Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Lofty Expectations

      “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana

      “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” – Mark Twain

      On my quest to be a lifetime learner I read a lot of history and philosophy in my spare time. Both subjects teach us that humans are fallible and the mistakes we inevitably make have tragic consequences. We must learn from the past, but mostly we repeat some iteration of it. History informs where societies spin off the tracks, philosophy teaches us how to get back on them. Pity that both subjects are largely ignored by the waves of humanity being told what to think.

      As the “greatest generation” passes and living memory of World War II and the Great Depression before it increasingly reside only in history books, it’s disappointing to see pundits twist facts for political gain, and it’s shameful to see learning the truth publicly shamed as woke by those who would have you only believe their words. We’ve been here before friends. We must choose to learn the lessons of history and be the voice of reason, and we must choose to learn the lessons of philosophy that we may find the moral strength to stay the course towards personal excellence, that we may live as an example of what is right in this world and guide others to a brighter future.

      This may seem rather lofty. Aren’t we allowed to have lofty expectations for ourselves and for the generations we coexist with? Would we rather be known as the ones who didn’t rise up when they could have made positive change in the world? History is full of such examples, but fortunately it’s also full of examples of people who pivoted at just the right moment to change the trajectory. I’d like to believe that might be us if we can ever put down the streaming cat videos and pay attention. Learning teaches us to be wary, but also cautiously optimistic. We may still get it right.

    • Time. Warped

      “We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.” ― H. G. Wells

      In a time warp kind of year, where the very idea of time seems askew, some perspective from H. G. Wells seemed appropriate. When we think about all that’s happened this summer, let alone this year, it might feel as if someone is playing with the clock and calendar to jamb more transformative change into ever tighter increments of time. Personally I’ve seen more twists and turns and backflips to my sense of what makes up normal than you see in an Olympic gymnastics floor routine. And August is stacked—doubling down on the crazy.

      None of this is new, only our perspective has changed. The world marches along at maddening speed, and we are either witnesses or active participants. Predictable is nice, but surprising developments and plot twists are what take our breath away. Life should be a fascinating page-turner, not some tedious slog through required reading. Instead of feeling overwhelmed we might simply say, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming” and muster up the courage to write the next scene.

      This is our time, for all its glory and ugliness. We may revel in the former while finding some way through the latter to better days. It all may feel warped in some moments but the pace of change has always been relative to how we look at such things anyway. All that ever matters is what we make of this—our day. Leaving the rest to history.

    • Raising Our Voice of Reason

      Our little lives get complicated
      It’s a simple thing
      Simple as a flower
      And that’s a complicated thing
      — Love and Rockets, No New Tale to Tell

      Wrestling with what comes next with the generation ahead of mine is complicated. Offering guidance to the young adults we raised when they have good heads on their own shoulders is also complicated. We ought to let people find their own way as much as we can, while remembering that we’re in their life for a reason. Sometimes we have something to offer in such moments.

      The world is very complicated right now. Sometimes it seems like our only purpose is to be a voice of reason in a maddeningly confused time. It seems some people are outraged by the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. I’m more outraged by children dying on a soccer pitch in the Golan Heights for no reason but that they were born in a place and time that made them expendable to someone with the means and inclination to wipe their lives away. I’m more outraged that we’re pissing away time focusing on petty instead of looking at the bigger issues this planet is facing right now. And yes, I’m more outraged that people are outraged by things they’re told to be outraged about instead of following their own moral compass.

      “Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
      Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
      ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

      I don’t particularly want to make this blog political, and choose to focus on finding common ground instead. I feel the world needs more people pointing out the things that link us together instead of people pulling us apart, and so I use my keyboard accordingly. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out when we go astray. The human race is staggeringly complicated and stupefyingly simple all at once. Art is finding the beauty in the madness and helping others see what was right in front of them all along.

      Our job, should we choose to embrace it, is to raise our voice and bring reason to the conversation. The world doesn’t need another person screaming, and it doesn’t need another person who chooses to stay silent, it needs thoughtful consideration about what comes next and a measured response. It needs people who rise up and do what’s right when it feels like rising up will get you knocked down. This is our time, after all. So what will we do with reason when it asks for a voice?

    • A Unique Wonder

      I read somewhere that meteor showers
      are almost alwavs named after the constellation from which
      they originate. It’s funny, I think, how even the universe is telling us
      that we can never get too far
      from the place that created us.
      How there is always a streak of our past
      trailing closely behind us
      like a smattering of obstinate memories. Even when we enter a new atmosphere,
      become subsumed in flames, turn to dust, lose ourselves in the wind, and scatter
      the surface of all that rest beneath us, we bring a part of where we are from
      to every place we go.
      — Clint Smith, Meteor Shower

      Walking the pup the other night, I saw a shooting star far brighter and more colorful than the norm, with a very definite tail and distinct blues, greens and yellows in the burn. I thought for a moment that it might have been a stray firework but for the direction it was falling and the distinct shooting star vibe. Was it an elusive fireball or simply a particularly passionate meteor? I think the latter, but it was the brightest and most colorful I’d ever seen. This particular shooting star apparently contained enough copper, magnesium and iron to treat me to that display of blue, green and yellow I’d witnessed. Throw enough science at anything and the magic evaporates. Let’s just call it a unique wonder in a sky full of beautiful.

      I don’t write about the stars so much nowadays, but I still look up most every night and marvel at the universe. If we are indeed stardust then we are staring at our distant cousins out there. Some of us dwell on where we came from, some chalk it up to a Creator and dismiss any talk of science as sacrilege. None of us is really in the know on such things, and the people who shout the loudest are usually the ones who know the least. We all crave answers, don’t we? It’s just that some settle on the answer someone else tells them is true instead of remaining open to other possibilities. Where we come from, if we go back far enough, is infinity. We’ll return there someday soon. What we choose to call that infinity is up for discussion.

      The thing is, we all accept some version of where we came from, it’s where we’re going that we can’t quite understand. We are all shooting stars streaking across the sky to our final days, memento mori and all that. But we may add enough color to our lives to make our journey wonderful, and perhaps inspire others on their own journey too. In our dance with infinity, this brief time is unique to us. Shouldn’t we aspire to as much as we may fit in along the way?

    • A Day to Remember

      “I want to live happily in a world I don’t understand.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

      Yesterday was surely a day to remember. Yes, there was that assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate (horrific, not shocking given the divisive climate), but honestly I didn’t even know about that until hours later. World-changing events happen whether we’re watching it unfold or not. The question is, what are we doing to create a positive ripple in our own pond? For me I’ll remember the day we brought our whole family together in one place after too long apart for a day of celebration.

      I’ll always remember January 6th, October 7th and September 11th for the events that unfolded on those days, just as we come to associate place names with other world-changing events: Tiananmen Square, the Pulse Nightclub, Pearl Harbor and on and on. Life on this pale blue planet is complex and often tragic (none of us gets out alive, after all), but we may control how we react to it, and mitigate the impact of some world events with our lifestyle choices. To be more antifragile should be a goal for each of us.

      The seismic political, social and environmental events unfolding in our world will always be there and can’t be ignored, but we may choose to stay far away the epicenter and focus instead on building something beautiful. We may be insular without being ignorant. The ripples will reach us as they always do in such events, but when we put ourselves to higher ground we aren’t completely washed over when black swan events happen.

      So what will we remember most today? It ought to be something deeply meaningful that we may influence in our own lives, not something out of our control. Make it a day to remember for all the right reasons. Our own positive ripple may counter the negative splash someone else is making.

    • Beyond the News

      “News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read.” — Evelyn Waugh

      I seem to have the same discussion about the news over and over again. Most everyone is unhappy with the state of it, hates that it’s always bad and that the quality of reporting has slipped to levels of mediocrity not seen in years. And yet people still watch it.

      Like most people I stopped reading the newspaper first, favoring online for the more current news. The problem with online breaking news was that you lose insight when everything is so breathlessly now. Breaking news is akin to looking at the accident on the other side of the highway as you crawl past it. You can ascertain pretty quickly that it’s some level of bad and move on, or you can linger with it longer than you should and ruin the journey for all who follow you.

      News channels even hate themselves. They try to get people to watch with best ice cream in town stories or feel good pet rescue stories, but then they flip right back to the horror du jour. In Boston people spent hours and hours of their lives debating the guilt or innocence of a woman accused of killing her significant other. If you aren’t in the families of the two parties or aren’t part of the jury, what has that got to do with any of us?

      I can be aware of the suffering in the world without spending my time locked to yet another story about it. Call me blissfully ignorant if you will, but I could care less about any of that beyond a high level awareness of what may impact me if I don’t act on it. The news to me revolves around whether to bring the umbrella, drive a different route to my appointment, change my passwords immediately and occasionally to be on the lookout, otherwise I get on with my day. It’s okay to be aware, but we must remember to live ourselves that we may use our time productively and purposefully. To live beyond the news is to step closer to our potential.

    • Happily Ever Afters

      He said, “Don’t you know I love you, oh, so much
      And lay my heart at the foot of your dress?”
      She said, “Don’t you know that storybook loves
      Always have a happy ending”?
      Then he swooped her up just like in the books
      And on his stallion they rode away
      — Mark Knopfler & Willy Deville, Storybook Love

      A few days ago I took all the serious books I’ve committed myself to finishing and stacked them gently to the side in favor of the delightful, beautifully-illustrated gem The Princess Bride by William Goldman. If you’ve seen the movie and memorized the lines, the book will be as comfortable as watching it just one more time. And yet the book is mesmerizingly wonderful and transformative on its own. You can’t help but visualize scenes and the actors who say the lines, but there’s so much more to delight in than the movie could possibly offer in 98 minutes, which is the official length of Rob Reiner’s masterful tribute to the book. And it reminds us that books are one of humanity’s greatest contributions to the greater good.

      God knows we could use more greater good. And that’s where you and I come in. We may rise above the dismal Fire Swamp we find ourselves forced to march through and ride off on our own white horse with our friends, to a brighter future together. Looking around at the world today, it surely feels sometimes like we’re deep in a dismal swamp we may never get out of. It’s fair to wonder sometimes, just how the hell do we carry on? Happily ever afters are never guaranteed in this lifetime, but we must live with the hope of a brighter tomorrow to manage the lift we’ve been assigned today.

      And that’s the lesson we’re all learning, isn’t it? Some pages are magical, some quite horrible, but most days lie somewhere in between—a steady march to hope. To face each day with love in our heart and a bit of courage is the way through the dark days to that brighter tomorrow. The irony is that chasing happiness often leads to misery, but following our heart to something greater within ourselves usually leads us to the place we dreamed of being all along.

    • The Occasional Success

      “It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.

      There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done. And the occasional success, to the striver, is worth everything. The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” — Mary Oliver, Of Power and Time

      It feels like success is more elusive nowadays. We could all use more wins in this stage in our collective history. A few less setbacks would be great. Just what is happening in the world anyway? Nothing all that good it seems. We must remember to focus on what we can control and acknowledge the rest is up to fate. Amor fati.

      The thing we can control is our reaction to this world boiling away uncontrollably in rage and gases. We don’t have to like it but we have to remain focused on the things within our grasp, like how we greet each other and the example we set for our children. We can choose to be cool and steady, and produce something beautiful in this world.

      Distraction is pulling us down from the heights we might reach. What does success look like today? Small wins have a way of stacking up into something bigger. When the sun sets on this day, on this lifetime, what will we have done with it? The muse will not be ignored, it will simply find someone else who will give it the focused time it demands. Let that be us.

    • Let Me Not Defer

      “I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
      — Etienne de Grellet

      Yesterday I had a conversation with a neighbor I don’t speak with all that much but have known for 25 years. Beyond the casual how are the kids? small talk, we dove more deeply into what’s next for each of us. We’ve both learned the high cost of deferring dreams the last few years—his wife passed a year ago, my family has suffered losses of similar magnitude the last few years. The question is whether we act on the lessons of memento mori or keep on doing the same thing as if it weren’t true.

      Beyond the moment, what have we got? Legacy? I look at old pictures and forget who most of the people in them are. The ones who I remember most are those who were most invested in me. The rest fade away. To be memorable, I suppose, the lesson is to invest in others, isn’t it? Here and now, with all the sincerity and earnestness we can muster, that we may impact their lives in some small, positive way.

      I worry less now about memorable. I’m at a point where living a good life is enough. I don’t feel a need to be remembered as anything but a source of light in a world that is often unrelentingly dark. To add more value to the world, we must learn and grow and be ever more generous with our time with others. It’s no surprise that those who are surrounded by loving people are usually the ones who offered nothing but love to the world. We ought to stop focusing on how we aspire to be remembered and think instead about who we aspire to be right now.

      Each of us is spending currency. Let it not be frivolous, but meaningful. Whatever the future brings for us, we’ll surely find the investment in others will offer our highest return. When well-invested, isn’t love returned exponentially?

    • Active Imagination

      “I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.” — Dr. Seuss

      I watched enough of the debate to validate my feelings about the two candidates. I made up my mind who I’m voting for long ago, and it’s never ever the smug orange [convicted] clown. The current guy looks old and frail and was hard to follow at times. I imagine he’s sharp of mind but there were times when his stutter and raspy voice made me feel otherwise. Didn’t matter—he’s not the other guy.

      So I took a long walk in the dark with the pup, just the two of us and random wild things just out of view that drove the pup a bit crazy. Our imaginations could easily take over at times like that, but I’ve walked this dark street hundreds of times over the years and don’t let imagination get in the way of a good walk. The problem with the clown is he’s making up stuff that enough people imagine is true that he stands a fighting chance of winning. Now that would be scary.

      When the world feels a bit upside down, it helps a lot to venture out into it and see for yourself just where you stand. I feel I’ve got a pretty good imagination that I try to utilize for creative output. Wouldn’t it be a shame if imagination were only used to instill fear and subservience to the ambitions of someone else? We mustn’t let the nonsense of the world distract us from creating the possibility we imagine.