Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance With the stars up above in your eyes A fantabulous night to make romance ‘Neath the cover of October skies And all the leaves on the trees are fallin’ To the sound of the breezes that blow And I’m trying to please to the callin’ Of your heart strings that play soft and low — Van Morrison, Moondance
The October sky in New England is a wonderful thing. Sunrises and sunsets are full of color that somehow match the foliage as it peaks. There is a crescendo when all of the colors are most vibrant and then it all seems to fade away. And so we ought to put ourselves in the way of beauty, just as Cheryl Strayed’s mother suggested. We are either there for it or we aren’t.
It all goes so quickly. Autumn foliage sprinkles us with magic and all too soon fades and returns to the earth. Blink and we miss it. The lesson is to get out and see what we can while the opportunity presents itself. And we know that the lesson applies well beyond leaves.
Tempus fugit. Time flies. Dare to use our time, or risk losing it. Every day may be a love affair with life. As with any love, life will only offer to us what we put into it. It’s up to us to notice the details. We may choose to play an active role in the chores that make each day meaningful and productive. We may dare to ask ourselves in those moments of hopeful scheming, how may we extend this magic just a little longer?
You need some rust; sharpness does not suffice: Else you will seem too young and too precise — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Blame it on October if you will, but I’m feeling my age this week. That old ankle injury barks at me after last weekend’s hike. The new tricks I’m learning in my career make me feel like an old dog. Surely, the world feels out of alignment, but I know it’s most likely me that needs a tuneup and a new set of tires.
It’s all just fatigue, I tell myself; Burn the candle at both ends and look what happens. Perhaps. But there’s also some rust on the old undercarriage. I’m not a kid anymore. Life catches up to us. Blah, blah, blah… Bah, humbug!
That accumulation of experience can be a lot to carry some days. We were built for the moment we’re in by all the moments that came before this one. That doesn’t mean we have to like every moment we’re in. But each brings us something to hold onto. We ought to keep asking ourselves; What’s the lesson in this one?
Patina adds depth and character to a surface. When we stop our constant scrubbing away at ourselves long enough to appreciate where we’ve arrived at, we may find that we like the progress we’ve made. What’s a little rust on a beauty like that?
The day will be what you make it, so rise, like the sun, and burn. — William C. Hannan
I know that on days like today, when this blog post is published a little later in the day than normal, some people in my life begin to wonder about my well-being. Such is the power of routine that we become highly predictable. I prefer to write early and publish immediately after editing, rather than have a stash of posts ready to schedule with a future publication date. Life sometimes has other plans, and here we are.
Days have a way of getting away from us. All the more important to get up and get to work on the essential stuff before our time is swept away forever. I may not do anything else noteworthy today, but I published something I wrote, and I shared a lovely spark of poetry that may ignite something in someone else the way it did for me.
There are some in my orbit who believe productive creativity is best performed late into the night. I say we each know when our optimal time is for getting things done. Ultimately what matters is that we end our day having done something worthy of it.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein
Saying yes to more things is the opposite of a focused life. A focused life requires focus on one thing at the expense of all other things. That one thing may lead to mastery. Those many things may lead to diverse perspective and the ability to manage complexity, which in turn enables us to navigate a life full of its inevitable twists and turns. Which is a better way to live a full life?
The answer is naturally ours to know. I believe it’s to work towards mastery in something, while striving to experience as much as possible each day. Awareness and an inclination to take the plunge into the next potential miracle are our ticket to the promise of the coming day.
I’m no Jeremiah, saying a phrase like that. Miracles are ours to realize in how we live our lives each day. Our life may be modest or bold—each brings its own opportunity to encounter that which is beyond us. Are we aware of all that moves around us? It’s all a miracle, and so too are we. Our interaction with the world is ours alone, and never to be repeated in this dance with infinity.
The question remains: What will we do with this miracle?
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — Frank Herbert, Dune
Fear seems to be popping up a lot in my world lately. Not because I’m afraid so much as the idea of it comes up all the time. We know that once we notice something we see it everywhere. Well, fear was noticed, and here we are.
What are we afraid of anyway? Death? Memento mori. Whether we’re afraid or not, we will all die anyway. Failure? Life is one failure after another. But it’s also one success after another. Need an example? We all woke up today. Call it a win.
The thing is, most fear that holds us back from doing something is a dream dying on the vine. String enough dead dreams together and we’ve wasted our lives. Ignore enough fears and maybe we reach summits we’d hardly dare to dream of they seemed so audacious.
We’re wounded by fear Injured in doubt I can lose myself You I can’t live without — U2, Red Hill Mining Town
What is so important to us that we feel the fear and do it anyway? What is worthy of our courage now? What are we waiting for? We know deep down that tomorrow is too late. Socrates told us that we must seize what flees. Tempus fugit: Time flies. And the opportunities of a lifetime fly with it.
“Travel is a fantastic self-development tool, because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves. This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it’s not necessarily the best way to live.” ― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
How comfortable are we, wrapped up in the stories we tell ourselves? Life either reinforces all that we hold to be true or it refutes it. We know that to get more physically fit we must break down our muscles through stress for them to grow. It’s the same with the mind. Diverse experience breaks down the stories we tell ourselves, that we may grow and learn to be something more than we were before. This all seems obvious, but it’s somehow controversial in certain circles.
I’ve had a few conversations with people who don’t want to travel to places that they believe live by different stories than the ones they tell themselves. Herein lies the problem. We must first seek to understand, that we may be understood. We know already why we’re different. It’s our curated belief system—where we were born, the programming that sucked us in and has a hold on us, and that circle that we’re inclined to stay inside of for fear of what’s on the other side. Our life depends on escaping those circles that would imprison us in belief.
The thing is, circles are useful too. They help define who we are and what we stand for. What is our identity? It’s right here in this circle of experience and learning, developed over a lifetime. We just can’t forget that we can grow the circle too. When we look at life as a series of discoveries that fill in the story of who we might be, we learn to be excited about the search for more experiences and challenges that test what we once believed, that we may fill in more of the circle and make it grow. What are we missing by staying within our current circle? Shouldn’t we go see for ourselves? A full life is expansive by nature.
On a cool, raw and occasionally wet Sunday an avid hiker friend and I explored the trails and summits of Pawtuckaway State Park. Situated within the towns of Nottingham and Deerfield, New Hampshire, Pawtuckaway is easy to reach compared with some other mountains in New England. And of course it’s hard to call them mountains at all, if you want to get righteous about the height thing. Doing North and South Mountains together offers a gain of only 1409 feet, I’m told, but the story isn’t the elevation gain, it’s the geological interest that draws you here.
“High up on South Mountain a dike of black trap rock cuts the granite-like rock of the mountain, and breaking out rectangular blocks provides the treads and risers of Devil’s Staircase. The top of South Mountain and the firetower rising above it command a view overlooking the sea to the east and the mountains to the north. The Devil’s Den Trail to North Mountain first passes the huge Pawtuckaway Boulders. These tremendous blocks of rock ranging up to 60 feet in some dimensions and probably comprising the largest group of boulders anywhere, are strewn for about a quarter mile along the trail. Once a part of North Mountain, they were plucked by the glacier during the Great Ice Age and dumped in their present position when the ice melted. Devil’s Den was hollowed out by this same plucking action.” — Jacob Freedman, The Geology of the Mt. Pawtuckaway Quadrangle
“Forces in the earth developed a circular fracture around the solid rock, and into this fracture more magma of a different composition rose. It consolidated to form a gray coarse-grained granite-like rock called monzonite, which now makes up the circle of the Pawtuckaway Mountains in what is called a ring-dike.”— Jacob Freedman, The Geology of the Mt. Pawtuckaway Quadrangle
Winding through these fields of plucked glacial erratics, you’ll find plenty of rock climbers bouldering the monzonite, mountain bikers and the usual assortment of casual and serious hikers navigating the trails, and a surprising amount of horse manure indicating that some of the trails are very popular for horseback riding. There are gravel roads throughout the park as well, and we found these to be useful connectors between trails on our 12 mile hike.
Reading about the history of the area, it seems there was a character known as the “Barefoot Farmer of Pawtuckaway” named George Goodrich who played a large role in making it a state park. The Goodrich family farmed this rocky land, and you can find the family graveyard within the state park. I can’t imagine hiking the terrain barefoot the way he farmed it, but I suppose a few decades of barefoot farming would go a long way to toughen up the toes.
New Hampshire is in a serious drought, and you could see the impact it’s having in the streams, ponds and wetlands. Stream beds are largely dried up and the ponds are showing plenty of their muddy bottoms. The foliage is muted this year too after the stress of a dry season. But our hike coincided with the beginning of a few days of rain, and we hiked out to a misty, raw sendoff.
I’d hiked this place before, almost twenty years ago, focused mainly on South Mountain and the fire tower you can climb up. That’s surely the most popular trail because it’s relatively easy with a nice payoff in views when you reach the summit. But for my money, North Mountain and the ledges and boulders below it are the most dramatic and fascinating place in Pawtuckaway. If you go, you can’t miss them. Shoes are optional, of course, but highly recommended.
October and the trees are stripped bare Of all they wear What do I care? October and kingdoms rise And kingdoms fall But you go on And on — U2, October
Inevitably, I encounter simmering rage when I listen long enough. That’s America now—rage in one form or another. It’s everywhere. Yes, common at the extremes on both sides, but creeping more and more into the middle. An even keel is hard to maintain in a tumultuous sea. We are in the midst of a storm brought on by profiteers and pirates. Bastards.
If I sound distant from the rage myself, well, it’s a deliberate act to remove myself from the storm. Maybe there are no safe harbors in a storm like this, but we ought to find places of refuge to take stock of where we are, what we stand for, who we want to be and what we want to be remembered as one day when all of this is being cleaned up and analyzed by future generations. Those of us who reside in the middle keep this ship from capsizing. We choose whether the scales will be forever tipped.
It’s October. Peak foliage days before it all falls away and all that we are left with are memories of what was and what might have been if we’d only paid more attention. Seasons come and go. All that will be left of us one day is what we choose to leave behind.
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. — William Ernest Henley, Invictus
We see where our choices have brought us over time. Or rather, we see if we are aware of our agency. So many learn helplessness as their primary lesson, and not agency. Not mastery of themselves. Mastery of self is a lifetime course. We are all students to the very end. To believe we have already reached mastery is to miss the lesson entirely.
Everyone knows the final stanza of Invictus, even if they don’t know the poet. Even if they cannot recite the lines exactly. This idea of being the master of our fate and captain of our soul latches on to us like burrs to cloth. We like to think it so, this level of agency.
Mastery requires choice. Mostly, it’s all that we will say no to that we may say yes to some primary purpose. A yes to what should be a no may be just the thing we desire most after a long day of grinding away towards our primary goal, but that which leads us astray leads us to mediocrity.
Too harsh? We know the truth of where we are when measured against where we might have been. Choices matter a great deal on our course to personal excellence. I hear the curses mumbled for bringing up arete again. What are we here for but to do our best towards something larger than ourselves? Something godlike in its audacity? We may aspire to greatness while remaining humble servants of this moment we were made for.
To favor no is to be mentally tough. It’s to decide what our yes will be and get used to stacking no’s one after the other like cordwood sacrifices to our yes. Decide what to be and go be it. Arete is ours to define, and ours to navigate towards through our decisions today.
I went through a drive-thru yesterday (you know you’re in America by the number of drive-thru’s you come across). I prefer not to frequent such places, but circumstances being what they were, I took advantage of it for what I hoped would be a quick bite between customer meetings. And my drive-thru host wasn’t human. It’s not my first rodeo with Artificial Intelligence (AI), or even audio AI (try getting a human on the phone at your bank or service provider nowadays), but surely the first time I’ve ordered a bowl of chili at a drive-thru with an audio AI host. Another small step for mankind, another great leap for humanity.
We encounter the artificial every day now. We hardly think about it it’s so ubiquitous in our lives. Our politicians are artificial. Our music is increasingly artificial. This blog could be artificial if I wanted it to be. But I don’t want it to be, even if it will be scrubbed and duplicated by an artificial world even before I click publish. We must hold the line on genuine humanity in an increasingly artificial world. Isn’t it pretty to think so?
The thing about AI that makes it so great is that it’s designed to make life easier for us. The thing about AI that makes it so awful is that it makes life easier for us. One challenge at a time, it’s robbing us of the challenges that make us grow. We don’t have to learn and remember things anymore. We don’t have to stumble through a language seeking to understand someone when a translation application can simply tell each of us what the other was saying.
Technology is a tool that makes life easier for us, but we should still strive to do more difficult things, with technology as a tool to help us rise to a more enlightened place than we otherwise could reach. Maybe the person making minimum wage to staff that drive-thru could rise to some other role. That’s the promise of AI; that it takes away the menial while offering up exponential possibility for each of us.
What’s it all about Alfie? Why are we here if not to be human? To learn and grow and be or not be that other thing? All of this technology is making the artificial increasingly more of our reality. Where will that stop? We’re living science fiction, but also wandering deep into a psychological thriller. A simple bowl of chili is surely only the beginning.
