Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • A Year Like No Other

      “Man, like a bridge, was designed to carry the load of the moment , not the combined weight of a year all at once.” – William A. Ward

      I’m not going to run a postscript on what happened over the last year – plenty of people have already written about that. A year ago we were quietly celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in an empty bar owned by a friend bearing what we optimistically thought would be a temporary shutdown to flatten that curve. That friend has managed to stay in business despite the severe restrictions on their business, open a second location in the middle of a pandemic, and is in the middle of a second battle front with cancer. Who am I to complain about working from home for a year?

      Some of us have lost much more than others, but we’ve all lost something. Loved ones and graduations, sports seasons and jobs, trips of a lifetime and gathering with friends in busy places. We all have that Rolodex of losses we can pull out to share with the world. The profound losses mix with the simple. But something has to balance the losses out. The world doesn’t just tilt on its side without counterbalancing with something else. If we’re all walking that line between order and chaos, what have we gained?

      We know instinctively what has balanced the losses, if not completely at least enough to stay afloat. More time with immediate family, perhaps a little too much now and then but time we’ll reflect on fondly. More creative use of technology to find a smile in the darkness. More alive time with gardening and cooking and reading the books you were meaning to get to… and more time alone to think. Deep reflection on what is really important.

      There are heroes among us that did so much more than the average. We celebrate the essential workers who kept this thing going, but we should also give ourselves a small pat on the back. We may not be medical staff or law enforcement or supply chain workers, but we’re all collectively doing our part to bridge the madness of the last year, one day at a time.

      Of course, this bridge is still being built, still extending to some place in the future where it might set in the firmness of normal. And some are restless – we watch some tentatively gain footing on what they believe to be firm ground, celebrating together and shouting for the rest of us to join the party. But some of them are dancing in quicksand.

      No, we’re closer now, but like the soldiers in the last months of World War II, we know this isn’t the time to let up our guard. Don’t go frivolously burning that mask just yet folks, we’ve still got today to face, and tomorrow too. We’ve carried on this far, just hold on a bit longer. Almost there.

    • Shared Beliefs

      “Everything that is not a law of nature is just a shared belief.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts

      Shared beliefs. Have they ever been as contentious as they are today? People believing the election was rigged, storming the Capital, having their kids burn masks for the optics. Other people thinking those people are delusional and irresponsible. Anger and accusation on both sides. I betray my own beliefs just writing this paragraph. But I know people lash out in strange ways when they perceive a threat to their livelihood.

      For all the madness and anger, there are laws of nature that unite us in this world. Scientific principles are pillars of truth in which society anchors itself. Gravity isn’t a shared belief, it’s a proven law any time you drop something or jump in a pool. Gravity is easy to prove because we live with it every day. The tricky part is in what we believe to be true.

      The last year has been a year of turning beliefs upside down. Beliefs about the role that certain countries play in the relative stability of the world. About mask-wearing and social gatherings. Personal responsibility and accountability. Equality and fairness. Level playing fields and stacked decks. When beliefs are challenged that friction can erupt into fiery rhetoric. We’ve seen plenty of that, haven’t we?

      Shared beliefs can be beneficial if they’re anchored well. We have the responsibility to question that anchorage from time-to-time. Seeking common ground is the stated goal of President Biden, and common ground is the turf of fairness, equality, social responsibility and the laws of nature. The world is slowly tackling the pandemic, inching towards equality, and incrementally embracing the shared values that unite us as fellow humans on a fragile planet. We still have time to get it right.

      In writing this blog post I deleted far more words than I kept. I’m hoping to create something more substantial than my own beliefs. Maybe one small step away from the noise. And back to nature.

    • A Good Map and a Compass

      “A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of a man’s faith in other men; it is a symbol of confidence and trust…. A map says to you, ‘Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.’ It says, ‘I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost.’” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      We use maps less in everyday life than ever before in modern times. It isn’t that we aren’t going someplace, it’s more that we have devices that keep track of where we are for us. And we lose something in ourselves when we aren’t part of the conversation between that GPS and the satellites silently flying above us. If maps represent faith in others, those “others” now extend to the network of technology that swirls around us, landing in our pockets with an advertisement when you stop at traffic lights.

      There’s something elegantly beautiful about a great map or nautical chart. Far more detail than the average person would ever notice, with lines and numbers most ignore. But for all the detail, a map is just a representation of what the world is, not the actual world. It can’t account for weather and downed trees and bad judgement and other such variables. Just the facts as they were, and might still be. We can be sure that the path shown on the map took somebody from here to there. Most likely it still does, but you can’t be sure until you get there. Maps represent the past in this way, but also our future as we place ourselves on them in hopes that our physical selves meet the expectations represented inside the grid.

      “We need maps and models as guides. But frequently, we don’t remember that our maps and models are abstractions and thus we fail to understand their limits. We forget there is a territory that exists separately from the map.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models

      It’s one thing to use someone else’s map to figure out where to go. It’s another thing entirely to map out our own path through uncharted territory. Where do we go from here? This thing we’ve grown familiar with has changed, we’ve changed, and now we wish to go in a different direction. Where to begin? Choose a direction and set your compass. Map it out. Figure out what the obstacles are and how to get around them. Use the paths others took to your advantage until you jump off in a new direction.

      “Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.” – Henry David Thoreau

      The fact of the matter is that most of life happens to us. We might diligently map out our career path and pick a major based on where we think that might take us, but much of life is about seeing the terrain we stumble upon and figuring out where we’re going to go next. Few of us get the map completely right, we sort it out as best we can along the way. And that’s where the compass helps set our direction or brings us back on course when we deviate from the path.

      “Don’t mistrust the compass — your judgement will never be more accurate than that needle. It will tell you where you ought to be going and the rest is up to you.’” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      The problem for most of us isn’t the absence of a good map or compass, the problem is abstraction and having too many directions to go in. With so many options, which do we choose? You can’t just walk in circles of indecision. Pick the most logical direction, map it out as best you can, and go. But bring that compass too. You’ll need both to get there.

    • Wandering Souls

      “Why am I gazing at this campfire like a lost soul seeking a hope when all that I love is at my wingtips? Because I am curious. Because I am incorrigibly, now, a wanderer.” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      Doesn’t it feel a bit like the world is about to explode into an orgy of mad travel and celebration? We’ve already seen misguided souls partying like it’s 1999 in maskless rebellion, imagine when the adults in the room assess the situation and determine that we’ve reached a tipping point with vaccinations and – dare I say it? Herd immunity. Of course, the common cold and influenza will each dance a happy dance. This pandemic hit them hard too. But we’ve danced with each plenty of times, right? Still, we all talk a good game, but what happens when someone sneezes without covering their mouth in a crowded space? Are we ready for that moment?

      Passport stamps stopped abruptly in 2019. A lost year for ink pads and border agents and wandering souls alike. I’d like to get another stamp or two in the passport before it expires. Before I expire. To hear the thrill of rubber stamp meeting paper once again! It’s tantalizingly close now, isn’t it?

      Where do you go when the borders open up? Does the list of places you’d built up over your lifetime just resume now, or did all of this open your eyes to new possibilities? Do crowded streets in Venice carry the same appeal yet? Will remote beaches and quiet mountaintops still draw you the way they always have or have you had enough isolation? Just how much has this pandemic changed us in ways unseen?

      I don’t have the answers, of course. But I know that I’m a wanderer myself. I have places to go in this world, places to meet people (like you!) in solidarity and celebration. For life is out there as much as it’s in… here. And like you I’m about ready to get out there and mingle with kindred spirits in faraway places.

      We aren’t there just yet, but we must get ready, mustn’t we? Mastering phrases like Excuse me, where is the restroom? and Where can we get the best tapas and Sangria? and Do you know the way to San Jose? and of course, Cheers! To break language barriers we must meet the locals more than halfway.

      And then there’s our fitness level. Let’s face it, there’s been way too much Zoom and sitting around in close proximity to the pantry for our own good. We must get fit and toned for those long climbs up ancient steps, those walks through ripening vineyards, or simply those forever walks through international airports. The world is waiting for you, will you be ready when it opens up?

      Tonight, with the temperatures moderating just enough for respectable conversation, I’m going to light a crackling fire outside and inevitably be drawn into the embers as the night progresses. We may contemplate the changes of the last year, but we’ll also scheme about the future. It’s out there, waiting for us. Should we be ready to wander once again. Etes-vous prets?

    • The Pull of Our Inclinations

      “A stone, because of its makeup, will return to earth if you throw it up in the air. Likewise, the more one pushes the intelligent person away from the life he was born for, the more he inclines towards it.” – Musonius Rufus

      What of our makeup? Are we drawn towards our inclinations, like gravity pulls a stone? Speaking as a sample size of one, I believe it to be true. Certainly the writing poured out of me in every job I’ve ever had, manifesting my own inclinations in quote-of-the-day emails, monthly newsletters and lengthy dissertations on topics lost forever in the ether of bits and bites.

      We often ignore our makeup in favor of the trade du jour. Who wouldn’t want the relative guarantees of a career in engineering or law or programming over the uncertainty of art or music or writing? Your parents certainly wanted the best for you when they reminded you to study hard. Our friends also influenced us, steering us to get the college degrees in fields where the jobs were. The pull of our makeup is in a tug o’ war with the well-intentioned advice of our circle of influence. And of course the anchor of the opposing tug o’ war team: that inner voice, Seth Godin’s Lizard Brain, Steve Pressfield’s Resistance, that quietly conspires against you.

      So whatever you pursue instead, you try to do it well. To honor your commitments, to build your nest egg and support your growing family. But that inclination quietly pulls at you, asking for more of your attention. And you slowly concede a bit here and there. Start selling things on Etsy, playing guitar in a band, writing a blog or creating an InstaGram site to display your photography. A hobby, really. Something to dabble in to keep the mind working.

      Over time you see incremental improvement; finding your stride, your style, your voice. And you find a bit of momentum. You’re still in that tug o’ war, but the flag is inching a bit closer to that line in the sand. And it’s a battle! One side pulls, the flag shifts away, the other gains strength and the flag draws closer to crossing over. Back and forth it goes. Which side wins?

      Well, that’s up to you.

    • Bucking Trends

      “Trend is not destiny.” – Shane Parrish

      Trends. Sometimes they seem so laughably predictable, other times so completely unreliable. Anyone paying attention saw the events of January 6th unfolding, trending towards violence. We all watched COVID-19 infection rates trend alarmingly upward a year ago, quickly turning our growing interest into immediate action. There’s clearly a trend towards people buying more hiking gear and bicycles, adopting pets and using technology to connect with loved ones. What will the end of the pandemic do to trends like these?

      Trends aren’t completely accurate predictors of the future, but they can be indicators of that future. There are trends indicating climate change, and trends indicating a slow move towards lowering greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation of the rainforest. Where do these trends meet? If you can’t reverse a trend can you slow it down enough? And what exactly does enough mean anyway?

      I’m trending towards old age, but that doesn’t mean it’s my destiny. A meteor could smash into my office even as I write this, nullifying both my life and that trend towards older in a moment. Or consider my tendency to lose 15 pounds every year when the weather got warm and I was more active outdoors. That trend was turned upside down in 2020, when some combination of pandemic stress eating and a slower metabolism stalled me at the same weight for most of the year. Is that a new trend? Or does the five pounds I’ve lost in the last two weeks indicate a new trend?

      What do we make of the trendy? People who seek out the latest styles, book reservations well in advance at the cool places, and live in the right neighborhoods. Being trendy is like surfing waves – you read the ocean and find just the right swell to ride out. I’d rather swim in the surf than fight for the perfect wave. Does that make me a laggard when it comes to trends, or an indifferent outlier on the bell curve? Depends on the trend, I suppose. Give me denim over whatever is trending in fashion at the moment, but I’m all in on the iPhone 12.

      The thing is, none of us really know our destiny, but we can adjust our trends to favor better outcomes. Don’t like the trend towards drinking and eating more? Eat less, earlier, and take a walk instead of sitting down to watch Netflix with a glass of wine. Don’t like the trend in pipeline for your business forecast? Double down and develop new opportunities. Trend is not destiny, it’s just the direction you happen to be going in at the moment.

      So, knowing the trends, are you going to change your destiny?

    • The Ultimate Competition is With Ourselves

      “Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other than their own self-gain...

      When you compete against everyone else, no one wants to help you. But when you compete against yourself, everyone wants to help you.“

      “If there were no trust, then no one would take risks. No risks would mean no exploration, no experimentation and no advancement of the society as a whole.” – Simon Sinek, Start With Why

      If there’s one aspect of my personality I work to change, it’s my inherent competitiveness in most aspects of my life. An underlying desire to get the upper hand in conversation. To come out on top in sports. To be atop the leader board in my career. That mindset limits you in what you can achieve, because as Sinek points out, if you’re perceived as pursuing self-gain, then you’re viewed as a competitor in a world of scarcity.

      The thing is, the world isn’t aligned against you at all. The world is doing the best it can to survive another day, put food on the table, to get through the awkwardness of an initial conversation and get back to what they were doing before they encountered you. Sure, some people are completely out for themselves, but they’re easy to spot after a few words or by reading body language. And what do we do when we read that? We recoil a bit and put up our defenses. Why would we expect others to treat us differently should we telegraph “ME” in everything they do?

      Competing with others distracts us from rising to personal excellence. It takes our focus off of our own improvement and onto others. We don’t achieve mastery without focusing on incremental improvement. Keeping up with the Joneses draws us away from our own inner voice and the things that must be done. But worse, it positions us against them.

      Competition has its place, of course. What would sports or chess or debate be without competition? A dull world of participation awards, that’s what it would be. Serena Williams or Tom Brady didn’t rise up to become the best in their individual sports chasing participation awards. They may have started with a personal chip on their shoulders that drove them to succeed at uncommon levels, but each is quick to pull up others around them too. You can be the very best without being an asshole. In reality, the assholes don’t quite reach the pinnacle anyway, because nobody wants to help them.

      Reaching mastery doesn’t mean standing atop the bodies of your conquered enemies, it means reaching deeper into ourselves and pulling out the brightest bits of our own possibility. And then turning around and lending a hand to those making the climb themselves. Trust and mutual respect are built in such moments. They, in turn, will turn to lend you a hand in your own moment of need. And together you can rise to greater heights than you might on your own.

      Trust in ourselves begins to emerge when we develop our own self-worth. And that comes in keeping promises to ourselves in the work we do. In the increments of effort that matter most, done with consistency and honesty. The ultimate competition is with ourselves, and once we begin to master that we view the rest of the world less as a threat than as a barometer of progress.

    • The Next Thing

      Some ideas grab you and you can’t put them down until they’re finished, and then you sense them glowing in the fibers of your being like the smell of ozone after an electrical storm. Sparks of imagination fire off in your brain like lightning in a summer storm.

      Inevitably in writing I get so excited about a concept I’m contemplating that I’ll want to jump immediately to write about that one instead of the topic I’d originally pursued. This is maddeningly distracting, of course, and I force myself to stay on point with whatever I’d started down the path on in the first place. But first, to stop the nagging I get it out of my head and summarized the thoughts on paper or in a few key words in my drafts to return to again another time.

      Does a million thoughts in your head indicate an active mind or a distracted mind? I think both, if you let the thoughts pull you too far off that path. Each is Frost’s path less taken, tantalizingly close to being realized. But if you stray too far down that way you’re not going very far at all on the one you started on. So which is the right way? Both can be. Or neither.

      Books are the physical representation of this phenomenon. That book started then put aside in favor of another that strikes your fancy. Then you hit on one that stirs your soul into a frothy latte of inspiration with an extra shot of espresso emphatically pounding passionately in your heart. You eagerly chase this one to the end, throwing aside all the partially completed tomes. Before you know it you have a pile of books (or drafts) stacked up in need of reckoning with and you’re bouncing off the walls.

      Next things offer hope. Next things stir the soul. Next things excite the senses. Next things spin up anticipation. Next things are our possible future cresting in our imagination like a wave, on the verge of being fully realized in the break.

      But first, there’s this other thing. Commitments to follow through on. Things started that we honor with focused effort. For to finish what you started honors more than the work. The work we choose to finish leaves a legacy of promises kept. Promises to ourselves and others. The next thing must wait until this thing is finished. For all the paths we might roam, it’s the only way we’ll ever get where we’re going.

    • That Moment When Everything Changed

      “I wonder if I should have a change — a year in Europe this time — something new, something better, perhaps. A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. It is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no good anticipating regrets. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday…

      It seems remarkable to me at least that if I had not gone to Molo, I might never have seen New York, nor learned to fly a plane, nor learned to hunt elephant, nor, in fact, done anything except wait for one year to follow another… How can the course of a life be changed by a word spoken on a dusty road?”
      – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      In this last year of the pandemic, with borders closed and wandering spirits limited to adventures of the local kind, it’s easy to throw your hands up in frustration at the “one days” that are postponed. Of one year following another with a measure of stasis unfamiliar and a bit uncomfortable. If we’re fully engaged we learn to make do, to thrive really, in those local adventures and appreciate what we have in our own back yard.

      You want a quick adventure? Click on the link above and read Markham’s book. Put aside the disgust of elephant hunting for this one (it was a different time) and immerse yourself in the perspective of an adventurous soul and a brilliant writer. Growing up in Kenya a hundred years ago, training thoroughbreds before pivoting to flying.

      Markham’s life changed when she met a man repairing his car who flew in the first World War and would soon teach her to fly. He sparked her imagination with possibility, and the rest of her life sprouted from that spark. She quickly charms you and makes you wish you’d met her in the brief time we breathed the same air. If I’d read this book at twenty I might have dropped everything and flown straight to adventure myself.

      So why not now? As with many adventurous role models, she makes you wonder; what is our own pivot? What is your moment that changes everything? It may not be a chance encounter, it might just be a small leap into the unknown. We’ve learned a lot about the world and ourselves over the last year. If there’s one clear lesson from all of it, it’s that the world was always trying to tell us something. But we were too busy distracting ourselves to pay attention.

      “The world does not act on us as much as it reveals itself to us and we respond.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Volume I

      How will we respond to the last twelve months that changed everything? And what shall we make of our future? Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday. Our one day can begin today. We don’t have to rely on some chance encounter with someone who teaches us to fly. That moment that changes everything can, indeed must, be this one. Flying requires summoning the courage to start down the runway and the accumulated experience to soar.

    • On Purpose

      “Find out who you are and do it on purpose” – Dolly Parton

      “Do it on purpose and you’ll find out who you are.” – Seth Godin

      Ten days seems a short time to accomplish much of anything, and the last ten days have whirled by in a flurry of moments great and small. But isn’t that all our days? This sampling, more than a week and less than a fortnight, offered a chance to focus on a few key activities to see what might happen.

      And so I exercised a bit more, rowing and hiking and snowshoeing my way across time. And wrote a bit more, offering another 5000 odd words of tribute to the Cloud. And read a bit more, finishing two books that were impatiently tapping me on the shoulder to immerse myself in.

      I’d wanted to lose a few pounds and watched five of them fall away, half of what I’d wanted but a handful less than I’d started with. I’d wanted to summit two 4000 footers but instead summited a single mountain shorter in stature than I’d envisioned but more than up to the task of changing my perspective. While there I crawled behind a waterfall and saw the otherworld there. And found myself wanting to linger behind the ice longer than I did. The whispers in that ice haven’t yet diminished in the din of work days.

      Incremental improvements such as they were, it doesn’t seem appropriate to boast about such things as losing a couple of pounds and reading a couple of books. It isn’t a boast if it’s less than you wanted, is it? But if you end in a better place than you started isn’t it a success anyway? The point, I think, is to keep raising expectations of yourself. Keep doing things on purpose and you might just find out what that purpose is.

      Purpose. What a heavy word. There are bookstores filled with thoughts on finding your purpose in life. We all contemplate what it’s all about, hopefully stumbling upon a few insights on our walk through life. Why do we do anything? Why shift in this direction over that one? Why is just purpose by another name. We generally have so much noise in our lives that we can’t hear the whispers of why anyway. I think mine might be locked away in that icy waterfall, or it could be in the next conversation I have. Or in the silence in between.

      Pulling a random ten days out of a lifetime and seeing what you can make of it with intention, you might just find that ten wasn’t quite enough to get all the way across the finish line. But you’re closer than you were without the focus and intent. If you play them well, you might just shuffle a few interesting cards into your deck of days. And find that purpose is just the direction you’ve set yourself on. For now, or for a lifetime.