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    • Feed that Flame

      “I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.”
      — Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

      Tell me we aren’t collectively living in an epic poem at the moment. These are tragic days. These are comic days. These are the days that test our character and faith in humanity. And we are not just the actors—we are the heroes on this journey of a lifetime. And so we must play our part. And so it is that some people rise up on the suffering of others, and some people rise up to defend all that is good in this world.

      The power of mythology is that it stirs something within us. When we listen, we connect with the timeless truth it conveys, and having made that connection, hear the call to contribute. Writing and poetry, painting and sculpture, photography and cinematography, theater and dance, music and performance—all are expressions of myth and a perpetuation of something greater than ourselves. Something the trolls fail to connect with and thus seek to destroy. Collectively we bring the beautiful to light.

      Myth works from the inside out as a spark of recognition as something ancient and profound within us that must grow and find expression. We all want to think of ourselves as heroes. The miracle is that this truly heroic character is hiding within us, waiting for oxygen and fuel. We must feed that flame and see where this epic journey takes us.

    • The Call to Creative

      “Et ignotas anuimum dimittit in artes” (“And he applies his mind to the obscure arts.”) — Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII., 18.

      The great conversation brought me to this phrase. Joseph Campbell quoted James Joyce’s use of it as the epigraph of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and now I bring it to you, dear reader. Always find the primary source, the historian in me demands, even if that makes for an odd first paragraph. But here we are.

      But wait, there’s more. Ovid added, “naturamque nouat” (“and alters nature.)” in Metamorphoses, pointing to the transformative potential of creative work. It wasn’t that Joyce wasn’t showing the way, it was more an expectation that the reader would complete the assignment. In a world where so many are a bit lazy in following through to the end, isn’t it a jolt to find artists who expect us to keep up?

      Ah, but what are we doing here? Just what kind of blog post is this? Are we diving head first into latin? Are we indicting the general state of things today where so many don’t go deeper than the surface? Or are we doing what Campbell and Joyce did, and using Ovid to point to a life of creative work? Let’s call it an open-ended question as we walk the path of discovery together. And isn’t that what creative work is?

      Apply your mind to the obscure arts and alter nature. Be bold in this choice and find transformation, or bow to the demands of those who would have us follow the rules laid out for us. What shall it be, for you and me? Be bold, friend, and see just where it takes us. For we only have this short time together to make our dent in the universe.

    • Witnesses of a Lifetime

      “But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.” — David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

      Some people come into our life and remain active participants in our journey. Some fade away with the release of the common interests that once held us together. There are friendships based on convenience and friendships based on choice. We learn in time who will walk beside us through the years.

      Recently I’ve heard from an old friend whom I thought was drifting away. It seems they were simply busy doing other things, just as I was. Friendships are different from marriages and the relationship we have with teammates in work or sport. Friendships cross the chasm of time and place like stepping stones we land upon on our journey—something solid and trustworthy with which to ground ourselves. And we in turn ground them. We all need something solid in a life so often fluid and uncertain.

      “One of us will see all the funerals, one of us will see none, and one will have none of us at theirs.” — Anonymous

      The thing is, lifetimes don’t last forever. Memento mori. We’ll all pass eventually, and too soon. We must train ourselves to put the troubles of the world aside and be present and aware in our time together. For each moment with true friends offers the blessing of companionship and memory. We are witnesses to each other’s lives, but also active participants in each other’s. So onward, together now and then through this maddening world, for as long as fate allows.

    • Place

      Lately place matters a great deal. To achieve a sense of place we must feel like we are present in it—engaged, aware, interactive. Place is memory carried into the present. Like an old favorite pair of jeans that fit comfortably when we wear them.

      Lately I feel out of place. The cynicism, the ambivalence towards others, it’s all on the surface now. Perhaps it was always there and I didn’t see it in my blind optimism for people getting it right in the end. The ugly truth is there for all to see now. What’s hiding in plain sight is the recoil. The pendulum will swing again in time. Perhaps we’ll be here to see it.

      We may say goodbye to old beliefs about who we are, we may quietly move away from people who embrace what we don’t embrace, and we may find a place uniquely ours. Or we can sit in place wishing things were different. Active participation building the place we want to live our days is our only way forward.

      Place isn’t passive, it’s dynamic and action-oriented. To reach place we must go there and grab hold of it. We must carve something out of it as our own. Especially when things feel out of place, we must pull it together and keep going. Place is dynamic, after all, and so are we.

    • What Is Mine

      “We have to make the best use of the things which are actually in our power, and use everything else according to their nature.”
      — Epictetus, Discourses

      It’s easy to get caught up in things. I wrestle with it myself at times, mostly out of a sense of fairness. We were raised to know what is right and what is wrong, and when we see things that are wrong we expect to see things made right. This is folly. The world is unfair, it always has been, and the only way to navigate this world without being forever caught in despair is to let go of that which we cannot control. That doesn’t mean to give up, and it doesn’t mean to let the worst of humanity rule the roost either. It means to focus on what we have agency over and nothing more.

      “What is mine is mine, and what is not is not.”

      Epictetus was born into slavery, studied under Musonius Rufus and became famous as a philosopher after he was emancipated. So it’s easy to see how he latched onto this idea of focusing on what is within one’s power. If you’re a slave you don’t have much agency over your own life. When you’re emancipated, you have much more, but you’ve got that experience of being enslaved as insight into how to move through life.

      And what of us? What enslaves us? We may boast of being free, but how many of us fall in line with what other’s expect of us? How many are so tethered to the screen on their phone that they won’t look up and look someone in the eye? Which offers more truth for us? All we have is this moment together. We must learn to emancipate ourselves from that which enslaves us and focus on what is essential.

      “And when I do die, how will I die? Like a man who gives up everything that belongs to someone else.” — Epictetus, Discourses

      There are experiences we want to have in this lifetime. Some will be reached, some will fall by the wayside. What we do with our brief time isn’t always up to us, but we may control what we pay attention to and how we react to each encounter. Whatever will be will be (Que Sera, Sera). The rest will pass through our grasp. The secret to a happy life is learning to let those things fall away.

    • Practicing Lagom: Moderation and Balance

      “Lagom (pronounced [ˈlɑ̂ːɡɔm], LAW-gom) is a Swedish word meaning ‘just the right amount’ or ‘not too much, not too little’.
      The word can be variously translated as ‘in moderation’, ‘in balance’, ‘perfect-simple’, ‘just enough’, ‘ideal’ and ‘suitable’ (in matter of amounts).” — via Wikipedia

      I try (sometimes successfully) to live by the maxim, “all things in moderation”. So when I came across this Swedish word, lagom, that means roughly the same thing while awaiting a large latte at a cafe last week, I had to look into it more. I’m guessing that cafe has seen its share of over-caffeinated zombies shuffling in. A little art to remind us to chill was appropriate. When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

      Life is simple when we allow it to be. We ought to practice a routine of self-regulation, which also serves as an act of self-preservation. Like anything we hoard or overindulge in, it can overwhelm us if we let it. We can’t have it all, so why try to grab it all? It will drag us down and drown us if we don’t let go of the non-essential. What is essential? It’s really not all that much when we really think about it.

      My bride spent hours on a slushy Saturday cleaning up the attic, bagging used clothing to donate, throwing away things that couldn’t be donated but were no longer of use and generally getting things sorted for the new season. It was a good way to spend a wet and raw day. We accumulate things, and if we’re not careful those things end up ruling our lives.

      In that spirit of spring cleaning, springtime is also a good time to clean up some habits we’ve accumulated along the way. Perhaps we eat more than we should, or indulge in a bit too much wine or coffee or social media outrage. Perhaps we’ve grown lazy with a habit or two we thought would make all the difference in those heady days leading up to New Years Eve. Why not use this time to clean out the old and introduce something new?

      If life seems pretty tense at the moment, it may be a sign that we need to find a way to self-regulate. Stop over-indulging in the non-essential. Spring is a great time to reset and embrace the things that make us healthier, happier and more resilient against the stressors that are out of our control. What is “just enough” for us? Consume less, carry less, and lighten the load we bear. Stay in that lane awhile and we may find we have more spring in our step.

    • Beyond This

      “What labels me, negates me.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

      There is no them
      There’s only us
      — U2, Invisible

      It felt like we were winning at one time in our collective history. But even then there were angry people. Bitterness must be fueled, and a whole industry rose up to feed outrage to those who needed a taste of it. But it’s all so addictive, isn’t it? Soon the consumers are themselves consumed. Those of us who abstained barely know them anymore.

      And there we are; us and them. It’s easy to label them, even as we’re angry at the labels they put on us. Add separation, where one isn’t looking into the eyes of the person they’re calling one of them, and we all become dehumanized. And so it is that technology, once our great hope, has become our undoing.

      Is the genie out of the bottle? It seems that way. But I’m a believer in forward progress. Sure we take two steps back now and then. God knows we’ve regressed lately. But have hope. This too shall pass. The pendulum will swing back again.

      It’s easy to label, it’s harder to seek to understand. If we are to get beyond this, we ought to get over our anger and our labels and get to know each other instead. Even writing that it sounds naive, but tell me another way forward?

      Things are darkest before the dawn. We aren’t quite as dark yet as we could be, and the trend is shockingly downward, but when enough of us say, I’m not going down there, we may level off this spiral and find a safe landing. From solid ground we may climb once again.

      There is no them, there’s only us. Put enough of us together and soon there is no more them. Or we could just go back to shouting at each other, seeing how well that’s working out. We get to choose, at least until it’s too late for choices anymore.

    • What Belongs to Us?

      “Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      We know when we’re clicking on all cylinders just as we know when things aren’t going our way—by how we feel. We forget the physical sometimes when our brains try to dominate the conversation. It’s a good idea to take a deep breath now and then, if only to come back to our senses.

      There are days when I’m grateful that I write this blog, because it starts my days with thoughtfulness and random scraps of beauty collected along the journey. There are days when I consider doing something else with my time—usually when my ego gets in the way of reflection and deep thought. But writing is my way of opening up the receivers and letting in that which I wish to experience in this world. We can’t write about that which we haven’t first wrestled with. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be a transformative force multiplier for searching and categorizing information, but wrestling with the truth within us is still the work of poets and philosophers.

      So what belongs to us? The stuff we accumulate? It will all be divided amongst our survivors one day. The things that matter most are the moments of truth and beauty we wring out of our time dancing with life. Being aware of this and going deeper still is where things get real. All the meaningless stuff swirls about us making noise for attention is just a distraction from the realization that this is it: we are here now and must do the best we can with what we have.

      So breathe deeply, feel the possibility of the moment and recognize the fragility of what we’re so often cavalier about. We’re all just borrowing moments from infinity. What belongs to us is now. What might we do with it?

    • Changing the Game

      “Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately.” — Naval Ravikant

      Life is an ongoing encounter with moments of action. Action is either taken or deferred, which moves us in one distinct direction or another. Attainment is a series of choices to act just as stasis is a series of choices not to act. One single choice to act or not to act changes the game.

      “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

      Some days we are jolted into action. The scale gives us a number that horrifies us, the casual glance at the phone almost turns into a fender bender, the customer isn’t so friendly anymore. We know immediately in such moments that we’ve got to change our game. The choices become clear with the consequences.

      Other behavior isn’t so obvious. Vitality dies of neglect over time in our work, our relationships, our health and with our finances. Going through the motions is just another way of choosing not to act even if it feels like we’re busy. How many organizations that have lost their way schedule meeting upon meeting to avoid the uncomfortable truth that meaningful action is being neglected? How much of our own busywork is nothing but sidestepping the real work we must do in our own lives?

      “Anything above zero compounds.” — Sahil Bloom

      Do something, now, that changes the game. One pushup is better than zero. One call to an old friend is better than not making that call. And one minute focused on creative and meaningful work is better than spending that minute doom-scrolling yet again. What compounds from nothing? Nothing. Doing some small thing and then doing it again in our next moment of choosing action over inaction compounds into change.

      Life isn’t a game. We must choose deliberately who we will become and act on those choices again and again until we reach the person we wish to be. Personal excellence (Arete) requires an action-oriented lifestyle. We can only get from here and closer to there through consistent action. So what are we waiting for?

    • Basking In It

      “Time is not slipping through our fingers, time is here forever, it is we who are slipping through the fingers of time.” — David Whyte, Time

      I was texting with a friend who is struggling to balance work with a toddler. She’s prioritizing appropriately, and to use her words, basking in it every day. And shouldn’t she? The diapers and sleepless nights will soon slide into recitals and homework, which will slip into college tours and wedding announcements.

      Tempus fugit: time flies. But when we turn that around and look at it as Whyte has shown us, we realize it’s been us all along, slipping into infinity. This can be depressing or beautiful, depending on how we choose to spend that time. So bask away, friend. Let those grains of sand tickle a little as they flow past in such a hurry.