Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • The Widest Helpful Influence

      “There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.” – John Ruskin, Unto This Last

      It’s no surprise to learn that Gandhi was strongly influenced by John Ruskin when you read something like this. The ripples of Ruskin continue to reverberate in Liberal thought. By Liberal I’m not speaking of foolish political labels, but in the concept that life and liberty for everyone matter. Matter, in fact, more than the political ambitions of some autocrat or profiteer.

      Think about this: who has the loudest voice in the room? Does that person hold the most influence? It seems so, doesn’t it? But it’s generally the person that influences them who has the most power. It’s the person behind the spotlight who has the power, not the person who the light is being cast upon.

      So how do we develop the widest helpful influence over the lives of others? The obvious answers are to build wealth, a powerful network, and a base of followers. And there’s no doubt that these will reverberate the loudest. But nothing is more powerful than developing the right story and the commitment to having it heard. And that starts with us.

      Gandhi, Ruskin, Thoreau, Nietzsche, King, Emerson, Seneca, Aurelius, Carson, Oliver, Goethe, Montaigne… all are just people who developed a story and a voice. All found an audience over time. So why not us? What story will we tell?

    • Becoming Equal to the Whole

      “The problem with most people, he felt, is that they build artificial walls around subjects and ideas. The real thinker sees the connections, grasps the essence of the life force operating in every individual instance. Why should any individual stop at poetry, or find art unrelated to science, or narrow his or her intellectual interests? The mind was designed to connect things, like a loom that knits together all of the threads of a fabric. If life exists as an organic whole and cannot be separated into parts without losing a sense of the whole, then thinking should make itself equal to the whole.” – Robert Greene, describing Goethe, Mastery

      This idea of making yourself equal to the whole through exploring all available interests, normally gets you tagged as unfocused or a Jack-of-all-trades (master of none). Such expansive thinking is regarded as inefficient by many. But let’s face it, the people with a wide range of interests are able to transcend the ordinary and create things that others might not see. They become visionaries.

      We’re all just connecting the dots, trying to make sense of the world and our place in it. We are a part of that sum, and it’s okay to question what that part might be. What’s certain is that it’s our part, nobody else’s, and we ought to find a path that makes the most sense for ourselves. Everything we do, every pursuit, every relationship, every stumble along the way is a part of becoming whatever it is we’ll title the sum of our lifetime. That process of becoming is what life is all about.

      Surely, we can never really equal the whole, but we can get pretty far down the path. And that’s about all you can hope for in one lifetime, isn’t it? To pursue our diverse interests as far as we can take them, and to contribute something back to those following their own paths towards that elusive whole. That’s what Goethe did, and Robert Greene is doing. Shouldn’t we too?

    • More Than Just Names

      Sleeping beauty awakes from her dream
      With her lover’s kiss on her lips
      Your kiss was taken from me
      Now all I have is this
      – Bruce Springsteen, Countin’ On A Miracle

      Twenty years. I’m still here, just as I was that day, but everything has changed. What seemed important on the morning of September 11, 2001 disappeared from my mind when I heard Howard Stern, of all people, explaining what was happening at that moment in New York as I drove to a job that would be impossible to focus on for a long time afterwards.

      The world has changed since 9/11. We’ve all grown hardened by violence and war and angry rhetoric. It was our generation’s Pearl Harbor, and we were ready to lash out at all who would assault us so boldly. In so many ways we’re still lashing out, but much of it has turned inward. That unified country in the days after 9/11 is far from it now.

      We all felt the impact of that day, but nobody felt it more than the families and friends of those who died that day. Bruce Springsteen wrote the album The Rising shortly after 9/11. The lyrics quoted above resonate more for me than any other, representing all that was taken from so many that day. And it plays in my head now, twenty years after that day. As the bells ring in remembrance. And the names, so many names, are spoken one after another.

      During the Super Bowl in 2002, just months after 9/11, U2 performed as the halftime show. They sang MLK and Where The Streets Have No Name with a white banner scrolling the names of those lost on 9/11. I still can’t watch it without getting choked up, and I dismiss anyone who might venture to declare any other performance at a Super Bowl as more powerful or significant.

      These songs will always be my 9/11 soundtrack. They remind us that these were more than just names. They are lives interrupted.

    • Aspired Greatness

      “I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don’t mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.” – John Ruskin

      If we agree, and I hope we do, that there’s a divine spark in each person, then each of us has something to offer. I know there some particularly hideous exceptions to that rule, but in general most people in this world are trying to do the right thing. The outrage we feel when some dark soul erupts in the world demonstrates our shared faith in humanity. Outrage originates out of a feeling of betrayal of shared beliefs.

      To reach greatness in the world doesn’t require the most followers or likes on YouTube or a particular net worth. Really great people have an aura of positive energy exuding from them. Really great people lift those around them up. Really great people strap themselves to the helm to steer the ship through the worst of storms. There are plenty of really great people in the world, and you’re probably thinking of a few examples right now.

      “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” – Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire

      Divinity isn’t within us, it runs through us in our chosen pursuits, our relationships, our empathy and our sacrifice. It’s a calling, a purpose, that demands us to give of ourselves so that others may feel the Divine Spirit as well. That spirit may mean something religious to you (capital D, capital S), or simply something far greater than ourselves.

      I humbly write in pursuit of the divine – not to capture it, but to channel it through my writing. I’m a long way from greatness, but I see the path grow incrementally shorter with every hour devoted to the craft. Writing hasn’t been my life’s work to this point, but it’s woven in everything I’ve ever done. A modest, often futile attempt to share the divine that I’ve encountered in this world with you. Does that make it a purpose or a pursuit? I think the latter, but I hear the call of the former.

      And shouldn’t we aspire for greatness and a way to share it?

    • Work and Love

      “The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

      Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day of rest for many (not all), and an opportunity to reflect on this thing called work. If you’re doing work you love, then Gibran’s words will resonate. If you’re doing work that grinds your soul to dust, you might think his words are ridiculous. But to live a fulfilling life, shouldn’t that which we labor in be loved?

      Piecing words together isn’t hard labor, but any writer knows that it’s work. Paradoxically, if writing every day is work, it must reverberate with love to be enjoyable for the reader. The jury is still out on this writer.

      In my working life I’ve done everything from sweeping up broken glass to managing salespeople in a Fortune 500 company. I took as much care removing every sliver of glass from the ground as I did managing the emotional response to a quarterly review. Work is love made visible, otherwise it’s self-immolation.

      So on this rare day of rest in our hustling culture, what do we celebrate? A break from the grind or a moment to recharge before leaping back into the joy of a meaningful career? Especially now, somewhere between a pandemic and normal, work should be celebrated for where it brings us in our lives, and for what we may give back to others.

      What can we be great at? Shouldn’t we put our heart and soul into that which transcends work? To rise above the daily grind to joyful, purposeful labor seems the only path to a full life.

    • Tides and Time

      “Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.” – Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

      We get so caught up in schedules and appointments and such, when all that really matters is conversation and honoring commitments and that most intangible thing of all: progress. Are we progressing in the direction we pointed ourselves in or not? What do you do with the answer to that question?

      Like many, I’m fascinated with people that step off the calendar and follow their own path. The through-hikers and ocean cruisers and the off-the-gridders who opt out of the stories we tell ourselves about time. The older I get the more I recognize the story of time isn’t always in sync with my own natural rhythm.

      So do you reconcile this in your life? Do you favor deadlines and schedules that dictate so much of our short stack of trips around the sun? Or do you prioritize living by your own rhythm? I should think the closer you are to the latter the more fulfilling your life might be.

    • Reaching Beyond the Immediacy of Our Experience

      “Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.” – Zhuang Zhou

      “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people are so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

      Robert Greene, in his great book Mastery, describes the challenge a missionary had with understanding the language of a remote tribe in the Amazon. The key for the missionary to unlock the code of their language was when he realized that everything they did was based on immediacy of experience, for what was not before the tribe’s eyes did not exist.

      You don’t have to dive too deeply into social media to recognize that this trait is deeply embedded in the larger world today. So many believe at face value what they’re familiar with, and ignore the prospect that what they’ve learned might not be true. Worse, they parrot what they believe to be true, reinforcing their immediacy of experience instead of transcending it.

      Part of the problem is that people become comfortable being comfortable. Sticking with the same social circle that believes a certain thing, not challenging family or a leadership figure in your life that spouts a certain viewpoint to the exclusion of all others, and most of all, not challenging ourselves. For questioning our very beliefs can becomes very uncomfortable indeed.

      “People who do not practice and learn new skills never gain a proper sense of proportion or self-criticism.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      To reach wisdom is to grow beyond the immediacy of our experience. This seems self-evident, doesn’t it? Growth infers expansion. To go beyond our present limitations. It’s not comfortable, but growth is never comfortable. And we must persist through discomfort to transcend it.

      “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

      The path to progress, mastery, wisdom, excellence… whatever you choose, necessitates placing yourself into the uncomfortable. This may feel at times like being overwhelmed, or being called out by others, or dealing with imposter syndrome, or a combination of all of these things. We’ve got to wade through all of this to reach beyond our limits. Where, deep down, we know that we ought to be.

    • The Barista, the Barber & the Waitress

      My well was running dry. Mentally I was beating myself up over tasks and shattered illusions. Some days go exceptionally well, some days nothing goes well. The former are days when you double down and ride the wave. The latter, sometimes, require a reboot.

      There are two ways to reboot. One is through exercise and activity that draws you out of your own head long enough to see that the world is what it is and you’ve done your part. Walking often does the trick for me. The other way is through interaction with others. Call friends and family to catch up, or better yet, meet with them somewhere. Some days you just need your core group of professional relationships to pull you through.

      I began the morning with a latte. I’ve gotten out of the habit of stopping for a coffee and instead make it at home. As a result I’ve missed out on banter with my favorite barista. She asks me where I’m traveling to this time, used to my answers of faraway places. When there’s no line behind me we talk of gardening and what our kids are doing. For all the turnover in restaurants, she’s been a barista here for years, and I go out of my way for these brief conversations. The jolt of espresso secondary to the banter.

      Later in the day, I stopped for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. Another place I’ve gone to for years, but haven’t gone to in months. The staff there commutes from Boston up to Southern New Hampshire every day, works their shift and returns home late in the night. Six days a week for years on end. The waitress knows my name, and I know hers. Not just the “American” name she introduces herself by, but her real name, which apparently is too complicated for some folks to bother with. She already knows what I’m having, just like the barista did, but confirms before placing the order with the kitchen.

      Due for a haircut, I went to the local barber on a quiet part of their day. He smiled and sat me right down, and we talked of football and the return of mask mandates. He confided that he doesn’t know if they’ll make it if there’s another shutdown, and I responded that it was unlikely this time. Enough of us are vaccinated, right? … right.

      Three people that I have a professional relationship with, each offers just enough of themselves to make my day and reset my outlook for the rest of it. Each deeply impacted by the pandemic, each vaccinated (all Pfizer, like me) and cautiously optimistic about the future. If I ever hit the lottery I’d walk in and give each of them a million dollars, because that’s what they make their customers feel like. Since I haven’t won the lottery, I pay them a million each in installments, one tip at a time. Knowing that it’s not enough for the boost they’ve given me.

    • Table of One

      “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

      I went to a restaurant last week for dinner. We sat under a covered patio on a beautiful night, hard surfaces all around and a low buzz of conversation reverberating from table to table throughout the space. Halfway through dinner a group sat at a table nearby and began loud talking to each other, and I listened as the rest of the tables reacted. We all want to be heard, and the natural inclination is to raise your own voice. The restaurant transformed right before my ears to a dull roar.

      We live with technological amplifiers that drive our differences home, stir the pot and separate people into us and them. The world is full of voices seeking to be heard, and people will amplify differences for attention and profit. Just like that restaurant, we find ourselves in a place where the only way to get attention is to shout. But when everyone is doing the same thing you reach a point of diminishing returns.

      The thing is, that group that sat down looked like a fun bunch of people. So did the people at the other tables. I might be slightly biased, but so are we. But we were all placed in a position where we were competing to be heard against the other tables around us. Each expressing themselves to an audience that was finding it hard to follow along.

      The world has never felt more separated. Yet each of us are connected and largely the same. With similar hopes and dreams and a basic need to be heard and understood. Our separateness is an illusion. We were all on the same patio, in the same restaurant, no matter which table we sat around.

    • Change Begins With Understanding

      “When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
      don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
      doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
      less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have
      problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
      person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will
      grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive
      effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason
      and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no
      reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
      understand, and you show that you understand, you can
      love, and the situation will change.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

      I have a low tolerance for blame. Blame doesn’t reach for solutions, blame swims in the dark pool of emotion trying to drown everyone else. There’s no productivity in blame.

      And yet I struggle with it. Blaming the world for not choosing better leaders, blaming the unvaccinated for the Delta variant, blaming myself for not focusing more on disciplined action during a pandemic. And what does that do? Stirs resentment with all that is around us. And so I work to drown the blame instead of directing it at others. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Look for solutions instead of scapegoats.

      I know why the lettuce won’t grow: there’s a determined and hungry family of rabbits who keep eating it. And in knowing that I can find a solution. A fence, or a dog, or raised beds… the solutions come to you when you start looking for one. And isn’t that what we desire most? To change the situation we first must change our state. And to see with an open mind.