Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Be a Thoroughbred

      “What is courage? Let me tell you what I think it is. An indefinable quality that makes a man put out that extra something, when it seems there is nothing else to give. I dare you to be better than you are. I dare you to be a thoroughbred.” – Herb Brooks

      It was purely an oversight on my part to ignore the 40th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice that took place at Lake Placid when the upstart kids from the United States defeated the USSR hockey machine at the Olympics. I’ve been to Lake Placid twice since those Olympics, and stepped inside that rink the last time. It was a quiet summer day that time, but the rink was lit up and church-like.

      I didn’t play hockey growing up in Massachusetts, but it felt like everyone else did, especially after that Olympics. Everyone knew who Jim Craig and David Silk and Mike Eruzione were, and everyone knew Herb Brooks. The gruff coach with the incredible wisdom bombs dropped on his teams. Sayings like “Legs feed the wolf” and “You’re playing worse everyday and right now you’re playing like it’s next month” were made famous by Brooks and parroted by coaches and athletes alike. There’s something about an underdog pulling off the miracle upset that inspires a generation, and we were all inspired by that team.

      I watched the movie Miracle again last night. They mostly got the Boston accents right, as right as Hollywood ever gets it anyway. And I suppose the folks in Minnesota cringed at the accents on their side. But the soul of that movie is in honoring Herb Brooks and what he created out of a bunch of kids. Herb passed away before the movie was released, but he was certainly aware they were making it. I think he would have appreciated the whole of it, even if reluctant to be celebrated himself.

      It’s hard not to be inspired by Herb Brooks quotes like the one that opens this blog and the one that follows. They make you want to go out and create your own miracle, really. And isn’t that the point? If a bunch of kids can pull off an upset like that why can’t you and I dare to be thoroughbreds ourselves? And what are we waiting for? It’s not like Herb hasn’t kicked us in the ass with his words. The rest is up to us.

      “Let me start with issuing you a challenge: Be better than you are. Set a goal that seems unattainable, and when you reach that goal, set another one even higher.”

    • The Angel’s Share

      Take a tour of a Scottish distillery and you’ll see the black stains on the sides of buildings and wonder. This is the residual build-up from centuries of evaporation of the angel’s share, the percentage of scotch that evaporates through the casks to go where it will. I’ve often thought of this evaporation process and will offer up a bit more to the angels in my own particular life when having a dram outdoors.

      Yesterday I scanned my to-do list, drew an X in every bullet I’d finished and put an > to every bullet that I simply didn’t get to and had to push to another day. This process of organizing tasks is from the appropriately-named bullet journal method, which transformed my way of managing my to-do lists a few years ago. There’s something satisfying about drawing an X through a nagging bullet, getting it done and knocking that bullet to smithereens. Crossing off the bullet is a supremely satisfying way of patting yourself on the back without making the words disappear as they would if you’d simply crossed out what you’d completed. Why diminish what you’ve accomplished?

      X Wash the dishes (Done!)
      X Write and post the blog (Done!)
      X Row 5K (Done!)

      Simple, yet effective.

      But then there are the arrows (>). Tasks moved to another time, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a week. But they’re moved on anyway, to be written on another page.

      The punted tasks, like:
      > Call Rick to schedule meeting (punt)
      > Go to store for printer ink and paper (punt)

      Make no mistake, these punts tortured me for years. I simply couldn’t turn the page and let the day’s tasks be. No, I’d beat myself up for not getting everything on my list done. That voice inside your head that reprimands you for not being more focused, or not working hard enough on what was important… or whatever. Head noise.

      In reality, I tend to put too many things on the list in the first place. By learning to live with them, to kick them forward to another specific day, I’ve stopped beating myself up about what didn’t get done. More frequently now, I think of these punted tasks as the angel’s share. Sorry, internal critic, that one wasn’t meant for me today, that was the angel’s share. Or maybe a future version of me. But since tomorrow isn’t guaranteed we’ll call it the angel’s share.

      Either way I’ve learned to smile a bit and close the book on another day of tasks and events. I’ve done my part for today. And that, friends, is enough. Slàinte Mhath!

    • A Blessed Unrest: Martha Graham in 7 Quotes

      “The only sin is mediocrity.” – Martha Graham

      I only know of Martha Graham, and associate her appropriately with modern dance, which admittedly I wrestle with. I’ve witnessed way too many angst-ridden dance competitions on the journey of my daughter dancing from kindergarten to High School Senior. But I respect the beauty of formal dance (while struggling with the abundance of teen angst), and wanted to understand the genius of Graham through her words. As with other geniuses, her brilliance transcends her art and her life. Speaking of the sin of mediocrity speaks to her passionate pursuit of the exceptional.

      “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. … No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

      Do you feel the urgency in those words? I do. I read a quote like that and understand. What is your quickening? Are you translating your vitality through action or wasting it in the trivial pursuits? Graham lived to 97 and packed those years with transformative action. What of our life force?

      “‘Age’ is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.”

      Growing older but not up is a state of mind; to remain young at heart. But it can also be an excuse for not getting to where you want to go. The glory of years is an accumulation of life and accomplishments and the ripples that resonate well beyond our time. It’s something to aspire to, not “getting older”, but accumulating maturity.

      “Practice is the means of inviting the perfection desired.”

      There’s no secret in how people reach mastery. We know it intuitively even if we don’t see the hours upon hours of work that go into muscle memory. These are the layers of competence that stack up to brilliance. Put in the time, do the work, make the mistakes, and reach for the next level. It’s the only way.

      “Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can”

      What is your why? Why are you doing all this in the first place? What whispers in your ear and prods you along? Without your why you’re just going through the motions. And what a waste that is.

      “Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.”

      For all our words, our thoughts are betrayed by our bodies. You see it in how someone greets you, how someone answers a pointed question, and in how they dance with the world around them. We frequently won’t listen to what our gut is telling us, instead only believing what the mind is telling us to believe. Not wanting to be ignored, the gut tells the world what we won’t hear in ourselves.

      “Think of the magic of the foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.”

      I’m not much of a dancer, not like those well-choreographed, practiced dancers people naturally circle on the dance floor in reverence, but I like to dance my own clydesdale celebratory dance anyway. Someday when the pandemic is over and weddings and other such gatherings seem appropriate again, we’ll find ourselves on a dance floor somewhere and we will rise up to celebrate life in all its glory. The celebration of that miracle – our being, our aliveness, the magic of it all, was the why in Graham’s life, and shouldn’t it be in our own lives as well? For we dance with life in all its complexity, pain and joy. There’s magic in being alive, and that’s reason enough to dance. And to rise up to more.

    • And Yet it Moves

      The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession of moods or objects. Gladly we would anchor, but the anchorage is quicksand. This onward trick of nature is too strong for us: Pero si muove. When at night I look at the moon and stars, I seem stationary, and they to hurry. Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of mind in variety or facility of association. We need change of objects. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

      This phrase, Pero si muove, mentioned in passing by Emerson, is famously Galileo Galilei’s. Forced by the Catholic Church to recant the truth of the matter that the earth revolves around the sun, Galileo dropped this little truth bomb after recanting. “Pero si muove” or, “And yet it moves”.

      I think about Galileo’s mic-dropping truth in a particularly dark time for truth in history as reality-based people of the Earth coexist with the buzz of maddening conspiracy theories, flat-Earthers and rigged election believers. The simplicity of truth seems lost in the escalating rhetoric of these online screamers. Imagine for a moment Galileo and Emerson returning to the world of today and listening to this din of despairing dolts. They’d lose all hope in humanity and throw up their hands in despair. There are days when I want to myself. Aren’t we past all this nonsense?

      It’s ironic that all this craziness is happening at a time of brilliant scientific advancement. We see images and hear sounds broadcast from the surface of Mars. We embrace the heroic efforts of the scientific community to develop viable vaccines to fight off COVID, and to stand up a delivery system to get it into the arms of the billions of people on the planet that desperately need it and a return to “normal”. We see the smartest among us looking at the problems humanity has created on this fragile blue ball rotating around the sun and tackling climate change and plastics and clean water and the related list of short-sighted gains that created long-term problems for future generations.

      There’s hope in the world, but there’s also a healthy dose of self-inflicted despair and rage. And we won’t get past it without facing the truth. Pero si muove. Or consider again Emerson’s words: “Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of mind in variety or facility of association. We need change of objects.” I think all of this social isolation has stirred the pot of madness a bit too much. Sanity of mind seems to be a real issue for way too many people looking for something to cling to in the swirling uncertainty of the age.

      I find hope in Galileo’s phrase. For all the forced dogma of his time, the truth prevailed. And it lives on in the majority of people in the world today. There have always been laggards on the bell curve of reality, they just happen to have a louder voice at the moment. Pero si muove. Truth finds a way to shine through in the end. So long as people have the courage to stand for it as Galileo did.

    • Considering the Music of 1973

      Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
      I want to get lost in your rock ‘n’ roll
      And drift away

      Dobie Gray didn’t write Drift Away, Mentor Williams wrote it. But Dobie made it an international hit. The right mix of sing along, stirring lyrics and his silky soulful voice made it magical. I go about with life, forgetting about a song like this for a time, and then hear it on the radio or shuffled on a playlist of songs and it washes over me all over again, bringing me back to the first memories of hearing it. Dobie’s version was released in 1973, by all measures a very good year for music, with some of the greatest songs ever written released that year.

      Consider these ten 1973 classics:
      Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
      Ramblin Man
      Let’s Get It On
      Just You ‘N’ Me
      Angie
      Money
      Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
      Over the Hills and Far Away
      Jet
      Love, Reign o’er Me

      And that’s just scratching the surface. Big albums were released in 1973, including Dark Side of the Moon, Band on the Run, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Houses of the Holy and Quadrophenia. Individual songs were brilliant, but this was the peak era of albums, when the entire record was a work of art gift-wrapped in an album cover to cherish. Radio latched on to songs and made them hits, but the fans were eagerly listening to deep cuts on the best albums and finding gold.

      The world itself was upside down in 1973, with Watergate beginning to boil up, the Paris Peace Agreement to get the United States out of Vietnam, inflation running amuck, and our parents dressing us in some crazy multicolor outfits. But hey, at least we had the music. And if you were a kid growing up in the early 70’s you were immersed in some of the greatest music ever created.

      1973 was a stacked year in a string of stacked years for rock and roll. Scan the music released in any year from 1965 to 1975 and you can create a heck of a playlist. These were the golden years for rock ‘n’ roll, when each release, and each year, tried to raise the bar. Popular music tried to stay hip and part of the action, and sometimes a song would rise up and become that classic for the ages. If we’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that popular doesn’t always equal good, and there were some really bad songs hitting the charts in each of those years too, but those tend to drift away, don’t they? As with life, we tend to remember the best things. Like great songs. You know a melody can move me…

    • At That Moment

      “I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well.” – Roger Bannister

      The extraordinary – mastery – starts with that feeling. That spark of excitement at the possibility that just maybe I can do this. And as they say, all it takes is a spark. True, but once the fire is lit, all it takes is fuel to make it roar. For it is just the beginning. There are more moments to come.

      The time before that moment aren’t full of sparks, they’re full of stumbles and awkwardness and frustration. The paying of dues. The long slog. The apprenticeships that turn novices into prospects and prospects into rising stars. All a precursor to that moment when you finally know that this, this is it. And once you realize it, you do whatever you must do to, well, realize it.

      “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan

      All of us experience that other it. Those moments when you realize that this is definitely not it. Sometimes that it is our it masked by the long slog to get to it. But usually we know the truth of something before too long down the path. And the truth is that most its aren’t our it. So we try another it. And another. Many never find it at all. Plenty experience maybe this is it. And really, it might just be it, but the climb is long and the friends are calling to go out for a few drinks to celebrate the end whatever isn’t their it, and before pretty soon that maybe isn’t your it either.

      The relatively few who do find and fully realize their it may experience the extraordinary. For it, by definition, lies beyond the ordinary. Finding your it requires singular focus on achieving it. Which brings us back to that moment. And what you feel. And what you do with your chance.

    • The General Union

      “The happiest fate is that of the author who, as an old man, is able to say that all there was in him of life-inspiring, strengthening, exalting, enlightening thoughts and feelings still lives on in his writings, and that he himself now only represents the gray ashes, whilst the fire has been kept alive and spread out. And if we consider that every human action, not only a book, is in some way or other the cause of other actions, decisions, and thoughts; that everything that happens is inseparably connected with everything that is going to happen, we recognize the real immortality, that of movement – that which has once moved is enclosed and immortalized in the general union of all existence, like an insect within a piece of amber.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

      I stood out in a three inch deep puddle at the end of the driveway, chipping away at an ice dam that was keeping the water from flowing into the catch basin and back on its journey to the infinity of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s funny to think about the icy water I stood in as part of the infinity, but then again so are we. All part of an endless loop of the water cycle. We humans trap a bit of that water for ourselves to mix with some carbon and energy for a time before releasing it back on its way. And our own time soon comes to an end, leaving memories and examples and maybe an insight or two.

      The thrill of writing is still with me, as much as ever really. The streak of writing every day almost ended over the weekend when I struggled to stay awake to finish a post written piecemeal over the course of a busy day of hiking and socializing. Would it really matter if I missed a day? The world surely wouldn’t stop, but I’d know. I’m not ready to break the streak just yet thank you. Every day we wake up is a continuation of the streak, and there’s a thrill in getting up and out there to greet the world when you know you’ve got things to contribute to it. If only a few words that relatively few will read.

      Being active and adding to the conversation is the root of the thrill for me. Being in the mix and doing things. Will anyone care that I wrote this post? Perhaps not many, but the act itself is enough for me. A few thoughts and actions that ripple while using up my three billion heartbeats during this life, to be enclosed and immortalized in the general union of all existence. Like a puddle reaching for the ocean, and welcomed back warmly by the whole.

    • Muscle Memory

      I grab the newel post with my left hand in the dark, pivot slightly and feel the stair rail with my right. Twenty-two years of early morning flights and workouts and pouring thoughts into piles of words adds up to the kind of muscle memory that allows you to navigate a house in the dark. So much has changed in that time in the concentric rings of relationships that circle closer and closer to the brain between these ears. But this act, grab left and pivot to right, hasn’t changed at all.

      When you’re in a new relationship everything is discovery and revelation. Hopes and dreams. The small endearing habits, the smell of shampoo, the imperceptible twitch of an eyebrow or shift of a glance that betrays a belief you’ll learn over time.

      Relationships with place are similar, but the friction is different. You get to know the creaks and tendencies in a house, the way it breathes when the furnace turning on, how it reacts to frigid cold and gusty wind, the appliance working to survive another cycle, and the sleep cycles of fellow inhabitants. What sounds right and what seems off.

      A house wears like a pair of jeans, faded and stretched in some places. Lived in. Pets come and go. Children bridge the time between new house and familiar abode. A crayon mark or that chip in the tile from the oldest banging a fireplace poker that you don’t even see anymore. Memories of earlier days flood in; bringing the youngest home for the first time, birthday parties, celebrations and holidays.

      Twenty-two years. For all the talk of travel and downsizing and the encroaching habits of the neighbors, there’s something to be said for the familiar. For muscle memory in dark times.

    • Leaning Towards High Agency

      “When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something? So, how am I going to get past this bouncer who told me that I can’t come into this nightclub? How am I going to start a business when my credit is terrible and I have no experience? You’re constantly looking for what is possible in a kind of MacGyverish sort of way. And that’s your approach to the world.” – Eric Weinstein on The Tim Ferriss Show

      I was brought up to follow the rules. Thinking that adults knew something in this world, I would follow rules of behavior and take no as the answer. Fall in line, do your part, don’t question things… passive, low agency characteristics.

      But I also grew up bending the rules ever so slightly in my favor, or breaking them outright. At four taking my three year old sister for a walk to visit my grandparents a mile or so away across a busy road? Let’s do it. At eleven or twelve taking my dad’s Playboy magazines and trading them with the neighbor’s dad for his Penthouse magazines and charge money for the other kids to read the articles? Seemed okay to me.

      But somewhere along the way you slip into the workforce and pick up obligations. Maybe you enter middle management and start following the HR playbook. And slowly, over time, you become passive and decidedly low agency. You become… sheepish. But somewhere inside you that inner maverick chafes at the wool coat. And then you listen to a guy like Eric Weinstein talk about high agency, you hear the example of the main character on The Martian finding a way. And you understand.

      “It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable.” – Sarah Blakely, Spanx

      We generally accept things the way they are. But what if we questioned things a bit more? What if we tried a different way to do the thing that didn’t work the first or second time? What if we developed higher agency within ourselves to set our lives in the direction we want it to go? To be more Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sara Blakely or Elon Musk or Steve Jobs in our own careers? In our own lives?

      “Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.” – Elon Musk

      I think it starts with where we are right now in our lives. Living through a pandemic in our own way with Zoom or Teams, a laptop and a mobile phone at the ready. We’re all dealing with restrictions on travel and social distancing, some with a much harder hand to play than others, but as the stoics would tell us, we must play the cards we’re dealt anyway. And what do we do next?

      “What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

      While we were complaining about shortages of toilet paper there were thousands of people figuring out a vaccine to make this problem go away. Right now, there are people building companies, writing the next great novel, inventing things or doing critical research that will outlive us all. The next big thing, created in the same time of COVID that you and I are living through. So what are we doing with our time? How are we going to work through whatever it is that isn’t working and finding a way through? A way to finally get it right?

      “There is an awful lot of fails before you get it right.” – Elizabeth Isabella, Scripted Fragrance, an Etsy business featured on CBS Sunday Morning

      I heard the Eric Weinstein interview on Tim Ferriss a few years ago now. I had the High Agency dogma reinforced in a George Mack Twitter thread a while back now too. In general I’ve leaned into higher agency in my own life. But still have a lot of fails before I get it right. Don’t we all? Keep trying.

      “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” – Steve Jobs

      We might not ever get to a point where we’re mentioned in the same list as Schwarzenegger or Jobs or Blakely or Musk, but then again, maybe we will. But only if we pivot more, find a way forward or through, and shake off the passive. Time marches on. Will we?

    • Encountering Darshan

      “‘There’s a Sanskrit word, darshan,’ Jon said as we gazed up at Konka. ‘It suggests a face-to-face encounter with the sacred on earth; with a physical manifestation of the holy.’ I hadn’t known the word, but I was glad to have learnt it. Darshan seemed a good alternative to the wow! that I usually emitted on seeing a striking mountain.” – Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways

      Waterfalls and sunrises and mountains and ancient trees are a physical manifestation of the holy. And so is the ripple across a calmly rolling ocean betraying a puff of wind. And the Milky Way on an especially dark and clear night. The catch in my throat when I see these things is spiritual, more than any church I’ve ever walked into, and I go out of my way to seek them out. Admittedly, I haven’t been to the Sistine Chapel yet, but I’m not convinced you can’t find the same thing walking deep into the woods.

      I stumbled on the quote above from Macfarlane and immediately identified with darshan in this context. I read this book almost eight years ago and keep returning, skimming over magical phrases and bucket list places. But in the end the book is about standing up and walking out to find yourself in the world. To come face-to-face with the divine requires inspired effort. Sweat equity in your spiritual education. Getting out there and in it.

      And yet… One of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen is She-Qua-Ga Falls in Montour Falls, NY. It felt like cheating when I arrived, because you essentially drive right up to them. The falls are framed by houses and a concrete lined basin below and an arched bridge above. Like Niagara Falls humanity encroaches on the beautiful, threatening to edge it out in the process. But truthfully I don’t see those things at all; I look at the timeless waterfall captured there, like a rose under glass. And I see darshan.

      There’s a tendency for people to see something beautiful and immediately try to put a stake in the ground there. The Eagles wrote about this in The Last Resort. Houses lined up on the edge of the beach grabbing a share of sunset and water views. Homes mounted atop mountains to maximize the view while killing it for those looking up at the mountain they’ve scarred with a box. I visit a house with a great sunset view as often as I can, and would be a hypocrite if I were to condemn those who build for the view. For all the beauty we see from that house by the bay, I know that the view from the water or from the other side of the street is a row of houses. So I take no issue with the people who built Montour Falls for edging up to the falls and wanting to linger there, but wish the land around the falls had been preserved in its original state. Then again, the falls are beautifully accessible for those who can’t hike deep into the woods. Darshan on display for everyone. And maybe that’s enough.

      The network of trails and rhumb lines that weave across the Earth like a tartan reveal the whispers of those who came before us. There’s very little that hasn’t been seen by someone before us except in the most remote corners of the planet. But who said encounters with darshan must be exclusive anyway? Each human making their way in this world looks for something greater than themselves. Encounters with darshan are uniquely ours alone, even when shared with others we internalize it differently. But what is darshan if not seen through the lens of our mortal human perspective? We seek it out, discover something in ourselves, and try to capture the divine with a few inadequate words and pictures. And honor it as best we can before leaving it for others to discover in their own time.