Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Stupid Prizes

      I’m not sure where I heard the phrase first, but I know for sure I wrote it down most recently when I heard Naval say it, so I’ll offer him credit for repeating it once more that I might truly hear it: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”  Boy, have I played some stupid games in my life.  To be fair, haven’t we all?  Life is full of stupid games, and what are you really pursuing in the playing of it?

      I once played a stupid game where we threw glass bottles in a stream and threw rocks at them to try to break them as they floated by.  The thought of that horrifies me now, but I was a dumb kid in a time when it didn’t seem like a big deal to introduce litter and broken glass into a stream.  My prize for playing that stupid game was getting hit by a car when I tried to run across the road to throw rocks at a bottle that had gotten away.  I deserved that car windshield, and I’m grateful the prize didn’t include a coffin in my size.  I’m not sure my mother deserved the prize of hearing her son was hit by a car but hey, I was playing a really stupid game and there were ample prizes to go around.

      More typical stupid games are trying to be cool in school and missing out on better prizes while you play stupid.  Taking a job you hate to try to play the corporate ladder game for another rung into a job you’ll hate more but has more prestige and money you’ll waste on stupid prizes.  I’ve had a few dress shoes pressed into my forehead owned by ladder climbers in my time climbing ladders.  Chasing metrics and KPI’s and all manner of Chutes and Ladders in the pursuit of differentiation in a red ocean of sharks feeding on one another most famously profiled in a New York Times profile on the culture five years ago at Amazon.

      Stupid games include competing to get your child into the right school, with the right social activities, playing the right position in the right sport on the right travel team, to win the next “right” prize.  It’s another ladder with people stepping on top of each other on the scramble, made worse as it’s removing childhood from the lives of children in the pursuit of status.  That seems a particularly cruel stupid game.  Rising above stupid games isn’t easy, but it’s our only hope of winning better prizes.  But then again judging people for the games that they play is a stupid game in itself.  What does it get you but resentment or jealousy or condescension?  Now that is stupid.

      It would be easy to write that I’m done playing stupid games and this pandemic has shaken me of the beliefs that made me play them.  But we’re all human and will make decisions that in hindsight will be stupid.  No, life itself is a game and sometimes we find ourselves pursuing stupid.  I can’t guarantee to myself that I won’t pursue stupid games, but I can promise myself that I’ll stop playing the game as soon as I realize it’s stupid.  There are only so many games we get to play.  So I’ll at least try to raise my game and play at a higher level.  A higher level where I’m not worried about prizes and how others play the game.  That seems a worthy pursuit.

       

    • Return to Normal

      I know they’re up there, just not as many. I’m sure the flight paths from Europe to America or Boston to Chicago are still traveled by some planes, but they aren’t flying over my home anymore. Chances are they aren’t over your home either. Like many businesses the airlines have furloughed thousands of employees and planes around the globe are getting an extended break from the constant flights that make up their existence. The highways and roads of the world are getting a similar respite from the constant flow of vehicles. Factories are shuttered while the curve flattens. And the planet gasps the cleaner air. The people in India see the Himalayas for the first time in a generation. People in Los Angeles see blue sky. Even here in relatively rural New Hampshire the stars seem clearer.

      No, the sky isn’t empty at all. It’s as full as it ever was, we’ve just finally cleaned the windows enough to see outside. The universe pirouettes above and around us, and collectively we finally see it. Perhaps we’ll remember it when things return to abnormal. For isn’t this far closer to the planet’s normal state than the constant buzz of machinery spewing emissions into the air? Billions of years of normal versus a century or two of abnormal. We just don’t see the forest for the trees.

      Too many act like temporary renters of the space we occupy. Having experienced the attitudes of renters versus homeowners, I know not all renters feel enough of a sense of ownership over where they reside to treat the place well. There are plenty of people roaming the planet with a renter’s mentality. Use it up, discard, get another one. But there are too many of us for that to go on indefinitely. There’s nothing good about COVID-19 for humanity, but the planet might feebly raise a hand to express gratitude. We’re too deep in it to know the long-term impact, but maybe we needed the pandemic to shake us all awake from the drunken stupor we’ve been in. The planet gets a much-needed breather while humans focus on something besides themselves for a bit. The return to abnormal will come, will it be enough of a jolt to reset our worldview? It seems to me that Earth could use more homeowners and fewer renters. What will the new normal be?

    • Dry Towns, Blue Laws and Border Crossings

      There was a time, within my time, when towns were well known for being wet towns or dry towns. I’m not talking about the amount of rainfall, but rather whether a town allowed alcohol sales or not. I went to a dry wedding once and marveled at the resentment in the room as people found out about it. Imagine moving to a dry town and realizing it afterwards? Like that wedding people would simply carry in what they’d like to drink. Rules are meant to be broken, aren’t they?

      New Hampshire only has one “dry” town out of a combined 259 total towns, cities and “unincorporated places”.  That town is Ellsworth, a small town just west of I-93 between the Lakes Region and the White Mountains.  There are only 83 residents in Ellsworth, and every one of them of drinking age have to go to another town to purchase alcohol.  I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of restaurants or stores selling alcohol in Ellsworth anyway, but if they have anything going for them it’s that quirky statistic that makes them unique in the state. Live Free or Die indeed.

      Neighboring Massachusetts by comparison has 8 dry towns. It used to be many more in my lifetime, but the trend is downward. Look, even the Puritans drank alcohol, and for generations it was safer than water in those early colonial years when life was hard and cholera was common. The Pilgrims brought beer across the pond and negotiated with Massasoit with aqua vitae. People went straight from the cold church to the warm tavern. Alcohol consumption was common right up to a century ago, when Prohibition crashed the party for the entire country. From 1920 until 1933 the United States was “dry”. But rules are made to be broken, and organized crime and small time bootleggers, rum-runners and illegal moonshine stills came into prominence immediately afterwards.

      Dry towns are bureaucracy in action, or simply inertia. Most dry towns today are in rural, sparsely populated places that don’t have restaurant and store owners campaigning for change. Dry towns are a curiosity now, 100 years after Prohibition, but also a legacy to the cultural and political winds that blew across the country then. Being a wet town kid, I remember going with my grandfather to the bar where he would proceed to drink many beers in tiny glasses. That bar was on the edge of town, and that edge was wet meeting dry. How many people crossed the border over the years to have a couple of drinks and zig-zagged home? Now that former dry town sells much more alcohol than that old wet town. Money talks, and there’s money in alcohol sales.

      Sunday’s were once a sacred day in Massachusetts, with Blue Laws that prohibited the sale of alcohol. So naturally residents drove across the border to states that didn’t have blue laws. New Hampshire’s southern border is dotted with old convenience stores that sold beer to eager Massachusetts residents on Sundays. New Hampshire built liquor stores on the highways for the quick and convenient sale of alcohol to out-of-staters. The Blue Laws are long gone, but “sin taxes” aren’t. People still stop to fill up their trunks.

      So Ellsworth, New Hampshire remains the lone holdout on the dry side of the law. I hope they always will be, as a reminder of where the country was 100 years ago. If we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that the political winds can blow in strange ways, and a few people can impose their views upon the masses given the opportunity. But if Prohibition teaches us anything, it’s that Americans chafe at arbitrary rules and find ways around them. Our forefathers would recognize the debate either way, and marvel at the choices in the liquor stores.

    • Grateful For The Connection

      They say the Striper return to New Hampshire waters when the lilacs bloom. By “they” I mean a guy standing in front of me talking to another guy six feet in front of him. That the statement was overheard in a COVID-19 mandated line to get into a store is a curiosity of our times, but interesting to me if only because I don’t generally participate in fishing talk. I’m not much of a fisherman, more a fish eater, but I instinctively heard the truth in that statement.

      I’ve been in the woods of New Hampshire for a month now, and other than two trips to visit the in-laws from afar I haven’t strayed out of the 603. I’m plotting covert salt water visits in my mind. I scroll through old photos on my phone and think about excuses to visit Cape Cod once again. Salt water is just out of reach… damn. I’m told that social isolation helps flatten the curve and like most people in the world I hear the truth in that statement. I’ll remain here in the woods for now.

      “Sometimes we are starving to see every bit of what is right in front of us.” – Brian Doyle, The Shrew

      I’ve learned the truth about myself over the years. Especially now I suppose. I’ve learned that it’s easier to listen when you turn off the flow of distraction the world offers. I suppose that’s why people turn on the flow; for distraction. Or to feel connected to the world. We all do, in some measure. The truth about me is I don’t need much distraction. But I do need connection. I learned long ago to have connection you need to reach out for it, because most people are dancing with their own distraction. I turned to the poets and songwriters because they offer connection in spades, even when they’re long gone from this world. If they are so bold as to reach out to me I ought to listen to what they have to say.

      As I stood in that line waiting for enough people to exit that I might enter the store, I found silent connection with a couple of fishermen. It was a bit like stealing because I picked up pieces from them but didn’t give anything back in return. So instead I paid it forward with others I’ve spoken with since, and now with you. Connection is a chain, and we are the links. Distraction weakens the link, attention strengthens it. It doesn’t always seem like it, but I do try to pay attention. And since I have yours, let me say I’m grateful for the connection.

    • Jam and Honey and Joie de Vivre

      When I was in London last fall I got back into tea, and with it back in the habit of adding a spoonful of honey. London also rebooted my brain on the delight of spreading some of that honey or a great jam on a bit of bread or a scone. Small, commonplace joys sprinkled into the day. Europeans are much better at these things than Americans. Here we drive through a coffee shop and eat something out of a bag while commuting to work. Sometimes you don’t even see what you just ate. Cheap fuel with no joy at all. Hopefully you tipped the drive-through person?

      The French long ago figured out the simple pleasure of being fully alive. Joie de vivre, the joy of living, is an expression but also a lifestyle pursued with zeal.  We’re all finding our stride with the joy of living right now, but I’ve seen plenty of evidence that joie de vivre is alive and well in the world. Zoom family calls, group text strings with old friends, Italians singing from balconies and drive-by celebrations of birthdays or just thanks for being in our lives.

      When this collective sacrifice for the greater good of humanity ends, the stories of these moments won’t end, and neither will the memories. I miss connection with the everyday world, but find joie de vivre in smaller bites – or sips – now. Gently fold the very best small pleasures into the daily habits of your life and these little joys punctuate the moment. The joy of living is now, this moment right here, spread out over your life like honey on a bit of bread.

      “Whisper, “I love you! I love you!” To the whole mad world.” – Hafiz

      Isn’t that the whole idea of joie de vivre? Loving life and all the nooks and crannies in our days. Embrace the suck and get through it as best you can, celebrate the small joys and dance with life. Our time on the floor is limited. Maybe stop to celebrate the small bite of food you’re unconsciously nibbling on. Add a bit of sweetness and savor the gift of that morsel of food just a wee bit more. And find ways to make the bigger moments bigger.

      Last weekend I visited my parents from six feet away. We had a bit of rum to celebrate the moment; them with their glasses, us with disposable paper cups on our side. Eye contact is important in such moments, and we fed energy across the fence and sipped spirits. We all miss the hugs and handshakes and kisses on the cheek, but we make the best of what’s still available. In this time of so much death and financial devastation, celebrate being alive in the smallest of ways. Whisper “I love you” to the whole mad world. For it really is a wonderful life.

    • Rest In Peace, Happy Enchilada

      And then COVID-19 took John Prine…  I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to him.  Surely losing Bill Withers to heart disease last week was tough enough, but now another voice from my private stock is gone too soon.  I share the Withers tunes with the world, and the world embraces them.  But honestly most of John Prine’s songs I listened to on my own.  It’s not that he didn’t speak for most of us in his charmingly self-effacing, folksy way, it’s that you don’t roll out Prine songs at parties.  It’s thinking music, sung in a gravely voice that warmed the soul.  His most famous song was Angel of Montgomery, which Bonnie Raitt covered and made it a hit.  Enough people know that one that I’ll leave it to fly on its own.  Here are a few of my favorites.

      All The Best
      “I wish you love – and happiness
      I guess I wish – you all the best
      I wish you don’t – do like I do
      And never fall in love with someone like you
      Cause if you fell – just like I did
      You’d probably walk around the block like a little kid
      But kids don’t know – they can only guess
      How hard it is – to wish you happiness”

      All the best John, you’ll be missed…

      Glory of True Love
      “No, the glory of true love
      Is it will last your whole life through
      Never will go out of fashion
      Always will look good on you”

      Jesus the Missing Years
      The video on this one isn’t great, but John Prine is, and that makes this version worth listening to.

      That’s The Way That The World Goes Round
      “That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
      You’re up one day and the next you’re down.
      It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown.
      That’s the way that the world goes ’round.”

      I love the live version of this John sings where he talks about the woman who confused the lyrics “inch of water” as “happy enchilada” , but this version with Stephen Colbert is new to me and put a smile on my face when I watched it.  We all need to smile more nowadays, don’t we?  Rest in peace, Happy Enchilada.

       

    • Dipping a Toe Back Into Facebook

      I dropped Facebook three months ago today, after one too many unsolicited political opinion, one too many invasively toxic comment, one too many Messenger spam attack or something like that.  Really, I don’t remember anymore, but I do know I haven’t missed it at all.  Until the last week or so, when the news of family dealing with earthquakes in California, COVID-19 in Massachusetts and a friend dealing with the loss of a parent piled up and I recognized that there’s something to be said for the connection Facebook offers.  And so today I’m reluctantly back on it again… in extreme moderation.

      In the meantime, I’ve been blogging away and today will be my 641st post.  This is where I’d rather be, and Facebook will just be a place I’ll stop by to hear about and share in what’s going on with the people I care about.  I’ll respect those people’s firm believe in the rightness of their political, religious or social views, but won’t debate them on any of it.  I’d slowly back away from someone at a party if they were preaching to me about Biden or Trump, and I’d do it virtually when they post it on Facebook.  I may strongly agree with them, or even question their sanity, but why go there in the first place?  It’s their right, and my right to mute the noise.  After three months of cold turkey I’m dipping a toe in the waters again.  I have equally strong opinions about our current political climate, but I won’t muddy up the waters more than they already are.

      No, I won’t subject family and friends to the very stuff I bolted Facebook to avoid.  I know that I missed reasons to offer condolences, congratulations and Happy Birthdays in these last three months.  Hopefully I won’t miss many more.  But the people I’m closest to I just called instead, and that seemed more genuine than some comment on a post anyway. The world has changed a lot in three months, and maybe collectively we’ll be the better for having endured the shared experience.  Facebook still annoys me, tracks me, pushes things on me I don’t want and generally is the worst behaving “tech company” of the lot. And they know they can get away with it. That doesn’t mean that we have to put up with it. I may just look around, realize it’s all still a quagmire and step back permanently. I know they won’t give a damn whether I’m there or not, but maybe a voice of support for those I care about is enough reason to try.

    • Here We Are

      Google maps is still helpfully telling me my car is parked 90 feet away. My car hasn’t moved since I went to restock the groceries Monday. But I appreciate the reminder of why someone wrote that code anyway. They were thinking of their normal – our collective normal – not this current abnormal.

      “Wherever you go there you are.” – Jon Cabot-Zin

      Here we all are. Collectively working through the latest normal like I’m working through this cup of coffee. Our lives are like a cup of coffee in the collective universe; insanely brief flashes of heat and water and a bit of flavorful energy transferring from one place to another. Is that enough? It depends on where you transfer that energy, doesn’t it?

      Mary Oliver wrote of Walt Whitman, “Clearly his idea of paradise was here—this hour and this place.” This hour, and this place, they’re all that matter. It’s the magic hour, wherever you are. What shall we do with it?

      “We are temporary visitors in this world; after we are educated, we are called to different places, and we pass away. But the general education of mankind goes on, very slowly but without interruption.” – Leo Tolstoy

      Maybe that’s the gist of it, we’re all individuals in the giant collective that marches on picking up wisdom and passing it on to the next individual. Timeless. The great conversation. Different voices in the infinite choir lending our song and trying our best to harmonize with the universe. A few bad apples singing a different tune along the way who ultimately get drowned out by the harmonies of the rest. Seems about right to me.

      Well, the coffee is finished and the mug is cooling back to room temperature. The magic hour is up. Thought I’d something more to say? The day calls once again: the next hour is at hand. We stack hours up like stepping stones, slowly climbing to wherever the time takes us. Where shall we go with the time that is left?

    • TGI… F?

      Friday’s feel a bit different when your entire week is spent working from home… And the weekend before that… And this coming weekend too. Indeed, Saturday and Sunday feel different, and so does Monday. There’s a cadence to a normal week that’s been disrupted for most everyone, but it’s all kind of lumped together now like jambalaya. Here we are in the new world.

      You could say TGI… Not On A Ventilator or TGI… Still Employed or TGI… Still Like My Family or TGI.. Still Have Toilet Paper right about now and mean it more than TGIF. So sure, the world is still upside down on this next Friday in March, but it could be worse. And someday we’ll all have a collective memory of this time that we’ll shake our head in wonder at. The world against the virus; our collective enemy.

      The work week, like perceived scarcity, can bring out the worst in some people. It’s not always easy living in a dog-eat-dog world, so it’s understandable when people celebrate the end of that crazy week and the chance to let loose a bit. But the bars are closed, the restaurants are doing take-out, every sport is shuttered and theaters sit dark and empty. So where do you let loose anyway, if you’re so inclined?

      Such is the state of the pandemic world. Society pauses to flatten the curve, the economy needs its own ventilator and Friday seems like Tuesday. But what of it? TGIF is a state of mind anyway, just like the Monday Blues is. Celebrate waking up to another day and don’t worry about the calendar. TGI… Alive And Healthy. Memento Mori and Carpe Diem.

    • Bigger Than the Current Small

      “You have treasures hidden within you—extraordinary treasures—and so do I, and so does everyone around us. And bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion, and the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think so small.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

      I’m cranking away at my work, building as much momentum as I can to carry this ship as far as possible across the chasm of our current reality. The harder I work, the less I worry about pandemics and the economy and things out of my control. All we control is what we do today, how we react to the larger world swirling madly around us, and who and how we interact with others.  On the whole things are going okay at the moment.  We’ll see how the next moment goes when we get there.

      Still, there’s this underlying restlessness to get going already.  More to write than I’m writing.  I can’t travel far to see the world in its present state, but surely I can write more.  We can all create something bigger of ourselves, can’t we?  I believe it starts with thinking bigger than the current small, pushing beyond the borders around our day.  Holding yourself to a higher standard.  And so that’s where I’m focused.  I’m producing thousands of words every week in this blog, but I can do much more than this.  We all have these treasures that need to be brought to light, as Gilbert writes in her call to action.  I’m not at all unconvinced that there’s more there, my challenge is getting myself to bring it to light.

      “I wish I could show you,
      When you are lonely or in darkness,
      The Astonishing Light
      Of your own Being!”
      – Hafiz, My Brilliant Image

      I’ve been aware of the time going by, as Jackson Browne put it. And I’ve been too patient with my use of that time, certainly more than I should be.  There’s only now, so why are you waiting to use this time for anything else?  Well, because the home renovations need to get completed, and your customers need support, and your family needs your focus, and the cat just threw up on the carpet and it needs to be cleaned up, and on and on.  It’s not easy to bring your astonishing light out when you’re cleaning up cat puke.  But still, it’s there, bursting at the seams, frustrated and slowly dimming as you passed it over yesterday and maybe today and tomorrow too.  Light doesn’t need your excuses, it needs to get out and shine on the rest of the world.

      To be fair, that light in us comes out in the interactions with others, in our careers and parenting and even in those home renovations. Light has a way of shining through when you open yourself up to the world. I’m not diminishing that particular light, but you and I both know when we leave something on the table. There’s work left undone and it’s light fades with every moment. So I’m doubling down on the writing, the writing not yet seen by the world or in this blog, working to get it out. Shouldn’t we all make the most of our time?

      “In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden