

      Making ourselves clear to ourselves is a journey. It requires walking many miles, the consumption of vast amounts of poetry and prose, a good friend or mentor alongside, and certainly, a whole lot of writing. But mostly it requires stumbling over hard truths, picking yourself up and setting yourself back on the path.

    • Where Are You Parking Yourself?

      “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers

      “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers

      A great humorist will kick you in the ass while they make you laugh. You could fill a blog with Will Rogers quotes, and really, I just might someday. But not today. Today I’m thinking about these two quotes of his that pair well together. For who doesn’t contemplate their path to success, and ponder whether they might have stopped a few steps short of a higher peak?

      Last year, wanting to see the starry dome and catch the first glimpse of sunrise from the east coast of the United States, my daughter and I drove to the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine. It was 3 AM, and there were already people up there watching the celestial show above, but there was plenty of elbow room and more than enough time to find a spot to park ourselves for the big event. We chose a spot next to a large boulder about 200 feet down from the summit parking lot. Over the next two hours a couple of hundred people walked past us to spots further away. When the sun finally rose, I could see that they’d chosen a place more spectacular than the one we’d chosen. And we regretted not going further when we could have.

      No matter where we are currently parked, it’s just a pause along the way unless we choose to make it our grave. As we dance with the extraordinary that inspires greatness within us, we’ll be tempted along the way to live with good enough. Shake it off and push on. There’s so much more to experience in life just beyond where we currently find ourselves.

    • Whispers in the Woods

      Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods?
      And everything there feels just as it should
      You’re part of the life there
      You’re part of something good
      If you’ve ever wandered lonely through the woods
      – Brandi Carlile, Phillip and John Hanseroth, Have You Ever

      It’s hunting season in New England, and bright orange is the color of choice for those who dare wander into the woods. Admittedly I haven’t been wandering in the local woods all that much lately, for reasons both valid and delusional, but mostly because I got out of the habit of placing myself there. You know when you’ve been gone too long, you feel it in your bones. I’d been gone too long and finally did something about it.

      Walking through the bare trees of New England in late Autumn, smelling the fallen leaves in the cool, damp air, delivers a unique sense of place not achieved in a world of concrete and steel. Inevitably you think of those who wandered these woods before you, whether yesterday or a thousand years ago, the woods hold their hopes and dreams and secrets just as firmly as they’ll hold your own.

      There are whispers in the forest, easily heard in solitude. They’re reflections of our greatest hopes and fears. Yes, some fear the woods, hearing ghosts, fairies or dark spirits. I think we mostly hear our own inner voice, caught in the wind and reflected back to us as naked truth, as cold and bare as the tree trunks and branches.

      In his enduring gift Walden, Thoreau described the “indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature”. Nature surely gives back far more than it receives from humanity. Shouldn’t we offer something good in return for the gift of nature?

      Readers of this blog know that I chafe at loud talkers, people who play music while hiking, motorized vehicles, and other such encroachments in the woods. It feels blasphemous, disrespectful, and the antithesis of all I go there for. But the trees themselves don’t care, they’ve seen it all before and will again. The intrusion is mine to bear, the trees will still be here, hopefully, long after the rest of us clear out.

      This too shall pass, the wind whispers through the bared forest. The leaves returning to earth underfoot voice their agreement. Here, you’re part of something good. One day we’ll all be ghosts, mere whispers in the wind. But not today. Today we were alive, and the woods felt just as they should.

    • Up to the Nostrils

      “I think you should always do shit that scares you. You just always have to do stuff that scares you. Just wander right off into the water right up to where just your nostrils are out of it. And then just try and live there.” – Brandi Carlile, on The Howard Stern Show

      How deep are you in the body of water you presently find yourself? How can you wade in deeper? How can you challenge yourself more than you are right now? Are you afraid of drowning? Or simply afraid of getting a little wet?

      Stern is a brilliant interviewer, and when he has someone as extraordinary as Brandi Carlile on his show, someone who rises to the occasion because she’s not afraid to wade in up to the nostrils, the conversation is compelling. Because there’s something drawn out of that conversation that transcends the people talking, they draw something out of you too. You find yourself questioning just how deeply you’ve been willing to wade into that water yourself. In that question is the answer for what you’ve got to do next, should you have the courage to do so.

      What comes next? Where do we go from here? What do you have to give up within yourself to get try to live in that place where you’re just on the edge of drowning? For that is the place where you transcend the ordinary.

      We forget, in our fear of wading in so deeply, that we don’t have to drown. We might just learn to swim in deeper waters. We might just thrive when we find that scary stuff isn’t all that scary after all. Go deeper.

    • Writing to Schubert

      How many hours
      do I sit here
      aching to do

      what I do not do
      when, suddenly,
      he throws a single note

      higher than the others
      so that I feel
      the green field of hope,

      and then, descending,
      all this world’s sorrow,
      so deadly, so beautiful.
      – Mary Oliver, Schubert

      Today is the anniversary of the death of Franz Schubert, who passed away at the shockingly young age of 31 on the 19th of November 1828. It’s shocking because of how much he accomplished in such a short span of time. Not so shocking when you consider the state of modern medicine at the time: he was treated with mercury to cure what was believed to be syphilis. I’m grateful for a lot of things in my life — being born at a time where medical treatment is a bit less hit or miss is right up there on my list. But having better treatment options guarantees nothing. We still must produce while we can.

      The inspiration with Schubert is in the mastery he had reached in his last few years. It’s something we can draw from in our own creative lives, as Mary Oliver clearly did, and I regret not leveraging his soundtrack more often myself. But then again it all comes to us at different times, doesn’t it? We all reach that point of creative inspiration when we wake up and finally see the truth. If Schubert offers any warning from his grave, it’s that we shouldn’t wait. Memento Mori.

      Schubert’s brief and brilliant life informs: we can do a lot in a relatively brief amount of time. And surely, there’s still time to do it today. But maybe not tomorrow. Carpe diem. Now get to work.

    • Collecting Volumes of Experience

      To gain entry into restaurants in Manhattan in the current state of the pandemic you need to show your vaccination card or a picture of it. Some folks also ask for your ID, which I’m happy to provide. I’d left the card in my hotel room, but fortunately had a photo buried somewhere on my phone. And I eventually found it in the mass of recent pictures – was that San Francisco? Los Angeles? Raleigh? Vermont? It seems I’ve been busy lately.

      During that search I stumbled on a photo of three birds pecking in the South Carolina surf at sunrise. I remember the moment, still less than two weeks ago, but the picture was lost in a crush of other photographs and memories (or is that .jpeg’s and memories now?). It occurred to me that I ought to hit pause again soon. And right on cue Thanksgiving arrives in America next week. More timely, and more different, than ever.

      Life comes at you in waves, and we’re a lot like those birds, waiting for something to chew on with the next one that rolls in. Sometimes you find that where you’ve landed is the perfect place at the perfect time for you. And sometimes you look around and wonder whether you’re on the right beach at all. The answer isn’t always obvious, and the real trick is to keep an eye on that next wave so it doesn’t wash over you.

      I’ve collected thousands of photos of moments like that moment with the birds. Small and large experiences captured in memory, both mine and in some data center in the Cloud. Scrolling through a few hundred photos looking for that picture of my vaccination card reminded me to spend a little less time planning the next landing spot and savor the one you’re immersed in now. It’s not always about finding a better beach, but simply enjoying the one you’re on, and appreciating where you’ve been.