Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Sensing November

      November. Stick season in the northern hemisphere. The big reveal as the trees grudgingly go to sleep for winter. The weather begins to sort itself out, and we come to terms with what it brings us. For there’s no denying the seasons now.

      As with everything in life, we reconcile ourselves to the changes and choose how we react. Snowbirds retreat to the comfort of the tropics while the rest of us add layers, peel them off, and add them back again based on the height of the sun and the strength of the breeze. For some of us, November brings up memories of family coming together. For others, it means escape. Some use it as an excuse to stop shaving, others to write in earnest. November is what we make of it.

      When you think back on your lifetime, what comes to mind when you hear the sounds of November? Rustling leaves? Whistles and cheers at a football game? Relentless political attack ads? Laughter around the Thanksgiving table? Crackling fires and splitting wood? Shots fired deep in the woods at dawn? The furnace churning away in the background? November, of course, sounds like all of these things.

      When you think of the smells of November, do you think of piled leaves decomposing or freshly split oak? Isn’t it more the aromas of the kitchen that dominate the senses this time of year? Roasting turkey and baking pies? Nutmeg and apple cider and eggnog? This month is a calorie-counter’s nightmare, and fresh off the Halloween candy no less! You can practically smell the waistline growing.

      Pausing to reflect for a moment, you can also feel something else in the air. For November is associated with aging and decline. You can see it in the shorter days and beauty of the more glamorous days of September and October falling emphatically to the earth. We know what is coming, don’t we? It’s a gift, really, an opportunity to use this, our time, to do what must be done, say what must be said, and love one another while we can.

      Whatever we feel this month, doesn’t it make sense to be fully aware of all it brings? These are days we’ll remember. The sights and sounds, smells and the very feel of November are upon us. Ready or not, we ought to make the most of this time.

    • Florida Inversion

      “I think in the old days, the nexus of weirdness ran through Southern California, and to a degree New York City. I think it’s changed so that every bizarre story in the country now has a Florida connection. I don’t know why, except it must be some inversion of magnetic poles or something.” — Carl Hiaasen

      Some of the nicest people I know live in Florida. More, some of the nicest people I know move to Florida to fully embrace the lifestyle that comes when a state is a peninsula dividing the tropical waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. No doubt, there is a culture of kindness and inclusion, exhibited in multi-cultural, synergistic and exponential growth. But there’s a reason Hiaasen novels are so popular: Florida is chock full of oddballs behaving badly, and he blends it into his characters masterfully.

      Maybe it’s inevitable when you’ve got so many people wanting a piece of paradise that corruption, madness and division swirl in with the Rum Runners. Inevitably some of it surfaces, some if it settles on the bottom like sludge, and somewhere in the middle of all that is clarity and joy. We make of our environment what we will, but as any Floridian will tell you, we should also watch where we swim.

      When you talk to people who grew up in old Florida, they describe the complete transformation of their state from sleepy agriculture and tourist state to booming and connected concrete jungles. Florida is sprawling madness. After visiting Dale Hollow Lake and seeing the subdivisions plotted out there, I think of Florida as it once was and now is, and how that will soon happen there. As Joni Mitchell says, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

      The thing is, you go to a place like Florida and can easily see yourself building a life around the best of what it offers. Buy in and you can blend right in, crazy and all. Spending time here and you begin to love the tropical vibe, easy living and immersive vitamin D possibilities. We all should ask ourselves, “where might we optimize our potential?” And align with the answer. My own answer lies much farther north; I wouldn’t want to live there, but Florida is a nice place to visit.

    • Forever Working Towards Arete

      “Homer’s epic poems brought into focus a notion of arete, or excellence in life, that was at the center of the Greek understanding of human being…. Excellence in the Greek sense involves neither the Christian notion of humility and love nor the Roman ideal of stoic adherence to one’s duty. Instead, excellence in the Homeric world depends crucially on one’s sense of gratitude and wonder. …. the Greek word arete is etymologically related to the Greek verb “to pray” (araomai). It follows that Homer’s basic account of human excellence involves the necessity of being in an appropriate relationship to whatever is understood to be sacred in the culture.” — Hubert Drefus, All Things Shining

      My first memory of hearing the word arete was when a history professor I was quite fond of suggested we use it as the name of a new rowing shell our crew had acquired. The Greek word for excellence seemed as worthy a name as any to aspire to, and so I proposed it. The rowing coach, never one to embrace such things, chose a different name. And it turned out that we never did quite achieve excellence, settling somewhere into better than average. I wonder if we’d chosen it we might have been inclined to be so? One can’t very well name a rowing shell Arete and finish in the middle of the pack.

      What’s become clear to me over the years since that first encounter with arete is that it’s been my objective ever since. We reach, fall short, move a step closer and reach again. That’s how we move forward towards something greater than our previous self. Living with a sense of gratitude and wonder, embracing that which is sacred, and working towards excellence is a blueprint for a lifetime.

      We can’t control everything in life. Surely things happen along the way that may be chocked up to luck, timing or serendipity. But certainly, what we aspire to makes all the difference in how full our lives turn out to be.

    • Alphabet Soup Air Travel

      Call me old-fashioned if you will. Call me privileged in a first world sort of privileged way. But I prefer an assigned seat when I travel. The budget airlines like Southwest built an empire on first come, first served, which merged into assigned groups. My particular group is C21, which isn’t good folks. There are 140 people boarding before me, making it likely I’ll be checking a bag and sitting in a midfle seat. Poor me, right?

      The thing is, I don’t mind any of this except for the lack of an assigned seat. Middle seat? Not ideal but will make it work. No room for my bag in overhead ? Don’t lose it please. But the mystery of musical chairs? I can do without it, thanks. Give me predictability in business travel.

      We all have our crosses to bear—this is one of mine. Wanna get away? Check in early. But on the plus side, I finished this blog post during the wait for my middle seat.

      Look for those silver linings!

    • The Big Reveal

      “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali

      “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

      Is courage the leap into the unknown or the perseverance and grit to see it through? I think Muhammad Ali would add that courage requires more of us than simply stepping into the ring, it’s taking the punches and standing up again round-after-round. We all have our own ring to step into, filled with work, family, relationships, fitness goals, writing goals, getting-through-the-day goals.

      What are we prioritizing and what do we let slip away? Isn’t it just as courageous to say no as it is to say yes to something? Perhaps more so? Which does beg the question: What are we really trying to accomplish in our brief time here?

      A long and rewarding career? Wrestling a career from the ground up is a grind, filled with moments of sacrifice and tactics, honor and betrayal, tedium and tenure. How we play it determines just how long and rewarding it turns out to be. Maybe we also prioritize building a strong nest and raising a family. It takes courage simply to have children, especially for the mother, but also courage to stay in the game for the long haul—raising them to be strong advocates for decency and hope.

      Just what do we lean into for the long haul? Comfort? Adventure? Can you be comfortable when you seek adventure? Perhaps, but isn’t it a different kind of comfort than the comfort the person who seeks comfort seeks? Every climb requires discomfort. Every leaper must bear the impact of the landing before leaping again. Discomfort is what we pay now for comfort later. Conversely, comfort now tends to make later more discomfortable. We each must pay our dues in life to get to the place we want to be. Life takes time and courage to see it through.

      The neighbors through the woods had a large shed built last year during the summer months. My bride and I debated just what they were building as it seemingly took all summer to complete the work. She said that whatever it was, we’d have the big reveal when the leaves dropped in the fall and everything would become obvious. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

      It’s worth asking ourselves every time we stand up in our own ring, why am I doing this? For there’s no long-term courage without a compelling purpose. Sometimes the answers are obvious, and sometimes we have to wait for our own big reveal, when the seasons change and the things that were most important all along become apparent. Often, courage is staying the course long enough to find out.

    • On Paul Revere’s Capture

      So through the night rode Paul Revere;
      And so through the night went his cry of alarm
      To every Middlesex village and farm,—
      A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
      A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
      And a word that shall echo forevermore!
      For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
      Through all our history, to the last,
      In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
      The people will waken and listen to hear
      The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
      And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Paul Revere’s Ride

      Most every schoolchild in America learns the story of Paul Revere, who rode out to warn of the British march on Lexington and Concord on the eve of the American Revolutionary War. What you never hear about is that Revere was captured by the British on his ride between Lexington and Concord, never warning the latter town, but that one of his counterparts on that night escaped capture and completed the job.

      Paul Revere and William Dawes both set out to warn colonists about the British march to Lexington and Concord, taking different routes to Lexington. They reunited in Lexington and set off together to warn the residents of Concord of the British Regulars’ imminent march. During their ride, they came across Dr. Samuel Prescott, who’d been out courting a woman named Lydia Mulliken. That chance encounter would prove fortuitous for the colonists.

      Prescott decided to join Revere and Dawes to help warn the residents of Concord. During their ride, they were stopped by a British patrol, who attempted to take them prisoner. Revere was captured, Dawes was able to flee back towards Boston, and Prescott, who knew the area well, evaded capture and was thus able to complete the ride to Concord, where he warned his fellow colonists.

      “We set off for Concord, and were overtaken by a young gentleman named Prescot, who belonged to Concord, and was going home. When we had got about half way from Lexington to Concord, the other two stopped at a house to awake the men, I kept along. When I had got about 200 yards ahead of them, I saw two officers as before. I called to my company to come up, saying here was two of them, (for I had told them what Mr. Devens told me, and of my being stopped). In an instant I saw four of them, who rode up to me with their pistols in their bands, said ”G—d d—n you, stop. If you go an inch further, you are a dead man.” Immediately Mr. Prescot came up. We attempted to get through them, but they kept before us, and swore if we did not turn in to that pasture, they would blow our brains out, (they had placed themselves opposite to a pair of bars, and had taken the bars down). They forced us in. When we had got in, Mr. Prescot said ”Put on!” He took to the left, I to the right towards a wood at the bottom of the pasture, intending, when I gained that, to jump my horse and run afoot. Just as I reached it, out started six officers, seized my bridle, put their pistols to my breast, ordered me to dismount, which I did. One of them, who appeared to have the command there, and much of a gentleman, asked me where I came from; I told him. He asked what time I left. I told him, he seemed surprised, said ”Sir, may I crave your name?” I answered ”My name is Revere. ”What” said he, ”Paul Revere”? I answered ”Yes.” The others abused much; but he told me not to be afraid, no one should hurt me.” — Letter from Paul Revere to Jeremy Belknap, circa 1798

      Longfellow’s poem made Paul Revere rightfully famous, but he did a disservice to Dawes and Prescott. Early on the morning of 19 April 1775, it would take all of them to finish the job. It’s funny that Paul Revere’s own accounting of the night receives less attention than Longfellow’s romanticized tale. But that’s history for you, we remember it as it is told, not always as it was.


      Site of Revere’s capture with the modern road beyond
      Autumn foliage along the route

    • Old Souls and Young Hearts

      When we come across young people who exhibit a level of maturity beyond their years, we often describe them as having old souls. Many of us believe that the job of parents is to raise children to be old souls from as young an age as possible. Teaching life skills that will carry them a long way in life is the obvious primary mission, but also critical is to avoid leaving as much of our own personal baggage on their shoulders as possible. The best parents are both instructive and inclusive with children. When they feel a part of the conversation, they feel enabled and drawn into the world. When they’re constantly berated and corrected by parents, they feel inadequate and diminished. Thus old souls are formed by inclusive parenting.

      Young hearts think in possibility, take leaps of faith, seek adventure and break rules. Certainly many young people have a young heart, but many don’t. Just so, there are many old people with young hearts too. It’s an exclusive club, revealed with a secret handshake and a twinkle in the eye—you know the young at heart when you encounter them in the wild. And if you’re inclined to do things that others feel aren’t appropriate for your age and status, well, you might have a young heart too.

      To get anything done in this world, we must have a healthy combination of old soul and young heart: Maturity and insight mixed with the Moxie to just do it already. Old souls with young hearts make the world go round. Inventors and pioneers, musicians and poets, fighter pilots and social leaders who dare shake up the status quo, all have the right stuff. Bold, but not reckless, they seek expression in their chosen craft.

      We forget, sometimes, that older people with young hearts get a lot of things done too. We can accomplish so much more as we get some momentum behind us if we choose to pursue our own passions. Age is simply a number—it’s fitness, health and vibrancy that fuel the fire, whether you’re 23 or 103 or somewhere in between. If we’re lucky and blessed with enough runway, forward propulsion and lift, we just might soar. Life is best lived with an old soul and a young heart.

    • A Better Direction

      “Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting–whether a job or a habit–means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your highest dreams.” — Pico Iyer, “Quit Pro Quotes”, Utne Reader, Sept./Oct. 1996

      We all have moments when we contemplate quitting and doing something else with our brief time. What stops us? Persistence? Faith in the future we’re building? Or is a sense of obligation? We slide into lethargic habits built over time and don’t see that there may be another way. I used to call this an attractive rut that one could easily stay in until the end of time. Maybe having a drink every day at 5 PM is the proper response for a long day of work, or maybe simply walking until you forget what your troubles were does it. Then again, maybe the proper response is to quit altogether the life built around what we believe to be all there is in our world. The answer is different for each of us, but the way we react when someone suggests quitting something deeply ingrained within our identity is telling, isn’t it?

      When you read the word ingrained, did you immediately think of the spelling? I often debate internally whether to use ingrained or engrained when I write it, which says as much about me as anything I suppose. But the point is, we all have traits and defaults within us that seem natural (like obsessing over the right way to use a word that 99% of the world won’t give a thought to). Whether those traits and defaults are productive or detrimental to our progress is a question worth asking ourselves now and then.

      I encourage you to either click the link to read the rest of Iyer’s thoughts on quitting, or Googling the article if you’re rightfully suspicious of clicking links random bloggers throw at you (although you can trust this random blogger—I promise). There’s magic in Iyer’s words, as there usually is, and they may change you profoundly, as they have me even as I write this. The quote above is easily found (Rolf Potts points to it often), but, as with any quote, mining deeper into the place it was drawn from offers so much more. For me, Iyer landed a knockout punch with this nugget:

      “Continuing the job would represent an invisible kind of quitting–an abdication of possibility–and would leave me with live unlived that I would one day, and too late, regret”.

      Don’t read this as a public admission that I’m quitting my job anytime soon, but a spotlight on the key message here: we all abdicate possibility that we will one day regret if we don’t go for it immediately. For now is all we have, and there’s living unlived to get to. See the world. Write the book. Hike that mountain. Sail to that faraway destination. Ask the question. Take the chance…. LIVE.

    • Staying Out of the Traps

      “In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

      “To enjoy the full flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

      We all walk the line between being active producers and active consumers. As with everything, there’s a balance between the two to have a full life. The world, as it pleases, fills us up with things to do. We actively participate or we step off the production line and dance to our own beat, but we aren’t machines, and even the most productive among us need to consume to refuel and recharge.

      Then again, we see plenty of examples of people over-consuming and not getting anything done in their lives. And surely in this world there’s plenty to consume: food, opinion, trivial pursuits, time. We ought to ask, when consumption is tipping the scales, “just where is this taking me?” But sometimes, as Elvis put it, we get caught in a trap we can’t walk out of. Surely, we must steer clear of the traps.

      I think a lot about the two Heinlein quotes above. I’ve been saving them for some time now, thinking each would stand on their own in a blog post, but they also pair well together. Each highlights this wrestling match called living. We want to have clear purpose and a mission we believe in, for humans are meant to produce something of consequence in our brief time. And we want to be bold and see the world—making the most of this brief time with the sensory experiences that make life worth living in the first place.

      The thing is, we know when things are in balance, just as we know when something is off. The absence of clear purpose makes us “a slave to the man”, as a friend puts it. Put another way, if we aren’t working on our own goals, someone else will gladly give us theirs to work on. We must actively pursue that which has meaning for us, and steadily move away from daily trivia.

      What do we have an appetite for? Decide what to be and go be it. We tend to think small in our days, while forgetting what’s possible over a lifetime. Perhaps too many big bites will give us indigestion, but too few will leave us starving for more. As with everything, balance is the key, but don’t get caught in the trap of thinking small.

      I recognize that this post featured a lot of paraphrased quotes. It was simply me processing each in real time. Thanks for sticking with me on this one. Go be it. I’ll work to do the same.

    • Hugs

      October has been a month of hugs in my circle, and I’ve made the most of every one of them. Seeing old friends and family, celebrating moments together, absorbing loss together. Hugs come in all shapes and sizes, just like people do. But there are a few that stand out:

      Hello hugs are the best, for they signal reacquaintance after time away. Sometimes that time is as brief as a walk to the other room, and sometimes it’s a return after years apart. Hello hugs are warm and welcoming and signal “We’re back together again! Let’s get on with the party, already!”. Hello hugs are always tinged with joy for the moment at hand.

      Celebration hugs are savored when our favorite team wins the big game, or when our child successfully navigates a milestone moment like graduation or completing a recital. Weddings and anniversaries are milestones too, and we huggers go a little bit crazy at them. Celebration hugs draw in even the non-hugging crowd if you catch them at just the right moment. High fives are fleeting, hugs capture forever.

      Comforting hugs are rolled out at moments of grief, shock and despair. When we lose someone, when we fail the test, when we don’t get the job or get into the school or our team loses the game it calls for consolation and comfort. Hugs do the trick. It’s a signal that we aren’t alone—we’re in this together. Nobody wants to have to give or receive these hugs, but whether we like them or not, they’re as much a part of our lives as celebration hugs.

      Perhaps the biggest hugs are goodbye hugs. The squeeze is tighter, the embrace is longer, and they radiate warmer than any other hug. On the face of it, goodbye hugs signal “Until we meet again,” but whisper, “There’s so much we’ve left unsaid”. Goodbye hugs are always bittersweet.

      There’s another hug, the reciprocal hug, used often in some circles and never in others. It’s the “You bet I’m still here for you” hug, applied liberally with family and close friends in quiet moments. These hugs are seized out of the thin air of life; captured moments of affection and commitment at any old time. Walking by at just this moment? Have a hug. Doing the dishes? Have a wet hug. Taking the dog for a walk? Let’s hug the dog together. Sadly, not everyone has access to them, but everyone should. My best advice is to seek out people who think nothing of generous, reciprocal hugs.