Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • A Free Mind in a Chaotic World

      “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” — Epictetus

      Let’s face it, the world is a hot mess right now. Anger, disgust and outrage are delivered daily to our news feed, just waiting for us to consume it. There are countless reasons to focus on the state of the world, but one big reason not to: it removes our focus from the things we can control, leaving us in a constant state of distraction. We become enslaved to the people who demand our attention. To hell with them! Focus on that which we may control instead.

      I’m not saying we should turn our back when the barbarians are at the gate, merely to lock the gate and defend the fort. What is within that must be protected? Our attention, our precious time, our health and well-being, and that of our family. When measured against the infinite unknown to come, our time alive ought to be focused on far more than things we have no agency over.

      So respectfully, I will grow quiet and distant when prompted for outrage. I will fight for all that is right in this world against those who would destroy it for profit, but I won’t dabble in their daily dose of distraction. There is so much to be done with this time already. Free the mind from the chaos and attend to that which we may control instead.

    • There Was Happiness

      “And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.” ― Stephen King , The Dark Tower

      Did you watch Stranger Things? Did you care about it at all? The answer to both of those questions was yes for me. Not the emphatic yes! of a super fan, but most certainly a yes. Like Game of Thrones and a few other select shows, it grabbed many people and wouldn’t let go. And the ending was about as good as it could have been. So bravo to the entire crew that put it together, beginning with the Duffer brothers.

      So many stories try to end perfectly, with all the answers sown up neatly to satisfy everyone. Life isn’t so tidy. Sunshine and roses may please the masses as the credits roll or we close the book, but we all return to the reality of life in all its complexity. There are no happily ever afters, but there will be happiness. And that may just be enough. We are as happy as what we choose to focus on in our lives. Mostly it’s mindset that determines our outcomes.

      We simply cannot have all the answers to our questions. Life is full of contradictions. It’s unfair yet seeks balance, complicated yet simple, and of course joyful and devastatingly tragic all at once. No storybook endings, but an end with many questions. We learn and grow and do the best we can along the way. Maybe that’s not enough, or maybe it is everything.

      It may help to remember that every ending is a new beginning. We wake up to a new day and have a choice as to how we react to it. If we hated how yesterday ended, we may write a better story today. If we loved it, build on it. The only way to live is to rise to meet each day as best we can, having learned from the last one. It was never about a happily ever after, it was about rising to meet the future one day at a time.

    • Conversations and Calories

      “Joy is not produced because others praise you. Joy emanates unbidden and unforced. Joy comes as a gift when you least expect it. At those fleeting moments you know why you were put here and what truth you serve. You may not feel giddy at those moments, you may not hear the orchestra’s delirious swell or see flashes of crimson and gold, but you will feel a satisfaction, a silence, a peace—a hush. Those moments are the blessings and the signs of a beautiful life.” ― David Brooks, The Road to Character

      The last few weeks of the year tend to fly by more quickly than all the rest. Holiday parties, reunions, the rush to get gifts and wrap them—it all adds up to a frenzy of experiences lumped together where one doesn’t stand apart from another, but instead they blend into one. Conversations and calories accumulate in rapid succession, we grow satiated and yet want for more. The shortest days of the year thus become some of our most full.

      To focus on improvement is to step back towards balance, towards that which we aspire to be. Balance is a word that infers we have somehow become unbalanced. But don’t we wish for the richness and delight that those conversations and calories bring us? Sure, moderation is the key to a healthy life, but we starve ourselves all year. A few brief hours of richness and delight offer their own form of balance, should we recognize the moments for what they are.

      We know that those calories add up and that the scale doesn’t lie, and soon there will be renewed focus on moderation. We know that people return to their routines and begin once again to look ahead to longer days. There will be days of quiet solitude that whisper of loneliness, if we let our guard down, if we begin to compare what we have on our busiest days with what we have when the schedule is full of blank spaces. We ought to remember that life ebbs and flows, and the ebb is as natural as the flow. Accepting both is the path to a beautiful life.

    • Inevitable Leveling

      “Yes I know that the drop of water carried along by its weight, can ascend to the sky in vapor only to fall again in rain. But the wear and tear of rock, the gravel that the stream carries to the river and the river to the sea, the granite that disintegrates, I know that all that will not again go up the fatal incline; and the highest mountains dissolve into the valley, the plain where their ruins accumulate and become equal. Everything falls from a height less and less lofty with a fall more and more shallow. This inevitable leveling is accomplished hour by hour and minute by minute under our very eyes. In life manner the whole material world equalizes and tempers its energies.” — André Gide, Autumn Leaves

      The world is full of political upheavals, violent ascents to power and greedy grabbers of gobs of money. It has always been this way, it likely always will. Such drama always grabs headlines. We may even say rightfully so, for we all ought to pay attention to those who want it all, because we’ve seen where the pursuit of everything leads them.

      It’s the gradual leveling out through democracy, diplomacy, equal opportunity and consensus-building that quietly builds worlds, results in decades of relative stability and peace. We get a little too complacent in such times. We grow comfortable and lazy with democracy. We stop being frugal and become over-exuberant in our spending habits. We forget that to be indebted to others is to be an indentured servant. The opportunists see their opening and away they go.

      Time settles everything. It likely won’t be in our lifetime, but maybe in that of our grandchildren’s children maybe humanity will reach its potential. Assuming we don’t destroy humanity and mother earth in the interim. Earth will bounce back when she shrugs us off (she has eternity to level out again, after all). It’s humanity’s story that is being written through time.

      It’s easy to lose faith in humanity when things seem so ugly. But even now there is an inevitable leveling happening right before our eyes. It’s best to be patiently aware, ethically opportunistic and emotionally resilient when ugliness reigns. After all, we’re playing the long game. It’s best to remember that, especially as others forget.

    • The Joyful Stir

      “You must learn to drink the cup of life as it comes … without stirring it up from the bottom. That’s where the bitter dregs are!” — Agnes Sligh Turnbull

      Celebrating the holidays is easy when we’re around friends and family. It’s not as easy for those who are alone. Some are blessed with an abundance of people in their lives through proximity and an inclination for connection. Some go out of their way to stay away. Be yourself, but know that you always have a place at our table.

      I have two neighbors who have lived next to each other for a quarter century who won’t make eye contact with each other but go out of their way to say hello to everyone else who walks up the street. Some people are naturally closer than others. Something was said, some point of contention remains, stubborn righteousness kicks in and the years go by with scarcely a nod between them. It’s extraordinary to behold.

      Generational baggage clings to some families. Like my two neighbors, whatever it was that happened, it never fades away. Awareness reveals entire family histories. A family may be at the same Christmas party and be as far away from each other as if they were in separate countries, while laughing and bonding with the rest of us. Why? Only they know, but the holidays are no time to stir up the bitter dregs.

      We ought to learn to be alone, if only to ensure that when we inevitably are, we aren’t so lonely. To be alone in a room full of people is an inclination, as much as not being lonely when there’s nobody there but us and the ticking clock. Joyfulness is an active-participation sport, and we reap what we sow. We ought to learn to let bygones be bygones, even in these contentious, divided times, and find a way back to connection. We must keep stirring joy, for when something is bitter, a little sweetener goes a long way.

    • The World Will Be What We Make It

      “I should like to say to the young people disoriented by the absence of faith: to make the world rime with something is up to you alone!
      It is up to man, and man is the starting point. The world, this absurd world, will stop being absurd; it is up to you alone. The world will be what you make it.
      The more you tell me and insist there is nothing absolute in this world and in our sky, that truth, justice and beauty are man’s creations, the more I insist that it is then up to man to maintain them, that his honor demands it. Man is responsible to God”
      — André Gide, Autumn Leaves

      Gide took on the existentialists with this quote. In the aftermath of World War II, as an old man looking around at disoriented youth in France and beyond, he stood for faith and a higher power. In a book that often felt like a rambling conversation to this point, he shook the room with this chapter entitled “Literary Memories and Present-Day Problems” from a lecture he’d done in 1946. The world was licking its wounds then, and in many ways we still haven’t recovered.

      Just who created truth, justice and beauty? Was it man or God? If it was the former, can it not simply be undone by mankind? Do we not see that happening in the world today? To put our faith in humanity to find its way back to the pillars of truth, justice and beauty relies on humanity being inclined to ascend to higher ground in the first place. Have you seen what people focus on?

      I write, perhaps too frequently, about arete or personal excellence as the standard. The fact is, most people are just trying to get through the day, never considering their own agency. To aspire to excellence for all of humanity seems naive at best. And so people turn towards God as the logical creator.

      I’m not here to challenge your faith, or to advocate for it either. I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, and we may coexist peacefully to the end of our days and find out who was right on the back end. But even writing that sentence would have been deemed too radical in some points in history, and in some places in the world today. So how are we to reach consensus on raising the standard for all of humanity? It seems beyond our collective ability to even try.

      Perhaps we may agree that the world is absurd. It surely is for those who pay attention to such things. And what are we to do with this absurdity but maintain our stance, that we aren’t knocked over in the tumultuous days that inevitably follow? We must be resilient, and build resiliency into our lives, that we may survive the ineptitude and carelessness of others. That we may dare to thrive in a fractured world.

      In order to maintain our stance, we must find solid ground on which to make our stand. For many, this is religion and faith. For others, it’s philosophy, nature, science, and law and order. One may of course believe in both, but those aren’t the people screaming for heads to roll. People become radicalized when they feel that their very foundation is being eroded by the whims of others. Nobody likes to have their foundations torn away by the non-believers of their particular belief.

      So where do we go from here? Honor demands more of us, if we are to ever be—what’s the word?—Great. But one person’s great is another’s chaos. No matter which “side” we fall on, we may agree that we have a long way to go. But agreeing requires consensus, not sides. There’s still so much work to do in our fight for truth, justice and beauty. And the world will be what we make it.

    • The Shared Secret

      Fool if you think it’s over
      ‘Cos you said goodbye
      Fool if you think it’s over
      I’ll tell you why
      New born eyes always cry with pain
      At the first look at the morning sun
      You’re a fool if you think it’s over
      It’s just begun
      — Chris Rea, Fool (If You Think It’s Over)

      Life is pain, as the Dread Pirate Roberts told Buttercup in The Princess Bride. It’s full of setbacks and sadness, betrayals and “between jobs” lean living. But it’s also full of climbs to redemption and epic comebacks and the finding of strides. The trick is to see beyond the pain of the moment and find a way to a better place beyond. To remember, always, that this too shall pass.

      Chris Rea passed away yesterday. He was bigger in the EU than he was in America, but he had that one ear worm of a song that stayed with you, reminding you that there will be more breakups and sad days in our future, but just keep singing your song and try again with the next one. And sure, there’s a life lesson there that resonates about pain and resilience and such very human things. Nobody said this would be easy.

      We look around one day and realize that we’ve been very lucky indeed with some things, not so lucky with some other things, but we’ve arrived here nonetheless. Wherever here is. Whatever we’re supposed to do with what we’ve arrived with. The lesson is to keep on figuring things out. That’s the shared secret we’re all working from. To keep on facing whatever life throws at us next and begin again.

    • A Change in Inclination

      Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
      Will the Summer come again?
      Rain on houses, on the street,
      Wetting all the people’s feet,
      Though they run with might and main.
      Rain and wind, and wind and rain.

      Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.
      Will the Winter never go?
      What do beggar children do
      With no fire to cuddle to,
      P’raps with nowhere warm to go?
      Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.

      Hail and ice, and ice and hail,
      Water frozen in the pail.
      See the robins, brown and red,
      They are waiting to be fed.
      Poor dears, battling in the gale!
      Hail and ice, and ice and hail.
      — Katherine Mansfield, Winter Song

      With the winter solstice come and gone, I thought it timely for us to consider a winter song. For the days are short, cold and dark, but aye, they are once again inclined towards longer. To be on the other side of the shortest day may mean little when the harshest winter days are ahead of us, or perhaps it means everything. As with all things, the choice is ours. And isn’t our perspective on life mostly based on what we choose to focus on?

      Winter Song reminds us that there are people suffering in the cold and dark of winter. Consider this a call to action to help those less fortunate than we are—surely the world needs more people focused on raising the average instead of spreading the gap. We cannot solve the problems in this world by ourselves, but we can make each person we interact with either colder and darker or warmer and brighter by the way we treat them. Again, the choice is ours to make.

      We may have almost nothing in common with each other, but we have some things in common, and something is a foothold to more things. Footholds lead to connection, so long as we aren’t pushing someone away. Abundance is a mindset, just as scarcity is. As the days begin to grow longer again, perhaps that tilt of the earth may offer a change in inclination within—an inclination towards connection. ’tis the season, after all.

    • Connection

      “Ye live not for yourselves; ye cannot live for yourselves ; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.” — Reverend Henry Melvill

      On Author’s Ridge at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts the legends are interred—Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, Thoreau and others. I’ve visited and written about Author’s Ridge many times in this blog, because it fascinates me that so many who reached such literary fame would then choose to spend eternity in such close proximity to one another. Emerson once said that “the only way to have a friend is to be one”. The legendary families of Concord lived this so deeply that they carried it over to death.

      There are only a few people who we count as true friends, but we build connection with countless people. Our connections form a network that serves us even as we serve the network. Each individual connection may be tenuous, but woven together with many others, trust is built, reputations are formed, careers are made and communities grow into something special.

      We learn that connections are dynamic. Some people that were simply connections grow into true friends, and some true friends slip back to connections. The fabric of our connections is dynamic and ever-changing, just as we ourselves change. We receive what we nurture. Connections form over time—but they also inform over time. We learn which connections will run deep and which are merely transactional in the moment.

      Some would say that it’s a little harder to have such connections as the Concord authors had now. We don’t all live in such close proximity today. Technology may make it easier to be connected, but it’s also an active agent in pulling us apart. To be connected, we must do our part to maintain that connection. Some people are just natural connectors, but it’s nothing more than checking in on someone now and then to see how they’re doing. Do it enough and a few actually check in on us too. We don’t have to consider eternity when we reach out, simply finding connection today is enough.

    • Survival Skills

      It’s been a frustrating week for people who believe in the inherent good in humanity. Violent acts played out in Australia and in the United States (who would have thought it could ever happen here?). Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, apparently by their own son, and the person who some believe is the leader of the free world chose to mock that horrible situation with a gleeful diatribe. Class act, orange clown.

      These are days that test the soul. For we want affirmation that we were right about people being good, because we do our best to be good ourselves, and assume others will be doing the same thing. There’s a Latin expression from the New Testament that explains this phenomena: Omnia munda mundis (To the pure, all things are pure). Isn’t it pretty to think so?

      Trust, but verify is a better expression to live by. We covered that last week in this blog. It’s okay to believe in the inherent good in others, but don’t stake your life on it. History is littered with the corpses of trusting souls crushed in the blood lust of evil bastards who don’t think the way that we do. Accepting that fact helps us to figure out who’s truly good and who’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

      We are all doing the best we can in a world full of good people, but peppered by rogues and sociopaths. It behooves us to develop the street smarts to discern who the latter might be. It’s all just survival skills, like learning to look both ways before crossing the road or sniffing the chicken that’s been in the refrigerator for a few extra days. Our ancestors lived long enough to deliver us here, the least we can do is stop believing we live in a Harlequin Romance novel, that we may carry our good genes forward to future generations.