Alexandersmap

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    • On Pace

      “Everything and everyone at their own pace. Flow with not against yourself.” ― Akiroq Brost

      There’s no doubt some days are busier than others, but barring the random crisis that falls from the sky, in general we create the conditions within which we live our days. So when our pace of life feels frenetic, in general that’s on us for choosing a lifestyle that is perpetually reactive and jammed. Most of us have the agency to change our state over time.

      In general, I write and publish blog posts early in the morning before the world has a say in how I spend my time. When the world comes a-knockin’ it becomes exponentially harder to write. So protecting that time with minimal sensory download from the world allows me to honor the quiet space my mind enters when writing. Once that door is cracked open, it’s all over.

      I’ve thought about changing to a long-form blog post, published weekly instead of daily. I haven’t done that mostly because clicking publish every day is one of the primary reasons I write every day. The moment I take that tangible check box away (publishing), the moment my sense of urgency to write fades. My identity as a blogger is very much associated with publishing.

      Pace is a mindset as much as a physical output. Our capacity and limitations determine our pace, but so too does our decision-making. We can run at top speed until the wheels come off or we can make a pit stop now and then. We know the wheels are coming off when we start to wobble a bit. And we know when the tank is running dry when our engine starts to cough. It goes without saying that we don’t want to run at that pace if we’re in it for the long haul.

      Ultimately, pace is determined by deciding what the finish line is and adjusting our day-to-day accordingly. We can sprint until we stumble and fall flat on our face, but what good is that if we’re only a mile into a marathon? Pace becomes as essential to finishing as starting in the first place. We decide what to be and can go be it, but only if we set a sustainable pace from here to there.

    • A Matter of Who

      Times and places
      Are all in who you share ’em with
      And it’s life, and the point is
      Enjoyin’ who you share it with
      Joy is who you share it with
      — Layup, Who You Share It With

      A friend texted a few loosely-aligned friends to ask if any of us would be interested in going to a Donald Trump appearance at a country club nearby. It’s known within this circle of friends that I’m the least likely to participate in something like this of the lot of us, but as a history buff there was still a small part of me that would consider it, just to see this character who has done so much to turn the world upside down. In the end I opted out for many more reasons than why I’d ever opt in. My vote cancelling out my friend’s a given, the friendship will survive the difference of opinion on who should be thought of as a leader, simply because we choose for it to survive.

      Whether we find happiness and purpose in any given place and time is often a matter of who we spend our time with. The people on the bus as we ride through life—our circle of friends, the people we work or go to school with, teammates—all determine just how much we enjoy the ride. We ought to get off the bus if it’s not particularly joyful to be on it, and find another one that brings us to the place we’d like to be.

      Thinking back on my friend, I remembered that some of the most joyful times I’ve had in the last twenty years were with him and some of the other characters on that text message. Doesn’t that count for something more than who we might vote for in an election? There are always matters of scarcity and abundance, ebb and flow, in our lives. The tragedy is when scarcity is a mindset, and we forget the abundance of reasons why we were drawn together in the first place.

      There’s a gap that develops with some friendships as we grow and experience different things in life. Without proximity and purpose, we drift away from most people at some level. Sometimes we drift back again, and sometimes we don’t. Things like politics and pandemics challenge friendships and we find that sometimes the relationship doesn’t pass the test. But sometimes we decide that the common ground offers far more joy than the gaps subtract.

    • The Rhythm of Routine

      “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” ― Will Durant, The History of Philosophy

      We get into a rhythm of routine in our lives. When we travel frequently this becomes our rhythm. When we hike or sail or play pickle ball every free moment we’re in a rhythm of routine. And when we do nothing but stare at a computer monitor all day we’re most definitely in a rhythm of routine. We find a rhythm that works for us and we dance with it for as long as we feel the beat in our souls.

      We’re just past two weeks into a new year as this is published. It’s a good chance to review progress thus far and ask ourselves, are we getting where we thought we’d go when we rounded the corner on last year? Does that rhythm of routine feel right or do we need to change the playlist? Are the weekends filling up with joyful pursuits, or are we stumbling through to Monday? Does the work feel right or are we looking towards Friday?

      We are reminded now and then that we need the right dance partner or we never quite feel the rhythm enough to dance with it. Sure, we can dance by ourselves, but what’s the fun in that? Any adventure in life is better together. With the right partner, we become accountable, and push each other just enough to go that much farther into the world. And surely, the right partner also keeps us from charging off the cliff when we get ahead of ourselves.

      Looking at my own daily habit tracker, I see a pattern very similar to last year’s habit track. Some things I defined as absolutely essential to the rhythm I want to be dancing in aren’t being checked frequently, if at all. Some are tracking nicely to firmly establish themselves as part of my identity. Nothing speaks more clearly than the truth staring back at you in black and white. We must measure our progress, that we may reconcile our beliefs with our behavior.

      Indeed we are what we repeatedly do. Does the rhythm of our routine feel right for us to reach personal excellence? The answer lies in progress—incremental or in big leaps forward. Are we getting there, or settling into a routine of excuses and complacency? We can reset ourselves at any time, really. Why not now?

    • More Than Having Visited

      When death comes
      like the hungry bear in autumn;
      when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

      to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
      when death comes
      like the measle-pox;

      when death comes
      like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

      I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
      what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

      And therefore I look upon everything
      as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
      and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
      and I consider eternity as another possibility,

      and I think of each life as a flower, as common
      as a field daisy, and as singular,

      and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
      tending, as all music does, toward silence,

      and each body a lion of courage, and something
      precious to the earth.

      When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
      I was a bride married to amazement.
      I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

      When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
      if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
      I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
      or full of argument.

      I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
      — Mary Oliver, When Death Comes

      I feel sometimes like I’ve read every Mary Oliver poem over and over again, then stumble upon one of those poems as if for the first time. Our experience in life comes down to what we’re paying attention to in the moment. Look one way and we see a shooting star. Look the other way a crouching tiger. Surely there are tigers in this world ready to pounce, but Lord give me the stars.

      The thing is, we all know how the world can be. None of us is living with our head in the sand, pretending everything is going to be okay. Sometimes things aren’t okay at all. Sometimes we’re faced with more than our share. In most cases the universe aligns behind us (for here we are), but we forget to honor the miracle in the noise of being alive.

      We may develop a reverence for living if we’re born in the right place at the right time, with the blessing of more stars than tigers. We may be keenly aware of the injustices in the world without building a fortress of our own against an imagined adversary. To live a full life we must be steadfastly open, that we may be bursting with wonder. Nothing closed up is ever truly filled.

      We are here for more than just a visit, friend. A life is really nothing more than one full day at a time, beginning with the one at hand. Even when some yesterdays leave us a bit disenchanted and empty, our todays are an occasion to gather up as much wonder as we can carry, that we may share our abundance with others. There’s enough magic to go around, should we bring attention to it.

    • Tipping the Scale Towards Progress

      “Each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint… I want to suggest some of the things that should be in your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life’s blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth and your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you fell that you are nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance. Now that means that you should not be ashamed of your color… Don’t be ashamed of your color. Don’t be ashamed of your biological features. Somehow you must be able to say in your own life and really believe it, ‘I am black but beautiful’ and believe it in your heart.

      Secondly, in your life’s blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You’re going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life, what your life’s work will be. And once you discover what it will be, set out to do it, and to do it well.

      And I say to you, my young friends that doors are opening to each of you. Doors of opportunities are opening to each of you that were not open to your mothers and to your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to enter these doors as they open...

      And when you discover what you are going to be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. And just don’t just set out to do a good ‘negro’ job… Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.”
      — Martin Luther King, Jr. “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?” speech at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967

      When you watch any speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. you feel the urgency of the moment he was living in. There was simply no time to waste. He said it as a preface of this speech in Philadelphia, speaking to young students who were at the beginning of their own journey to becoming. I wonder how things turned out for those students? How many heard the call and rose up to personal excellence? How many of us, hearing it today, will aim higher in our own pursuit?

      The thing is, we know how MLK’s story ended, just six months after this speech. Yet he lives on, transcending life itself to reverberate and resonate with generations long after the generation of middle school kids who listened to him speak that day. Precisely because he’d reached higher, arrived at the pulpit and turned to guide those who would follow.

      The world has turned more cynical once again, pushing against the momentum of change. There is an ebb and flow to progress, like a pendulum swinging. One side gains momentum, the other side resists and pushes back. Populism is predictable in this way, and generally requires the right voices to stand out in the noise and be the tipping point. For every autocratic bully rallying the crowd one way, there’s a voice calling to push back towards progressivism and human dignity. One step forward, two steps back for some period of time, then two steps forward, one back soon thereafter. Humanity’s history writes itself one swing at a time.

      Knowing this, we must continue to rise—not just in personal excellence, but generational excellence. There’s too much at stake in the world to settle for the narrative of the miserable. The swing towards autocracy isn’t a given, it’s merely a push. We can surely push back for progress. The scales can be tipped when we rise to the moment.

    • Evolving the Spirit

      “The monotony of life contains a reservoir of ways to find relief, if we can only muster the courage and energy to dive in instead of opting out. If today you find yourself bored with your work—perhaps surfing around and reading some random essay on happiness—you may have just gotten a signal from the universe that it’s time for your spirit to evolve.” — Arthur C Brooks, “Kierkegaard’s Three Ways to Live More Fully”, The Atlantic

      Within the rhythm of living our lives, we may get stuck in a routine that strikes us as boring. Same menu for dinner, same commute, same seat at the same desk we’ve sat in front of for long enough that the thrill of new is long gone. What are we to do in such moments? Change everything? Paint the entire inside of the house again? Get another dog? Travel to faraway places that are fresh and new and distinctly different in every way from the norm? Perhaps. There’s a time for such changes in a lifetime. But there’s also a time for staying put and wrestling with the restlessness of routine by looking inward.

      There’s a secret in blogging every day different from, say, journaling. It’s a daily reconciliation of the writer with the blank page that must be transformed into something substantial. Like each day itself, we are faced with making something of it when we begin again each morning. What is interesting in the universe today? What have we encountered that is a distinct step away from from boring? What surprises and delights us? Scratch that itch and see where it takes us.

      I write this savoring the last of a magnificent cup of coffee. It’s the first of the day, and truly, I hate to see it end. Sure, a second cup is just around the corner should I need it, but it isn’t about having more and more, it’s about savoring what I have in the moment. Sometimes that’s more than enough to carry the day.

      If this sounds like a retreat from the pursuit of rich experience, let me assure you that’s it’s just the opposite. We can’t run from one thing to the next without diving deeply into the experience we’re having at the moment. That’s not immersing ourselves in living a rich life, that’s nothing but a buffet of casual indulgences. Empty calories that we may come to regret one day. ’tis better to choose our daily diet of experience with an eye towards a more nutrient-rich, enlightening way.

      As Brooks points out in the article linked above, Kierkegaard recommend immersion in pursuits of substance like reading, meaningful relationships and our life’s work. Lectio Divina, or divine reading, is not just reading something, but following the steps of lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), contemplatio (contemplation), and oratio (prayer). We may naturally adapt this methodology to our lives beyond reading: That cup of coffee has been consumed, savored, reflected upon and expounded upon. Isn’t that a better life experience than absent-mindedly sipping it to empty and realizing afterwards that you forgot to savor it?

      Blogging isn’t just documenting everything that we stumble upon in this life, but taking those steps of participating in it, immersion, contemplation and finally, talking about it (oratio). This process may not feel efficient in a multi-tasking, harried world, but it’s surely a better way to live. When we break ourselves of the need for constantly new entertainment for the senses, we learn to live more and savor the moment at hand. We find that what we have isn’t at all boring, but something to dive deeper into.

    • The Reach

      “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

      The thing about reaching is that it’s inherently less comfortable than staying in place. We stretch ourselves in the reach. We experience unusual things, sometimes unimaginable things, when stepping out of the familiar. Sometimes we find this unsettling, but sometimes we encounter delight and wonder. The reach is almost always worth it for who we become.

      Yes, we must seek new experiences, that we may fully live. Life will fly right on by whether we embrace the challenge of living boldly or shrink into whatever timid role we began the day in. Life may be thrilling when we make it so, just as surely as it may be trivial and boring when we stay in our shell. By all means, we must break out of it and try a new one on for size.

      The reach shouldn’t feel impossible. It should simply be a reach. And when we reach that point, reach again. In this way we expand our lives and become something more… and more. Mistakes will be made, lessons will be learned, and we will grow.

      Abundance in a lifetime isn’t a stack of gold or shiny things, it’s the experiences we have and the people we surround ourselves with. To reach is to actively engage with the world and to grow into whomever we may become—closer to our potential, closer to excellence.

    • Time Will Have His Fancy

      ‘The years shall run like rabbits,
      For in my arms I hold
      The Flower of the Ages,
      And the first love of the world.’
      But all the clocks in the city
      Began to whirr and chime:
      ‘O let not Time deceive you,
      You cannot conquer Time.
      ‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
      Where Justice naked is,
      Time watches from the shadow
      And coughs when you would kiss.
      ‘In headaches and in worry
      Vaguely life leaks away,
      And Time will have his fancy
      To-morrow or to-day.
      — W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening

      January seems to be the time for planning out the year in neat blocks of time, priorities and action steps. It’s fairly easy work to define what must be done, it’s harder to actually do it. The execution of a plan is always the trick, isn’t it? Yet broken down into small enough steps, we somehow find the task more manageable. It seems there’s always enough time for the things that matter most, should we build our lives around our priorities. But time has other plans for us, should we lose our way.

      Lately in my work I talk a lot of urgency. We ought to feel it in our bones, and do something about it now. It’s cliché for a reason, for it matters a great deal in said execution of plan. It’s a call to arms, really—a reminder that time flies and the wishes of today are the regrets of tomorrow. We must therefore seize what flees, as our old friend Seneca reminded us.

      Later in Auden’s magical poem, he writes of wondering what we’ve missed. Wrestling with the eternal, we realize that we are not. We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass, as Chet Powers wrote and The Youngbloods made famous. It’s an unfair practice to dwell on that which has slipped from our grasp if we use the tally to embrace a helpless state of low agency, but when we use these moments to learn to be bolder in our choices now they may be just the catalyst we need. Feel the urgency yet? Carpe diem, friend. Tempus fugit.

      All this is nothing but a stack of words until we do something with our time. Be bold. Be audacious. Decide what to be and go be it. Today will slip away just as all the rest have. Yet we may still do something with the hour at hand.

    • The Communal Nature of Creativity

      “Your dreams don’t belong to you. If you hold on too tightly to them without recognizing the mutual and communal nature of creativity, your work will probably not have significant impact in the world.” — Drew Holcomb

      Writing a blog doesn’t feel communal, it feels more like a drawing out of oneself something internal and placing it out in the world for the reader to do with it what they will. The fact that almost 8 billion people will ignore it isn’t even the ego hit one might believe it to be, it’s not even the fact that it won’t ever reach the level where it’s a blip on the radar for those almost 8 billion people. Ego isn’t creative, it’s only role is to fuel the audacity to publish anything at all, and then let people in on the secret. After that it awkwardly gets in the way and is best pushed aside.

      The communal part of blogging is when you click publish. The work is then out there for others to interact with. For random strangers who stumble upon it, it’s a chance to hear a new voice and accept or reject that voice on their own path to finding out. For the loyal subscriber, it’s a choice of whether to let the steady drip, drip, drip of a daily blog become a part of their daily conversation. And for the inner circle of family and friends who read what this character has to say, it’s a chance to reconcile the person they know with the words they might be surprised by. I’m just as surprised, some days.

      Writing a blog isn’t thought of as collaborative. It’s the writer’s thoughts and opinion put to page, and not generally the product of the community with which that writer engages in. And yet we are the average of the five people we surround ourselves with. The influence of my community is as clearly reflected in the work that I produce as any book I’ve ever read or experience I’ve had. In fact, many of those same books and experiences are being had by that community and discussed over beverages now and again.

      There’s no doubt that music is one form of creativity better expressed communally. Lennon had McCartney and was the better for it. And then he had Yoko, and took his work to a different and far more personal place. When one looks at his entire body of work, we see his transformation as the influence of those around him ebb and flowed. The chorus naturally reverberates more than the solo artist. That doesn’t take away the power of the individual artist, it amplifies it. For art to speak, it must engage with others, which means that the artist must also engage with others. So, hello and welcome! Nice to have you here. Drop a comment.

    • Life Happens

      “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let is destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ― Dr. Seuss

      Talking to an acquaintance recently, he relayed a series of tragedies that had befallen his family. One day everything was relatively normal, the next bad news was dropping all around them. Having been there a few times in my own life, empathy and supportiveness are drawn upon readily. We can take all the measures to be more resilient, but no matter the measure, life happens.

      “Be still, my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” ― Homer, The Odyssey

      The more we live, the more we live through—the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Each informs, and when we pay attention, we learn lessons that will mitigate the impact of the next. Life isn’t easy and it’s definitely not fair, but it’s still worth the ride. Often our most beautiful moments are on the other side of darkness. Yet so many people among us focus only on the darkness, hate and misery in the world. They never get to the other side where beautiful lies, instead sinking deeper and deeper into the well. What kind of life is that?

      “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” — Thomas Fuller

      Remembering that this too shall pass, with a purpose transcending our darkest days, is one way out. Sometimes it’s simply finding others who have been there before us, that we may see the light. Strength comes from stressors, whether we welcome them or not is beside the point. The best way to climb out of the abyss is to find climbing buddies. We may all lift each other up to a brighter place. If not now, then someday.