Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Following Your Own Way

      If you want, then start to laugh
      If you must, then start to cry
      Be yourself, don’t hide
      Just believe in destiny
      Don’t care what people say
      Just follow your own way
      Don’t give up and use the chance
      To return to innocence
      — Enigma, Return to Innocence

      This blog is inching along again. Inching towards what, exactly? Proficiency in writing? Show up and create something every day and see where it takes you. If nothing else, we become better at shipping the work, and there’s a lot to be said for doing what we tell ourselves we’re going to do. Keeping promises to oneself matters a great deal in a world of broken promises and shattered dreams. We may not be able to rely on everyone, but we can learn to rely on ourself. The trick is to up the ante with those promises. What got us here is great, but it won’t get us there—and there is where we’re trying to get to.

      Enigma is on my life soundtrack, and when I hear a song like Return to Innocence, I remember exactly where and who I was at the time. It turns out I’ve come a long way since then. We don’t generally leap from untapped potential to arete, we show up every day and incrementally drag ourselves through the good days and the bad, until one day we look around and realize we’ve done what we’d told ourselves we wanted to do and then some. Suddenly, that song means something completely different than it did then. Or maybe it’s us that’s completely different.

      So have we arrived at the place we aimed for when we started? Are we even aiming for the same thing? More likely, we’re still a work in progress, with different goals now than we had then. We are likely better from where we were but with some work still to do towards where we are going. We humans are always moving the goal posts as we grow.

      Don’t care what people say, just follow your own way. We learn that following our own way is a tough grind. Well-meaning folks and more timid souls everywhere are quick to curb our enthusiasm for what they perceive as reckless behavior. Thank you for your concern; but I call BS. Nothing meaningful ever happens without risk. The lesson is always the same: be bold today to reap tomorrow’s rewards.

    • Afterglow

      Just my old guitar and me
      Out to find my destiny
      Nashville is the place to be
      For big dreams and faded jeans
      — Dolly Parton, Big Dreams and Faded Jeans

      Like the rest of the world, I found it easy to like Dolly Parton. She had a gift for lifting people up. Like many, I wonder why people like that pass from this world too soon while the worst characters in history live well past their welcome. Even wondering such a thing makes me a less beautiful spirit than Dolly Parton. Call me a work in progress then. May there be time to reach that kind of potential.

      I wasn’t much of a country music fan growing up, but Dolly Parton was still a large part of my life’s soundtrack. Her songs were seemingly everywhere, and so was she. By all appearances, she got everything out of her 80 years. A candle in the wind that somehow survived the stormiest of times. Someone like that, you just assume that they’ll always be there, doing their bit to light up the world. When they pass, you realize the fragility.

      Still, there’s an afterglow. Like Glen Hanson a few weeks back, there’s a catalog of music, movies and videos to look back on in wonder. The lesson for each of us mortals is to contribute something meaningful to others, that they may carry us with them when we are no longer around. Our time grows shorter, and yet there’s still time enough to make a difference in someone’s life. Those memories, like faded jeans, offer comfort when we return to them again and again.

    • To Rise Above

      “Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” — Washington Irving

      It happened again just yesterday. A friend called to use me as a sounding board for a self-described obsession over a shocking trial happening in Massachusetts right now. I listened politely for a while as she failed to pick up on my signals that I was the wrong audience for shock gossip. Eventually I was saved by a call coming in to exit stage left.

      For the record, I’m the wrong audience for any shock gossip. Don’t tell me what the neighbors have done now, tell me what you are doing to rise above it all. Forgive me if I pull away from the misfortunes of the world. One may be aware and empathetic without swimming in a pool of misery and indignation. Call me boring, call me ill-informed, call me no fun at all if it helps, but don’t call me to gossip about the world.

      I won’t apologize for my focus on the productive use of my days. We may debate whether the output is worth the trade-off in precious time, but the point is to be useful doing something meaningful, not gossiping about the folly of mankind. Here is real empathy: We’re all just stumbling around in the dark, trying to find our way in this lifetime. Mistakes and misfortune happen to all of us. It’s what we do about it that will matter in the end. The conversation I want to have is on just how we’re each achieving liftoff in our own quest to soar.

    • Something Gritty and Tangible

      Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
      Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
      So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
      Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Theologian’s Tale; Elizabeth

      We modern time travelers are forever busy, distracted and hustling on to the next. We ought to remember that many encounters we have will be our one and only exchange with a fellow time-traveler. Or it may be the last of many. The lesson? Savor the time together, however fleeting it may be. For we will never pass this way again.

      Since his untimely passing last week, I’ve been on a Glen Hansard binge. This often happens when an artist passes—we are reminded of their work, and seek to know more about what they’ve left behind that we may have missed. And with Glen Hansard, there is a whole catalog of brilliant, stunning music and film to choose from. Dare I say, he was the Van Morrison of Gen X.

      One might say the deck is stacked against us reaching even a small percentage of our potential, let alone our potential time with others. We must prioritize, and hope that we encounter the right ships in the night along our way, and at just the right time. This requires our receptiveness, active awareness and diligence, before the opportunity slips away forever.

      We can’t possibly experience everything, or know everyone. Inevitably something slips right through our grasp. Like sand, we can’t grab hold of it too tightly or too much squeezes through. But we can grab our share and hold on just tightly enough to feel we’ve got something gritty and tangible on our hands even as the rest flows past us in a whir. Sometimes, maybe that’s enough.

    • Dancing Before It

      “There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend.” — James Baldwin

      I use this quote on the same day that SpaceX crashed a rocket booster into the moon. Honestly, I’d had it teed up for weeks. Let’s roll with the irony of using it on the same day that the world’s richest man made a new crater on the moon. One small crater for humanity. Oh how, uh, far we’ve come.

      I don’t have an issue with SpaceX or Musk, but I also don’t enjoy their ascendance into our collective consciousness. I may give a nod to scientific innovation and the gumption to pursue the final frontier, but I’m reluctant to have any company monopolize the sky above us. And the mass glamorization of the accumulation of infinite wealth and power is also not my game. One can be a profitable capitalist without gobbling up everything.

      I’m no idealist, but I’m more inclined to dance with the moon than dance on the graves of all the competitors put out of business in a dog-eat-dog culture. There’s room enough for all of us, if we don’t hoard all the good stuff in life for ourselves anyway. But that’s just my two cents on the matter. Then again, what’s a couple of pennies but chump change?

    • Rising Through Active Filtering

      “The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the person who dumps garbage on your floor, because each load of mind garbage negatively impacts your possibilities and lowers your expectations.”
      — Zig Ziglar

      I have people in my life who think as I do about the state of the world who are likely chagrined when I grow quiet when they begin complaining about the way things are. I simply don’t want to carry that burden. We know how the world is, we know its unfairness and cruelty and evil. What of it? It also remains beautiful, ripe with possibility and inherently good. Were it all bad the world would be chaos. Were it all good we would have nothing to improve upon. We are latest generation to reconcile human tendency with human potential.

      We will rise or fall depending on what we focus on. What we carry weighs us down. What we strive for stretches us in new, uplifting directions. Expecting more of ourselves isn’t a recipe for dissatisfaction, it’s a compass towards personal excellence. So stop with the garbage accumulation and clear the runway for something far better than what we’ve settled on. Decide what to be and go be it.

    • A Birthday Wish

      Today is the 4th of July, which for America means a big shiny 250th celebration of sorts. Many of us celebrate with reservation, concerned as we are with the state of things. I won’t spend a moment longer than necessary debating with the other side on this one, any more than I’ll join a pity party. Keep calm and carry on, with a quiet resolve to see things through to a brighter future. We are where we are, doing what we can do, hopefully positioning ourselves for better than this.

      Sometimes your next
      halting step
      is more powerful
      than the grandest vision.

      All a leaf knows
      about building a tree
      is to turn towards the light.
      — James A. Pearson, How to Build a Tree

      My youngest celebrates her birthday today. We won’t see her on her birthday, but hope that she has a spectacular day full of people who care for her and quietly miss her when she’s not around, as we do. Life is better when we gather with those we love, but life isn’t that simple. In times like these, with the best and worst of us on display, all a father can do for a daughter on her birthday is point her towards the light and help her grow.

      Each day is a dance with our potential. May the best emerge in each of us today and always. That’s a birthday wish for all who celebrate today and every day. Happy Birthday Emily. And to America too.

    • Pass the Pasta

      Such cheap foodstuffs as rice, potatoes, and pasta lend themselves to being consumed in quantity and shared with the entire family, even the community. It’s prosperity that brings the arrogance of small portions. As incomes rise, grease and starch disappear, replaced by fatless protein, a few spoonfuls of green vegetables, a delicately sculpted potato—food prepared with an eye more to appearance than gratification.” — John Baxter, Five Nights in Paris

      Americans have no problem with small portions. We fill our plates to overflowing. This is a visual indicator that we’re getting value for our money. Burgers need toothpicks to stay together from the kitchen to the table, french fries and pasta spill over the edge of the plate. The plate inspires a wow and maybe a little envy from those who ordered something else.

      Naturally, there are implications to all this food. Those of us trained from an early age to finish everything on the plate have a tax of weight gain and calorie-burning activity to contend with. We train ourselves to order the salad, which itself is often a heaping mass of intrigue. Choosing to eat out less and make our own meals is naturally a healthier way to eat. The trade-off then becomes increased isolation. Breaking bread together creates bonds. So too does pickle ball, I hear.

      Baxter’s comment about the arrogance of small portions is directed towards the fancy restaurants serving microscopic portions that look amazing but don’t satiate. It’s a great line that draws one’s attention. I wish I’d written it myself. But I see both sides of the plate (if you will). People pay for experience, not for a full belly. It’s akin to going to the museum to view fine art instead of going to the ballgame. Is it arrogant to go to one or the other? Both have their place in an enriching life, in proper portions. The arrogance comes in judging what someone else is doing because it’s not what we would do ourselves.

      The great observation Baxter makes isn’t about arrogance, it’s about using cheaper food, like rice, pasta and potatoes, as the foundation of building community. We don’t have to be wealthy to come together, we just have to be inclined to do so. The wealthy are some of the loneliest people on the planet because they shelter in place in their gated “communities” or McMansions. The real wealth in a full life is in connection. So please pass the pasta.

    • Call It Inspiration

      “The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.” — George Gershwin

      I once wrestled with time. Once I called it time management, and then productivity, and maybe a few other names along the way. The way itself is time, and within it, we produce something or we do not. It was never really time at all, it was how we use our lives. And how we use our lives is who we are, and who we will become, and how we will be remembered one day.

      That’s a lot of wrestling.

      Perhaps that effort is better applied towards discovery. I write every day to discover what will stroll into the room next. We go back and forth a bit, I takes notes as quickly as I can, and the muse exits once again. Who saw that coming? And thanks for the, uh, time.

      Yesterday I finished a delightful book I’d never have read but for the fact that I said yes to it at the exclusion of a lot of great options I said no to. And then I immediately started reading another. The more books we read, the less we’re staring at a screen. That seems like a great trade-off to me. What does that have to do with productivity? Everything. And nothing at all.

      All that we do in our lives is derived from the experiences we make for ourselves. Writing, reading, travel, work, coexisting with these characters in our lives… it all accumulates into something larger than where we began this journey. And growth is where it’s at, friend. We are alive, and life is forever growing into something more than we started as. Just keep heading towards the light, wherever it takes us. Call it inspiration if it helps.

    • The Earthly Tiara

      “Every carbon atom in every living thing on the planet was produced in the heart of a dying star.” — Brian Cox

      Were you in awe at the images sent back to Earth from Artemis II? It was hard not to feel emotion in that moment. Glimpsing Mother Earth, in all her glory, from the other side of the moon. Think about the billions of people who have lived on this planet, never imagining that view, let alone seeing it. There are now 28 humans who have flown to the moon and back. We may never be amongst the astronauts voyaging through space, but were alive to share the miraculous moment when those pictures arrived for all to see. There are no borders in space.

      Earth Day came and went again without my commenting on it. It wasn’t from indifference (I am equally reverent), I simply felt that there was nothing to add to the conversation that hadn’t already been said. Mother Earth will one day shrug off humanity, as she shrugged off all sorts of life before us. We are stardust and billion-year-old carbon alive in the moment and will one day be recycled into some other matter. Whether science or religious in explanation, rejoice in the miracle of being alive, assembled just so, for the time being. For it’s all a wonder to behold.

      “We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.” — Brian Cox

      Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo, both daughters of Zeus. Artemis, independent protector of nature and untamed forests, representative of chastity and childbirth, with her bow and arrow and crescent moon tiara. She is a badass Greek goddess who demands respect and more than a little awe. NASA chose a great name for this mission, this spaceship and its crew. Like Olympians, they inspire us through their actions. The world needed both examples this year, just to remind us that there is meaning to be found, and wonder to behold, beyond the grasp of the least imaginative among us.

      It’s easy to be jaded when it comes to human nature, but now and then some peoples reach just a little closer to the gods and show the rest of us what’s possible. What seemed miraculous becomes attainable. Artemis had a new tiara to show off, didn’t she? The crescent Earth, glittering in the black void of space, showing us once again that we are a miracle of cosmic carbon dancing in the light.