Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Ship of Fools

      “Why have we left it all to fools? It should have been ours.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      There’s no getting around the foolishness in the world. It’s maddening if we let it be, but we must remember that it’s always been foolish and maddening. This is simply our time to navigate it all. The reason it frustrates us so is because we had such hope for the world not so long ago, and then the fools turned it all upside down.

      We’re setting sail to the place on the map
      From which no one has ever returned
      Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool
      By the light of the crosses that burned
      Drawn by the promise of the women and the lace
      And the gold and the cotton and pearls
      It’s the place where they keep all the darkness you need
      You sail away from the light of the world on this trip, baby
      You will pay tomorrow
      — World Party, Ship of Fools

      We’re being carried along, pressed-ganged into service to pirates seeking profit, as the world burns. In a moment when humanity needed to rise up to meet the climate crisis head-on, we chose oligarchs and conmen to steer the ship. Where it leads us, only science can predict. But why listen to facts when there’s so much money to be made? There will be consequences, and life will be more challenging than it might have been if we’d simply chosen progress over short term profits.

      Maybe I’m missing the part where all the billionaires and pirates pool their resources to save the world. Let them prove me wrong, but their track record isn’t particularly impressive. We aren’t here for miracles, we’re here to face to world as it is (and will be) and to position ourselves for the best possible outcome given the circumstances. Our answer is to build resilience into our own lives and to have our lifeboat at the ready.

    • Connecting Miracles

      “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein

      I spoke with one of my aunts yesterday. I don’t see her and my uncle all that much now. Really, I don’t see any of my aunts and uncles much now. In fact, most of the people who were central to my identity in the first half of my life are not very present today. Childhood friends and enemies, teammates, old coworkers and that person we went on the nervous date with once upon a time. Life gets busy, we tell ourselves.

      The truth is that we can’t be everywhere at once, and some people who mean the world to us gradually slip away as the gap of time and place grows. A bridge requires strong anchors on both sides, but oftentimes we forget to tend our own end of things. So many people in our lives want for a simple call and conversation. We have more power for connection than we utilize in our frenzied, important lives. And what is really all that important anyway?

      We have this one go at things. When we view our lives as a miracle of infinitesimal chance in the cold expanse of the universe, we may appreciate our waking up to face whatever our day brings us a little better. When we consider our fellow time travelers, living their own miracle moment at the same time that we are, well, perhaps we might appreciate their presence a little more. We are stardust, after all, and so is that older neighbor down the street, that barista serving us go juice and the guy that just cut us off on the highway. All miracles in the moment; starstruck and dumbfounded in where we find ourselves. Go figure.

      Connecting miracles is a mission we opt into. Active engagement with the world is a choice. Using that mobile device to actually make a call instead of watching another curated video is a bridge to someone else who may be in desperate need of a reminder that they too are a miracle. Connection is harder than ever in this world of distraction and outrage, but it’s our choice to make.

    • The Length and Breadth of Life

      “Go out this morning. Love yourself, and that means rational and healthy self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That’s the length of life. Then follow that: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That’s the breadth of life.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

      Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day in the United States. It’s also inauguration day for the new/old President. We may choose to celebrate what we wish to celebrate today, that’s our right. I’ll be a voice for hope, love and understanding today. May we all become better versions of ourselves than we’ve been thus far, for we still have so far to go.

      We ought to take care of ourselves better. Eat better, drink more water and less alcohol, move more, find ways to let stress float away instead of embedding itself inside us until it metastasizes. Living a healthy lifestyle is a choice that pays dividends, hopefully with a longer life, but surely with a more vibrant, energetic life now.

      All that newfound energy ought to be put to good use. We may find a community of positive, productive people who raise our expectations of what is possible. Opening ourselves to the world allows our minds the elbow room necessary to expand our perspective. We are the average of the five people we associate with the most, so why settle for a community that drags us down? There’s no reason why can’t reshuffle the deck and raise the bar.

      Asking what we’ve been conditioned for is often the first step to moving ourselves to a better condition. A longer life is not guaranteed but possible. A broader life is like changing our glasses out for a new prescription—life-changing perspective is often a matter of changing what we’re focus on. It can happen today. And really, what better day is there than today to bring positive change into our world?

    • The View of Here

      Gratitude—is not the mention
      Of a Tenderness,
      But its still appreciation
      Out of Plumb of Speech.

      When the Sea return no Answer
      By the Line and Lead
      Proves it there’s no Sea, or rather
      A remoter Bed?
      — Emily Dickinson

      As I write this, my daughter has moved twice to put some distance between herself and the wildfires raging in Los Angeles. She is now thankfully in a safer place, but it was a stark reminder of just how fragile our days are. I read about people losing everything but what they carry with them and I look around and wonder what I’d grab on my way out the door should it happen here. The answer is both everything and nothing at all but the souls who orbit my world.

      It’s no surprise that this blogger leans into productivity and improvement. The question we must always ask ourselves is, towards what? Where is all the hustle and effort bringing us? When we read a book, is it for the simple pleasure of reading that book or are we trying to glean something out of it to help move the chains down the field? We ought to remember the simply pleasures in our march, and learn to savor the view of here.

      The things we are grateful for generally outweigh the things we find lacking in our lives, but humans have a way of focusing on the latter anyway. Constant, never-ending improvement is a blessing and a curse, for this march to personal excellence means we’re rarely satisfied with where we are. Simply taking stock of all that we have already clarifies exactly how deep our blessings run. We don’t need a crisis to clarify, we simply need to stop forever chasing the promise of potential to swim in the abundant depth of here and now.

    • Silence, Exile, and Cunning

      “I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning.” ― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

      We’re in a strange new world, full of people believing unbelievable things. Or maybe the world has always been strange and unbelievable, and I’ve just risen above the din to finally see it all myself. These are days we’ll remember, at least if we survive long enough and the victors are on the right side of history.

      Belief is a funny thing, carrying us to places we may never have imagined we’d go to, simply because we believed the story that pulled us there. This can serve us well, when used for snuffing out imposter syndrome and such things for productive work. The day I stepped away from anonymous blogging to having friends and family fully aware of what I’m writing (if at all inclined) was a notable moment in my development as a writer. There are other notable moments to come this year on the writing front (I believe this to be true).

      Belief can also be used to control the masses. The world is a far more dangerous place because of shared beliefs of “us versus them”. It leads to mass indifference at the separation of families at borders and the bombing of hospitals and schools, all to keep them from threatening us. We all know the world is a complicated place with no easy answers, but when someone loudly starts pointing their fat finger at another group and screaming “Them!” it’s usually time to back slowly away to look for the real story. But who tells real stories anymore?

      There is no them
      There’s only us
      — U2, Invisible

      The thing I tell people who dare to ask me what I think is that we must build resilience into our lives. Some people believe resilience is hoarding guns, food and toilet paper. There’s a whole economy built around those folks. My own form of resilience lies in creating more diversity in my diet. Better nutrition for the mind and body through selective consumption. More books, poetry and song, less curated social media and billionaire-run mass media. And, as James Joyce suggested, the use of silence, exile and cunning to build a mote between the zealots and all that I know to be true in this world.

      There’s nothing silent about a blog post. It’s a stamp of stated beliefs marking this moment in time. A betrayal that I’m still trying to change the world for the better. We may choose to be a voice for reason and acceptance, after all. At least until things really go to hell and they ship us all to Greenland to mine precious metals for the next generation of self-driving cars, weaponized drones and phones that tell us what to believe next (I digress).

      We may be selectively silent when it suits our purposes, just as we may exile ourselves from the zealots who would have us fall in line. Both tools have limitations in a small world with big reach. That leaves us with cunning. We must be smarter than the average bear, to stay one step ahead of what they want to tell us is true. This is the ultimate resilience, and it begins and ends with our audacity to think differently.

    • Happy Holidays

      “All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away.”
      — Pa Bailey, It’s a Wonderful Life

      We had the clan together at the same table for the first time in forever last night. It was a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas Eve, breaking bread and catching up face-to-face. All adults now. We’re spread across the country, this clan, and it’s a joy to be under the same roof again, if only for a day. And that’s the whole point of this holiday season; our gift of time together.

      For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas. And Happy Holidays to all who don’t. May these days bring peace and love to your doorstep.

    • It’s the Zombies Who Burned the Witches

      “All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.” — William Butler Yeats

      I stumbled upon the social media rantings of an old college friend recently. I was shocked by the conspiracy theories being spouted, and recoiled at the gap that has developed between her worldview and my own. I’d tried to debate her before on her accuracy, but alas, she wouldn’t budge. Another college friend reminded me of the line they use when logic isn’t working: If you only knew what I knew. Right. If only…

      I understand better how people once burned witches. They were simply too devoid of experience to understand the things happening to them. When we know how to prevent smallpox or the plague, or to mitigate infant mortality or crop failure, we stop blaming the neighbor’s daughter who looked at us funny. We’ve entered a time when extreme opinions are paralyzing our progress, and it’s a direct result of the poverty of experience in the daily diet of so many. We’re all in danger of being burned at the stake as we look at these people who once seemed normal spiral into conspiracy theories fueled by an over-reliance on “Internet facts”.

      Have you noticed that all of the people living in the world’s intellectual centers perish in the zombie apocalypse movies? The survivors all move to remote walled villages with high walls and guns that somehow kill already dead people. In the real world, the zombies are the people building walls that close out contrary opinions and buying guns to fend off those who would dare cross them. We all agree that we must not become zombies, we just don’t agree on what a zombie actually is.

      In truth, I am conspiring—to keep hope alive. To help people find informational nutrition, and with it, to form better opinions. To seek experience beyond the walls, where insight lives. That pendulum has to swing back to consensus and shared beliefs some day, right? The alternative is to build our own walls, and doesn’t the world have enough of those already?

    • Becoming Better at Seeing

      I was talking to one of my in-law’s neighbors while walking the pup on their street. The neighbor has reached a place where you might call her elderly and frail, but was out shoveling her driveway because her grandson hadn’t shown up to do it. We’re all so busy this time of year… the grandson surely wouldn’t have let his grandmother shovel her driveway alone on a frigid day, but he wasn’t there to witness it and step in. My daughter and I were, and finished her driveway, cleared off her car and asked her if she wanted to come over to join us at the holiday party we were having. She politely declined and thanked us for the invitation.

      We become comfortable in our routines, even when those routines don’t make sense for us anymore. In a perfect world the tribe would revere and support the tribal elders. We live in a world where we’re tapped out and stretched thin, and sometimes we don’t get around to making the call or stopping by to see how those tribal elders are doing. Often they’re holding on by a thread, doing the best they can. A burst of snow quickly freezing into concrete has the potential to put someone over the edge without a lifeline.

      When we slow down a beat and stop rushing on to the next thing with our blinders on, our peripheral vision improves greatly. There are people moving through this world who easily see gaps and fill them with their full attention. I aspire to be more like them, while knowing I’m one of those people who are often too busy to have that situational awareness. We all want to help, don’t we? We just don’t always see. As we move down our path towards personal excellence, becoming better at seeing and solving is something to aspire to. We’re all in this tribe together, aren’t we?

    • Living Towards

      “People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.”
      ― Kim Culbertson, The Liberation of Max McTrue

      I live in a small town with no traffic lights in New Hampshire that snugs up against Massachusetts. I’ve been here for three decades now and for the life of me I know I’ll never feel like a local despite knowing many of them, watching our children grow up together and watching some of those children begin to have children. How can one spend more than half their years in a town and still feel they’re an outsider?

      I’ve been plotting my escape from this town for years, but then I keep running into people with a shared history and find the conversation pleasant. I stood out in the semi-frozen front yard raking up acorns and wore out my arm waving to neighbors driving past on their way back from Sunday activities. I recognize the patterns of the season in this town, from how the stars align against the hillsides to where the deer go to hide from all the hunters. There’s a rhythm to familiarity that we may wear like a warm coat.

      Life is what we make of it. Where we live, what we do for work, and how much time we spend with people who don’t see the world the way we do is often up to us. We are the light in someone’s day when we encounter them, or we’re a reminder to them that they’ve got to get out of this place. The world largely reflects back what we project out to it. The last few years I’ve projected that I’d rather be somewhere else than this small town. Who can blame the town for feeling the same about me?

      The thing is, we ought to be building our lives towards something, not recoiling from something. It’s a subtle difference, but the latter has us on our heels, the former has us charging ahead. One is regression, one is progression. Don’t we all want to feel like we’re making progress in our lives? When the world seems to be shrinking from us, it’s usually a reflection of our own stance with it. We must lean into our future, wherever we want it to take us. Just be sure to give a wave and a smile to the neighbors, they look like they’re going through some things too.

    • Tradition (Happy Thanksgiving)

      “Tradition is the illusion of permanence.” — Woody Allen

      The fact that we’ve always done something a certain way doesn’t mean that thing ought to be done that way forever. Tradition is merely a form of habit, ritualized and accepted as the way. But life is change, and tradition is thus always in a fragile state. We all crave some measure of permanence and familiarity in a world that guarantees nothing. And so it takes people deliberately choosing to do something the same way again and again that makes a tradition stick. For Americans, the ultimate expression of tradition is Thanksgiving.

      For more than half my life I’ve been getting up early and prepping a bird for a mid-afternoon meal with family and friends. It’s a lovely tradition, but admittedly unusual. I mean, it’s right in the middle of the work week, we’re all spread out across the country now, and the whole thing is just so expensive in time and effort. And we love it so because we’re all together again, for no other reason than that we choose to be. And that’s cause for celebration.

      We know (or we must know) that time flies (tempus fugit) and we’re all quite fragile (memento mori), and any one of these Thanksgivings may be the last for us. The whole holiday is an acknowledgement that we made it to here, today, and mostly together despite all that is happening in the world, and we ought to celebrate our arrival here today with a traditional meal altered slightly for dietary considerations. Yes, life is change, and we are surely changed by this complicated business of living, but today we still have this wonderful tradition and each other. Happy Thanksgiving.