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    • The Work Itself

      Is it time for the next project
      because the clock or calendar
      say it’s time,
      or because the work itself
      says it’s time?
      — Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

      I have people in my life who think it’s eery when I can hear someone pull into the driveway when everyone else in the room hears nothing. Yet I struggle to hear people in a crowded room. It’s a different kind of hearing, I believe. The former is more about feeling or sensing a change. The latter is picking out one voice in a crowd and completely hearing that person.

      What does all this mean? Maybe that I’d be a great therapist but a lousy waiter. Or maybe simply that I ought to get my ears checked one of these days. We must learn what our strengths are, but also our weaknesses.

      When we do work that doesn’t matter to us, we feel the grind. Time drags and it all feels meaningless. Even work that once felt exciting changes as we change. We drift from the purpose that brought us there. In that drift, we often find ourselves asking, “Where do we go from here?’ The answer is whispering, but we don’t always hear it.

      When we are wrapped up in work that matters, we sense the path we’re on is the right one. We are attuned to our creative voice or muse as it whispers to us. Sensing it’s what we were meant to do in this moment, transcending time and place. Flow happens. And if we’re lucky, so does that elusive byproduct, magic.

    • Summing Impetus

      ““The impetuous wind can ignite the fire or put it out.”
      ― Regina O’Melveny, The Book of Madness and Cures

      I was thinking about moments, which led me to momentum, which brought me to P (p = m v) which brought me to impetus (which is where the P is derived from in the equation). Impetus in turn brought me to Regina O’Melveny, which brought us here. That’s the truth of the matter. And this is how the mind of a writer works when we begin with a blank slate.

      Honestly, I’m too busy with work to bother writing at all. And yet there’s nothing more important for me than to sit down with myself and sort through things, catch a few (but seemingly never all) typos and release this to the world. Some days I exceed my average reader count, some days it lands with a thud, but either way I’m on to the next blank slate. And this is how we move through life.

      When we know just how fast the time is going (tempus fugit), and how we are only granted just so many days to do with what we will, we must then seize these moments as our own and make the most of them. That’s what living is to me. We are either stoking our fires or watching them peter out from inattention. The days fly by either way.

      An editor is silently screaming as they read this blog post, and I offer them my sincere apologies. Too many parentheses, too many commas, and the post is all over the place. This is what writing unfiltered brings to the table, and it’s beautifully effective in drawing out thoughts and ideas that would otherwise lie dormant. But as a finished blog post? Goodness. I ought to cut the entire mess down to the O’Melveny quote and leave well enough alone. After all, what is the impetus of this post anyway?

      Remember that formula; p=mv? It means momentum (p) is equal to mass (m) times velocity (v). We are what we choose to focus on and repeatedly do. The impetuous wind can ignite the fire within us or put it out. But we have agency. We must keep stoking the fires that mean everything and let the winds of time and persistence fuel a life of purpose and fulfillment. There will never be a better time to attack our why than now. After all, we are the sum of our days.

    • Todays

      I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning
      And it’s good to know it’s out of my control
      If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this livin’
      Is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go
      — Jimmy Buffett, Trip Around the Sun

      Today is my mother’s birthday, which means almost as much to her offspring as our own birthdays. Without the one, there would be no other. And that’s the miracle, isn’t it? We’re all winners of the birth lottery as step one on our journey. From there we make a series of decisions that bring us somewhere. Make those steps interesting.

      Today is also the day friends of ours depart for faraway places. We’ll see them in a few weeks, then in a couple of months, and then who knows? Life is interesting and time marches on. All we can do is set the sails and try to hold to our heading. Life is measured in degrees. Where we are going isn’t always up to us, but sometimes we have more control over it than we let on.

      This series of todays is a blessing, and we’re adding another one today. How will we remember it? Let go of what cannot be controlled and celebrate the miracles. Each day is another step on this trip around the sun.

    • Honor

      “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.” — Socrates

      The world is full of honor, but it is also full of people who fall short of honorable behavior. We may be rightfully outraged by the dishonorable, but we ought to remember that we live in a glass house before we throw stones. The question of honor always begins with the one person we can control. When we realize this and begin to hold ourselves to a higher standard, we tend to rise to meet it.

      To simply do what we tell ourselves we’re going to do is so very easy, and so very hard all at once. I’m still writing every day, not because I aspire to clicks and comments, but because I promised myself I’d do it. On the flip side, I have a rowing ergometer gathering dust because I can’t seem to find the time to row for a few minutes in my busy days. There’s honor in showing up. There’s no honor in finding excuses. And still there’s hope for us if we’d only try another day.

      The act of being is a journey of discovery. We learn something new about ourselves every day. Sometimes we like what we see, sometimes we recoil in disgust, but we ought to learn to be patiently persistent with the student. No matter what the world does, we may become more honorable every day, so long as we keep showing up aspiring towards improvement. Personal excellence demands our best. Our best begins with honor.

    • What is Woven

      “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
      — Pericles

      There was an “until next time” moment yesterday amongst a gathering of friends. We have such moments every day without realizing it, in every moment of parting from people who are a part of our lives. It’s in those moments when we know the stakes are higher that we really feel the connection and pending separation. We are departing from one another’s lives for some time, but we leave inferring we’ll see each other again. Until next time implies there will be a next time. The alternative is fare thee well or simply, farewell or goodbye. Why close doors with people we hope to see again one day?

      A gap between a farewell and a hello may be clearly defined or completely up to fate, but there is a gap nonetheless. And so it is that we live our lives with countless gaps between who once filled our days. We learn to close those gaps by filling them with more experience, more relationships, and more knowledge. The alternative is to live with the bitterness of feeling unfulfilled, and blaming the world for our gaps. There’s too many people living that kind of existence already, aren’t there? So very angry at gaps they might have filled instead.

      The trick is to live a life so profound that a gap is felt when we aren’t present. To be the kind of person others want to be around or return to. It’s more than being “interesting”, it’s being “interested”: actively engaged in the lives of those around us. To be a weaver, instead of living an adjacent life like some fellow commuter in the lane next to ours, never known, never missed, simply occupying space as we zip through life. We must earn the feeling of absence when we aren’t around.

      So fare thee well or until next time or simply goodbye, but let’s remember to stay in touch, friend. We don’t have to make a big deal of such moments, merely to acknowledge that the world is changing and so are we. The journey brings us into proximity some days and pulls us away other days. The resulting gap is an opportunity to gauge the depth of what we’ve meant to each other and the collection of memories we might reflect on one day.

    • This Little Spark

      “You’ve got to be crazy. It’s too late to be sane. Too late. You’ve got to go full-tilt bozo. ‘Cause you’re only given a little spark of madness, and if you lose that, you’re nothing. Note, from me to you. Don’t ever lose that cause it keeps you alive” — Robin Williams, Come Inside My Mind

      What keeps us alive is more than air and water and food. What keeps us alive is adventure and mischief, discovery and creative output, deep thoughts and thrilling moments. Aliveness is captured energy in the moment before it moves on to the next vehicle. We’re all just batteries holding on to energy for some amount of time before we concede it to the next generation. We ought to use that little spark for exhilaration in our time.

      Batteries are drawn down in time, but they can also be recharged. I’m plunging into cold water again. Two days in a row, and for as many as I can string together until the water warms up enough that it’s no longer a cold water plunge. And my goodness, how I’ve missed the adrenaline high though all of this orange-tinted darkness of the world. To hell with the darkness. We must do the things that bring us energy, and hold the line for light and being.

      As Robin Williams once reminded us in a memorable character, carpe diem! Seize the day! We only have this one go at things. So go! We can all do our own version of full-tilt bozo, making memorable in this gift of a life. What’s the alternative? We’ll rest soon enough.

    • Before Dust

      If we begin to count our blessings we could cull up the very stones
      and bones in the pavement, but we’d never count the dust.
      We distrust what we become.
      — Ada Limón, High Water

      “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” — Book of Common Prayer

      We know the score. We’re all going to leave this world at some point, and return to the earth. But before we become dust we are alive. And so we must learn to live in our time.

      We ought to be grateful for who we are and what we have, for it is our core, our identity, our foundation for all that we may become. The fact that we are stardust turned into someone who may build a ship capable of taking us to the edge of the universe (or alternatively, to binge watch Netflix) is a miracle. Who are we to forsake miracles?

      To seek answers to the questions of these recurring, if only to find a spark of truth to light the way. We are the next in line to find folly in the human condition. We might simply use our time to seek connection and purpose with our fellow passengers on this voyage through to the unknown. We are blessed with this, after all. Before dust, make something beautiful.

    • The Attentive Student

      “To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self. And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one’s self.” ― Søren Kierkegaard

      For better or worse, the life I built around venturing changed during the pandemic and again when I changed jobs last year. The hotel, air carrier and rental car status and points have faded to nothing. The blog used to feature more travel, and now I venture inward more often than I cross borders. So it goes—and so it must go.

      An inclination to venture is a lovely thing indeed, but it’s the self that we are seeking to find. To constantly be in motion without slowing down to examine the self is evasive. Sooner or later we’ve got to become aware of who we are and what we’re doing with the time we have. My time has grown more productive simply by slowing down enough to be present.

      The travel is booked and will happen soon enough, if fate allows. We can steer the ship but cannot control the wind. Life will determine itself moment-to-moment. Our job is to take it all in and assess where we are and what to do with what we have. From there we venture where we may.

      To know the self ought to be our highest aspiration. So do travel, but also read and meander observantly through the garden and most of all, listen to what the universe is telling us. Each day is a lesson awaiting the attentive student. Bon voyage.

    • Gaps Closed

      “How can you love someone whom you do not even see?”
      ― Anthony de Mello, Awareness

      Sometimes having something to say doesn’t mean we ought to say it. Sometimes keeping those thoughts to ourselves is the best contribution we can make in the moment. A great filter has saved me countless times. A poor filter has derailed me more often than I care to admit (imagine what an unfiltered mind would do if it were running the world? …uh, never mind).

      Writing this blog will not change the world. It’s currently clunky to navigate, impossible to categorize, has horrible SEO, and, if we’re being honest, is a bit repetitive. But it quietly navigates time at its own pace, like its writer, being what it is. And it will be what it will be. With so many choices of which information to digest, you the reader may choose to read or ignore it. Playing with the law of small numbers, we learn to keep score in our own way with the success of any given post. My way is measured in gaps closed.

      This odd little writing habit keeps on going, even when I decide it ought to take a break for a while. Does its quirkiness and place in this world make it a waste of time? Who’s time is being wasted in writing it? Each post is a revelation at best or a meditation on the moment at worst, but they’re each a declaration of who we were when we clicked publish. Writing doesn’t keep us from something else, it’s a path towards a greater self. The more we look the more we learn to see.

    • Be Strong

      And if the darkness is to keep us apart
      And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
      And if your glass heart should crack
      And for a second you turn back
      Oh no, be strong
      — U2, Walk On

      What is your theme song when life doesn’t line up in your favor? Walk On is surely one of mine. It’s a reminder to be strong, even when it doesn’t feel like being strong will make much of a difference. It always makes a difference. Sometimes all we can control is how we react in the moment. And sometimes how we react changes everything.

      The key is to transcend the moment, whatever it presents to us, and move to the next. One day at a time, steady and strong, for this entire climb. And when the world feels dark and it all feels futile, walk on until we move past that which would otherwise sweep over us. Face it, for we know we must. But just keep moving forward.