Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Slow Down

      “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

      Some of us have a tendency to rush through things. Eat too fast, drink too heartily, blunder through introductions, breeze through chapters and rush from place-to-place, even on vacations. It’s a way to cut to the chase: to get to the result in the shortest amount of time.

      We know this isn’t the way. Our bodies tell us this when we eat or drink too fast, our minds tell us this when we try to remember the salient point of a book we read a year ago, and we kick ourselves when we learn about that special place we missed that was right around the corner from the spot we rushed to where you and everyone else took their Instagram picture.

      Savor the moment. Slow down a beat, and maybe even another beat beyond that. Appreciate the progression of the moment for all the ripe possibility it offers. The change in the light. The gradual temperature change in a cup of tea. The last few sentences that end a chapter and set up the next. Immerse yourself in now.

      There is no rushing to the future. The present is all that matters. Slow down.

    • The Fight for an Open Mind

      “What prevents people from learning... is not the subject itself—the human mind has limitless capabilities—but rather certain learning disabilities that tend to fester and grow in our minds as we get older. These include a sense of smugness and superiority whenever we encounter something alien to our ways, as well as rigid ideas about what is real or true, often indoctrinated in us by schooling or family. If we feel like we know something, our minds close off to other possibilities. We see reflections of the truth we have already assumed. Such feelings of superiority are often unconscious and stem from a fear of what is different or unknown. We are rarely aware of this, and often imagine ourselves to be paragons of impartiality” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      My quest for an open, more aware mind bumps into smugness. I’ve run into this demon before. We so easily spot smugness in others but rarely detect it in ourselves. It appears as artificial confidence and a sense of superiority and are the tools of a closed mind. As such they ought to be snuffed out at all costs. But the mind buries them defensively, knowing your game, and you perceive yourself as open in your comfortable world until that world is challenged once again.

      I see it in myself by the things I’m offended by. A cache of grudges based on perceived slights, which usually betrays something about your relationship with that person, culture or perspective. This cache, like the one on your PC, occupies space that might otherwise be used for stretching the mind in new directions. And isn’t that the real goal? Opening the mind, becoming aware, delighting in the world around us – if these are truly the objective then we have no room for walls built of resentment, fear and superiority.

      “Around us, life bursts with miracles–a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

      What are we missing while we wrap our minds are distracted by our own narrative? What miracles are happening around us even as we dwell on the past? These are the stakes. We must hunt and kill our smugness to open the mind for awareness, empathy and a deeper understanding of the world around us. To see at last what we’ve been missing all along. And in pursuing it to finally understand ourselves.

    • Follow the Trail and Scatter Light

      Man dreams one day to fly
      A man takes a rocket ship into the sky
      He lives on a star that’s dying in the night
      And follows in the trail, the scatter of light
      – U2, In A Little While

      There are moments in an album or a book or an evening when you recognize the magic. Emotion wells up in you, stirring and amplifying feelings, sending you to another place. A higher place, maybe, or a darker place should the moment direct you that way. I keep climbing to higher places, hoping the view is better. Hoping I’ll become better in the process. And some of it ends up here in this blog.

      U2 hit me a few times over with All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Opening with the hit, dropping in a mournful homage to Michael Hutchence and then the heart pounding Elevation. This was the U2 I’d missed in their experimental days of the late 90’s. These were songs that stuck with you. Ear worms if you will. And then they hit you with Walk On, which grabbed me by the throat waiting for a flight from LA to Boston. When Bono starts singing “Home, hard to know where it is if you’ve never had one” while sleepily waiting for a red eye flight home… well, I’ll never hear the song the same again.

      For all that, the second half of the album is admittedly weaker. And for me, In A Little While became the unconscious end. For it was this song that got that emotion welling, that stirred and amplified those feelings. When Bono sings “Slow down my bleeding heart” I’m right with him, and I know it hit others the same way. That’s the power of a moment.

      Bono stated at one of the concerts U2 recorded that Joey Ramone’s family told him In A Little While was the song that he listened to in hospice, which changed the song for Bono, the guy who wrote it, from a hung over dolt going home at the end of the night to something bigger. Something more meaningful. I never heard the song as anything but soul-stirring, which just goes to show, art might begin with the artist, but it becomes whatever the audience wants it to be.

      I think about that as I write. About reaching moments of emotional connection in my writing. About crafting something of depth and substance, something that amplifies that nugget of desire or fear or love in your soul. Surely I’m a work in progress, but still climbing. Following the trail and scattering light. Still dreaming of flying.

    • Telling Stories

      “The true beauty of a story is not in its apparent conclusion but in the alteration in the mind of the reader that has occurred along the way.” – George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

      The more I live, the more I see the connection between success in any pursuit and the connection you make with your audience. And this connection is directly related to the gravitational pull of our stories. When I was a shy kid I’d avoid telling stories because it put me squarely in the center of attention. I no longer worry about being the storyteller, because I’ve realized over time that the attention isn’t really on me at all, but on the story I’m telling.

      Think about the last time you were listening to a powerful story. You were pulled in, compelled, maybe even fascinated. Each of us wants this kind of connection. Each of us wants a story to resonate. Each of us wants to be part of something. And when you have this level of audience engagement you’re halfway there. Just don’t let them down.

      It goes without saying that this applies to writing as much as it does to a speech or conversation with someone. When you start stacking that pile of words together, who are you doing it for? Yourself? Nobody likes to listen to someone talking to themselves. No, craft your story for someone in your mind. Decide who the audience is and craft something that creates connection and transforms and shapes ideas.

      Humans are either connected or driven apart through the stories we tell ourselves. Stories of religious and political views, ethnicity, sports and a hundred others. The best story tellers sprinkle a magic spell over the audience, drawing them in and making them a part of it. And that’s where the beauty is in a story. And a beautiful reason to master the art of telling it and then use it for good.

    • What Dies With You?

      “Imagine if you will being on your death bed – And standing around your bed – the ghosts of the ideas, the dreams, the abilities, the talents given to you by life.

      And that you for whatever reason, you never acted on those ideas, you never pursued that dream, you never used those talents, we never saw your leadership, you never used your voice, you never wrote that book.

      And there they are standing around your bed looking at you with large angry eyes saying we came to you, and only you could have given us life! Now we must die with you forever.

      The question is – if you die today what ideas, what dreams, what abilities, what talents, what gifts, would die with you? ” – Les Brown

      You may have heard a version of this in a Denzel Washington commencement speech with something like 40 million views, but the framework for this story is older than that, and as far as I can tell, Les Brown was the first to tell it. And honestly, his version flows better than Denzel’s, and thus quotes better.

      I’ve been thinking about this lately myself. Whether to keep blogging or focus on the bigger writing I want to do. Whether to travel and explore to the level I want to or defer until some undefined, unlikely time in the future. Asking myself, what do you finish when you don’t have an infinite lifetime?

      Questions demand answers. Most of us distract ourselves from thinking about these things. Our lives are filled with white noise and busywork, but eventually we need to reckon with our ghosts.

      What dreams, abilities, talents and gifts will die with you? We can’t do everything in life, but surely we can do more. So what will you bring to life before you go?

    • Judging a Weekend

      How do you judge a weekend? By the afterglow? Or the fog? By the accumulated soreness? Or the spring in your step? If a weekend is celebrated upon arrival, how do we view it in the rearview mirror on Monday morning?

      What you do with your downtime is your business. I don’t judge someone that lies on the beach all day, I just don’t want to do it myself. You’ll find me in the water swimming laps or testing my mettle against the waves. That staying still business is all fine and good, but for a restless spirit it’s torture. Yes, I have people in my life that shake their head when I won’t just sit still for awhile.

      I tend to view weekends by what was accomplished over the two days. What projects were completed? What summits summited? Who did we see and what places have we visited? This is scorecard living. Tally the moments, judge the days. But judging your days isn’t the same as judging someone else’s days. We all use our time in our own way. How we spend our days is how we spend our lifetimes.

      When you see someone on Monday morning, one of the first things you might say to them is “How was your weekend?” which on the surface is closely related to “How are you doing?” in that most people expect a response of “Fine” or even “Great”. And honestly, most people just leave it at that. But when you ask about someone’s weekend you’re inviting a response bigger than one word. How you answer it generally reflects how you’ve judged it.

      I hope it was more than fine.

    • The Perfect Day

      When you hear someone say they had a perfect day, what does that mean to you? We have this stack of days, one to the next, before it ends someday. What makes a few of them perfect, while the rest fall slightly short?

      Let’s start with the obvious: Waking up this morning, the day is already off to a great start. If you celebrate that moment the rest of your day may ebb and flow, but starting from a better place you set the tone for what follows. Carpe diem begins with celebrating the gift of life. If you’re bored with life or indifferent to the potential of each moment you’ll never have a perfect day. Each will fall short in some way because your mind isn’t open to the joy of living.

      Perfect requires stacking the moments in a day with just enough beauty and sparkle to reflect back at you, leaving an afterglow in your last moments awake as your cheek feels the cool softness of your favorite pillow. Perfect ought to include certain elements mixed in an elixir: A dash of wonder, moments of connection, the realization of experience, breathless celebration and sensory perception. You drink up this elixir, feel it soak through your pores and course through your veins, and feel high on life.

      We all have moments of perfection in our lives, but to ask for a full day of it seems almost too much. More likely, we forget the down moments in a day. Pushing moments of discomfort or awkwardness or frustration down in our minds for the glow of the rest of the day. And sure, maybe there’s really no such thing as a perfect day at all, but we can surely reach for it.

      As I began my day, I wondered, how can I make this one perfect? I may not reach it, but knowing the recipe you can get pretty close. Does seeking perfection make it artificial, or deliberate? You only find what you look for. There is no perfection, but there is magic in each moment. Often hiding in plain sight.

      And so I seek connection with each of my fellow life passengers that I stumble across, and keep my eye out for new experiences as big as a new summit and as small as watching leaves stir from a hummingbird’s wings, and tickle my senses with a new song on the radio or the scent of garden tomatoes growing on a summer day. These moments of aliveness, stacked together, are where perfection lies. It’s not the day at all, but the moments stacked together. For what is life but that?

    • Editing Our Short [Life] Story

      “Stuart Cornfeld once told me that in a good screenplay, every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way. We will henceforth refer to this as ‘the Cornfeld Principle.” – George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

      I don’t recall who recommended Saunder’s book to me. It was most certainly a podcast or blog somewhere along the way. On the face of it the book seems a bit academic, but it’s a delightful class in writing well using Russian short stories as the vehicle for instruction. If that sounds boring, I understand, but Saunders makes the stories come alive while informing us on the craft of building a story.

      Which brings me to this observation on writing a screenplay by Stuart Cornfeld. Who can argue each point when it comes to building a story? Yet so many fall flat in one or both element. And what of building a life? Shouldn’t a life be built around joy and purpose? There’s a balance there between fully enjoying this short life and making something of our short time here, isn’t there? What do we keep in our stories and what do we eliminate? This Cornfeld Principle offers a simple template, even if the application isn’t always so simple in practice.

      Stuart Cornfeld passed away last year. He’s best known for collaborations with Ben Stiller, including a joy nugget, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I don’t know much about him other than his work, but it’s clear he brought a bit of happiness to the world in his brief go at life.

      Shouldn’t we all aspire to a similar contribution? As we write our oh-so-brief life stories day-to-day, don’t we owe it to ourselves to make it both interesting and non-trivial? Whether our story becomes a page-turner of a life or a satisfying epic is up to us. Edit well.

    • The Force of Bitter Need

      First he chipped fire
      Out of the veins of flint where it was hidden;
      Then rivers felt his skiffs of the light alder;
      Then sailors counted up the stars and named them:
      Pleiades, Hyades, and the Pole Star;
      Then were discovered ways to take wild things.
      In snares, or hunt them with the circling pack;
      And how to whip a stream with casting nets,
      Or draw the deep-sea fisherman’s cordage up;
      And then the use of steel and the shrieking saw;
      Then various crafts. All things were overcome
      By labor and by force of bitter need.
      – Passages from Virgil’s First Georgic, translation by Robert Fitzgerald

      When you read something like this, what does it do to you? Most of us won’t ever experience the life or death struggles that our ancestors faced. Yet the force of bitter need echoes in how we live our lives today. As a student of history, it’s easy to treat the migration of humans across the globe as an academic exercise. To treat wars and conflict and the enslavement and genocide of large swaths of people as horrible footnotes in history. But the stories we tell ourselves that keep the world in order is all so very fragile.

      This translation of Virgil is breathtaking to me, because it reveals our shared history, our overcoming of things, to survive another day and maybe build off that to create a generation after us to keep things going. Our human story is one of deep struggle, pain and labor. Of surviving despite the deck stacked against us. May we never forget how all that we’ve overcome as humans has shaped us. And shapes us still.


    • Is This Enough?

      “Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.” – Walt Whitman

      The nagging begins in weak moments of fatigue or boredom or frustration: “More“, the voice says. “I want more” it persists. And the voice bleeds over to the blog now and then, with complaints about not being out there in the world, not finishing that book, not reaching that fitness goal…. whatever.

      The moment you woke up this morning you had enough. More than old Walt has, more than every person you can even think of born before 1900 and most of those born before 1921. A hundred short years and most everyone you can ever think of as being alive vanishes to the other side of life. So who are we, complaining about enough?

      Feel life wash over you, in each breath and heartbeat and blink of an eye. For it is enough. That life is outrageously unfair is well-documented. That we might make a difference if we worked just a bit harder is indeed possible. But never forget in those moments of fatigue and boredom and frustration that this business of being alive today is just audacious enough in itself to celebrate the moment.