Alexandersmap

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    • Reading and Writing and All the Other Things

      “I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It’s greed, plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spent a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands.” — Anne Tyler

      “I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.” — Anne Tyler

      We read fiction to escape: to be someone else in another place, if only for a little while. We write fiction to explore: to create something bolder within ourselves that we might not otherwise explore, and drop these characters into the places we might not dare to go in a normal lifetime. To take a walk on the wild side without too much damage. Each of us seeks something more in this world in some way. Fiction offers safe passage to extraordinary places.

      This blog doesn’t dabble in fiction, although this writer has. There’s a distinct separation there, between fiction and non-fiction, and between creative output and daily observation. My name isn’t even Alexander, which may lend to the confusion. Certainly it doesn’t offer optimization of the brand. But so it goes. The motive isn’t to develop a brand, but a deeper understanding of the world and my place in it.

      Sometimes we want to explore other lives, represented in fictional characters who come to life in the pages of a book. Sometimes we want to explore the meaning in our own life, and optimize our potential in this brief go-around. If I’m sure of anything in this daily ritual, it’s that I’m a better writer and a better human for having consistently done it. Writers develop characters, and we also develop our own character. Those richer and bolder lives aren’t just on paper, after all, they’re within us too.

      This business of reading and writing is a lovely part of who we are, but let’s face it: Most of our life is made up of all the other things. When done well, we develop a deeper perspective and sense of place through our active participation in words, but also through our engagement with the world. We must step outside our comfort zone in small ways that lead to bigger and bolder things. Just as a snowball grows as we nudge it along, so we grow as we accumulate skill and confidence through repetitive action. As with the snowball, at some point it grows beyond our capacity to push it, and it is then that we must seek the help of others. We must develop the awareness and courage to ask for help when we find our pushing isn’t quite enough.

      When you stop to think of it, we’re each the authors of our own lives. Those characters we develop are often us. Just as they stretch and grow, so too do we. All the other things that make up a life are derived from our imagination and the courage to step out into the unknown. It shouldn’t just be fiction.

    • On Ritual and Routine

      “Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.” — Jane Kenyon

      Last year my bride and I took a morning walk on a quiet beach in the off-season. We saw an older gentleman swimming with his dogs in the brisk Atlantic Ocean and met him as we were walking back towards our car. Well, as is usually the case, his dogs met us first, and he joined them in introductions soon after. He looked like Obi-Wan Kenobi in a thick, hooded robe. He mentioned that he took this Atlantic Ocean plunge with his dogs every day of the year, no matter the weather. The robe and the walk back home were his rewards for completing this ritual, and were thus an integral part of it. His fitness level and radiance betrayed a lifestyle worthy of consideration.

      Lately I’ve thought more of lifestyle design—of deliberately choosing how to spend my remaining time on this earth in daily ritual and routine. We might agree that we’re already living our lives based solely on the bookends of ritual and routine. The question is, are we optimizing our life or should we build better bookends? Is writing first thing in the morning the best use of this time? Or is a long walk better? Or a brisk plunge into cold water? The answer is whatever sets the table for an exceptional day—what comes first should hardly matter, just that we do the things that, stacked together, make up a productive and meaningful day, and by extension, our life.

      We tend to track things like workouts, but don’t always track other things that make up our days. Tracking habits makes sense when you’re trying to establish or reinforce them. I began flossing every day when I stared at an empty box one day, knowing I’d broken the streak. A friend quit smoking simply so he didn’t have to leave a day on his calendar without a big X through it. We forget sometimes in our realization that we can’t control everything that we can control some things. And these small things, added up over time, become big things indeed.

      The way to be a good steward of our gifts is to protect our time in ritual and routine. Kenyon outlines hers in the magical quote above. We might add a few others that punctuate our own days. The trick in building these bookends is to fill the space in between with more activity worthy of our precious time. We know that that space will be filled either way—shouldn’t we make it fulfilling?

      Plunge into things that optimize your days

    • Aware in the Moment

      “Später ist zu spät.“ (Later is too late) — Peter Altenberg

      This morning I’m driving my daughter to the airport. Once again our time together was all too brief. We each pack a lot into our days, which means never enough time in the same attentive moment, but we make the time that we do have matter. None of us is perfect in our efficiency: We all waste time on unimportant things at the expense of the essential. But awareness helps with prioritization.

      Memento mori—Remember we all must die, one day hopefully many years from now. Or perhaps sooner, we simply don’t know for sure. But we ought to embrace that realization and do something about it. If not now, then when? Anything but now is a fool’s game.

      Whatever we are deferring that matters a great deal must be done now. There’s simply no guarantee for tomorrow. What would we do if we knew this was our last day together? We’d up our game, linger in moments, hug harder and be hyper-aware of everything. Let’s all hope for a longer timeline, but live with that urgency today anyway. Be aware in the moment. For it’s all that matters.

    • Buds of Fire

      And in the shadow of our human dream of falling,
      human voices are Creation’s most recent flowers,
      mere buds of fire
      nodding on their stalks.
      — Li-Young Lee, Dying Stupid

      Working through the gardening shed, I found a terra cotta pot sporting hints of old root filaments, betraying its previous occupant from last season. Each life takes their place in line, lives their season and moves on for the next to take their turn. The keen observer sees hints of past lives all around us, ghosts whispering that they once turned their gaze to the sun too. Gardeners know a thing or two about the tenuous hold we have on our time. So do writers and poets.

      May mocks the meticulous gardener. Put your best foot forward and the trees crap all over it, again and again, until you admit you aren’t in control of anything. Life offers lessons for the attentive student. Seasons come and go. So too do we. We are only here for a brief dance with our best intentions.

      Life is change—this we know. Some of those whispering ghosts are us, telling tales of past seasons gone forever, of who we used to be. Sometimes there’s just wisp of filament that betrays our past life, sometimes it’s the whole pot. Still, there’s work to be done in the now. While there’s time in this season, fill an empty pot with something new.

    • What Things, Accomplished?

      “The fact of the matter is that aiming discipline at the right habit gives you license to be less disciplined in other areas. When you do the right thing, it can liberate you from having to monitor everything.” — Gary Keller, The One Thing

      Doing the right thing begins with knowing what the right thing is, of course. Keller points out that that right thing ought to be our one thing we prioritize in a day. Not the only thing we focus on, mind you, but the box we must check before we move on to other things. His recommendation is time blocking, and working on it until you’ve achieved your goal for the day.

      As a daily blogger, that one thing for me is writing before I move on to other work or family time or exercise. The question is, what are we saying no to that we might say yes to our one thing? One might say the answer is that if you’re focused on the right thing, it doesn’t matter what you say no to. Everything aligns when we focus on the right thing, which Keller said more efficiently than I just did.

      But is writing a daily blog an appropriate one thing? Shouldn’t exercise or family or work be prioritized before writing? It’s not like I’m paying the mortgage with the stream of cash coming in from blogging revenue. The thing is, blogging isn’t about generating revenue for me (you won’t find an advertisement, a Substack subscription offer, or even a basic email subscription. No, the writing is free and probably too hard to find, and is simply a process of documenting my thoughts and observations. Come along for the ride or opt out—for it’s either welcome or no hard feelings, really.

      So what comes after the right thing has been checked off becomes the next one thing. We generally know what this ought to be, the trick is to time block for this second and third right thing the way we do our one thing. Does this make us overly structured in our days? Perhaps, but that which we don’t prioritize often gets overlooked. We must schedule ourselves lest we forget ourselves.

      So maybe the question shouldn’t be, “what’s the right thing?”, but “what things, accomplished, will make this a day without regrets?” More succinctly, decide what to be and go be it. Of course, everything begins with one. But it shouldn’t end there.

    • All Perfect Light and Promises

      Sleep baby sleep
      Now that the night is over
      And the sun comes like a god
      Into our room
      All perfect light and promises
      — INXS, New Sensation

      The days of May grow longer and full of daylight, which means that the early morning hours are brighter and full of their own promise. These are the days when I wake up feeling like I’ve missed out on something special if it’s already light out. I thrive on astronomical twilight and the hope of the coming day. Each morning ought to be celebrated for the ripe potential it offers.

      These are all days to remember, but memories are built on action and an underlying purpose. We aren’t here to make it through the day, but to make something of the day. We feel this most intentionally in the early morning light. For it truly is the start of something new.

      I dwell on early starts and dabble in productivity, for each are a bridge to fulfill the promise of the day. We owe it to ourselves to meet our purpose and potential head-on and make something of each in the brief allotment of time offered. The trick is to be nimble and open to everything that comes our way, without being bogged down by distraction. When you get up earlier than most people you find elbow room to process such things as priorities and purpose.

      What would we give for one more day? Someday we’ll wish for it, won’t we? Get up and greet the morning, and bring to the day everything that would be answered in this question. As the expression goes, this new day wasn’t promised to us, but it is a gift. Feel the energy in the promise, the vibrancy of place, the potential of the start. Amplify that feeling with full awareness and hope. And dance with it.

    • Which One Stirs?

      “I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.” — Hermann Hesse, Demian

      We all listen to whispers—hints and suggestions and guidance from deep within. We usually don’t act on most of these. Perhaps some seem reckless, or frivolous. Perhaps we don’t like the stretch out of a comfort zone. But now and then we do stretch, and sometimes even leap. The whisper is all we hear at times like this.

      The question isn’t what whispers to us, for there will always be whispers, the question is, which one stirs? We ought to do more of that. Naturally, we already know this. Do you wonder why we ever hear anything else? Or why we choose not to listen to our very own whisper more often?

    • The “I’m Glad I Did” Lens

      “Go live your life. Live it fully, without fear. Live with purpose, give it your all, and never give up.” Effort is important, for without it you will never succeed at your highest level. Achievement is important, for without it you will never experience your true potential. Pursuing purpose is important, for unless you do, you may never find lasting happiness. Step out on faith that these things are true. Go live a life worth living where, in the end, you’ll be able to say, “I’m glad I did,” not “I wish I had.” — Gary Keller, The One Thing

      Without being reckless, what would you have done differently yesterday? How about this year? Who would you spend time with? Where would you linger a beat longer? Where would you have gone if not for the place you stayed instead? What work would you have applied yourself to, worthy of your precious time? In other words, what do you regret leaving off the table in this brief life?

      Perhaps, choose to do it today. Perhaps reach out to that person. Perhaps, linger in the moment when it arrives instead of rushing off to the next urgent thing. Perhaps, book the trip today, while there’s still precious time. Live through the lens of “I’m glad I did” and defer “I wish I had” instead. Be focused. Be intentional. Be bold.

      There is the idea of deathbed regrets. We are all on our deathbed, whether today or a hundred years from now. We ought to feel the urgency in that realization and do something with our time. Through what lens do we view the world? Choose the “I’m glad I did” lens. We probably won’t regret it.

    • The Clear Path

      “We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” — Robert Brault

      I have a work friend who works at a frenetic pace. He’s constantly charging from one thing to the next, in a hyper-reactive state trying to do more than one ought to aspire to in a day. His favorite self-depreciating joke is to turn his head sideways and yell “Squirrel!” and take a step in that direction. In a way that’s exactly what he’s doing with his time. Despite his best intentions, the chase becomes his day, the path always changing in crisis mode. His answer is to work even harder.

      The world wants us to fall in line, to play our part, to belong to something bigger than ourselves. The trouble starts when we aspire to greater things. We might decide what to be and head down the path to being it, but there are so many seemingly urgent distractions along the way. Greater things call to us, but good enough is so very much closer.

      Every day we check the boxes: writing, exercise, flossing, etc. that move us from this to that. Incremental progress isn’t a leap, but it’s progress nonetheless. We are, after all, on the path to our goal. But is it enough? Baby steps aren’t quite a stride, let alone a leap. But it helps if those baby steps go in the direction we’re aiming at. Save the squirrel chase for some other day.

      There’s something to be said for upping the ante. When we aren’t progressing forward quickly enough we may choose to take a leap: Sign up for a 5K, or a writing class in Paris, or make a bet with a friend with stakes high enough to make you uncomfortable (like donating money to a candidate you despise if you don’t hit your goal by a certain date). These stakes aren’t a clear path, but they sure help us focus on it.

      Life flies right on by, whether we chase our dreams or not. We ought to pursue the greater at the expense of the lesser. This begins with ratcheting up those incremental habits to something more like a stride, or even a leap. We’re less likely to stray down a side path when we’re charging along towards our primary goal. Raise the stakes, and the path becomes clear.

    • Heaven, On Earth

      “When conditions are such that life offers no earthly hope, somewhere, somehow, men must find a refuge.” — Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

      Everybody wants to go to heaven
      Get their wings and fly around
      Everybody want to go to heaven
      But nobody want to go now
      — Jim Collins / Marty Dodson, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

      Heaven is sometimes believed it to be the light at the end of the tunnel in an otherwise bleak and miserable life. It offers hope when there’s no reason to believe there ought to be any. Others describe it as a place to aspire to—an exclusive club that only the truly enlightened amongst us will ascend to. I’m not sure I’m buying that. We’re already in an exclusive club having been born at all. Do we accept the miracle of being alive each day we wake up? If we don’t celebrate this miracle, what makes us believe we’ll behave any different if we reach Heaven?

      “I don’t feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it’s here. And I think anything good that you’re going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.” ― Katharine Hepburn

      I fall in Hepburn’s camp on the idea of Heaven. It’s all very nice to talk of an afterlife and being happy then, but we live here and now. This is our time to fly. We’ve each hit the birth lottery, and thus far have evaded the grip of the Grim Reaper. Isn’t that cause for celebration? We might think of this lifetime as an apprenticeship for whatever comes then, should we be so bold as to believe we’ll ascend to such a place.

      Simply put, when we defer to this “someday when” we do a disservice to ourselves and the universe. Sure, we can’t always control whether our lives at the moment are heavenly or hellish, but we can control how we react to it. And most of us can do a lot more than that.

      “Take care to create your own paradise, here and now on earth” — Omar Khayyam

      Stories about heaven and hell offer guidance that historically helped keep society together. But the same stories can be used to pull people apart. We see a fair amount of that divisiveness in the world today, with people using stories of heaven and hell to justify horrific behavior and violence. If there are indeed Holy Gates I’m not sure I’d walk through the same way some of these characters believe they’ll be going. So maybe save the preaching for someday when. Nothing speaks louder than action. Give me fairness and love and living by the Golden Rule. Celebrate and honor the miracle right here.