Alexandersmap

    Category: Hope

    • The Way We Live

      “There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

      On Martin Luther King day in the United States, I celebrated quietly by reading some of his words and doing my part to lift up instead of pushing down. No doubt, he’d be disappointed with much of the world since he was assassinated, recognizing much of the rhetoric even if the characters have changed. But he’d be pleased at the growth in diversity, understanding and acceptance. And he might give a nod to the persistent courage of those who champion what’s right in this world.

      I’ve embraced the long game, trying to outlast and grow beyond the worst tendencies in my own life, and work continuously to pick up habits and knowledge that gradually broaden my view. If we are what we repeatedly do, and we are the average of the five people we associate with the most, and we are each a work in progress, then we must build better habits, broaden our circle of influence towards the person we wish to become and stick with it through thick and thin.

      The thing is, nobody wants to be told what to think, the only path to meaningful change is to help people see. That’s not easy to do in a world full of noise and amplified division, but the alternative is to give up. Look around and ask, what are we growing into? The only way to drown out the hate is to grow a larger chorus. The way we live, the things we tolerate and the way we treat others carries a weight far more impactful than words.

    • Kindred Contributors of Light

      Kindred comes from a combination of kin and the Old English word ræden (“condition”), which itself comes from the verb rædan, meaning “to advise.” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary

      Talking to a friend about poetry, I mentioned a poem by Li-Young Lee, and paused our phone conversation while she read it, waiting for the payoff when one reacts to great poetry. We do this now and then; find some magic in the world and bring it to light for others to see. We each find our fellow torchbearers by the light they bring to the world. We learn, don’t we, that our light alone is not enough in the darkness? But just as the stars bring light and meaning to the infinite void of the universe, kindred spirits bring hope to us back on earth.

      Another poem, discovered in the infinite darkness of social media, drew me to Lee, and I in turn put his work out there that others may see:

      So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
      make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
      we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
      measuring by eye as it falls into allignment
      between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
      she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.

      One day we’ll lie down and not get up.
      One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

      Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
      what we love, and what it takes
      to tend what isn’t for our having.
      So often, fear has led me
      to abandon what I know I must relinquish
      in time. But for the moment,
      I’ll listen to her dream,
      and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
      more and more detail into the light
      of a joint and fragile keeping.
      — Li-Young Lee, To Hold

      We are co-conspirators, you and I, each kindred contributors of light to the universe. We wrestle with the why, make the most of the how, and reconcile our when. It’s a fragile grip we have on our moment, but our hold feels more secure when the load is shared. Eventually we all must release our hold, but think of the light we might pass along before our torch burns out.

      But let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now
      The night is a starry dome
      — Joni Mitchell, Carey

      Thanks Joni. Yes of course, there’s more: Hope. Meaning. Dreams realized. To be a contributor of light in the face of infinite darkness is to illuminate possibility. To live a full and wonderful life requires the friction of active engagement with all that this world offers us. We must wrestle with thoughts and ideas and opinion and find a greater truth than the myths we were taught to calm us in our moments of doubt. Friction creates a spark that, nurtured, brings light. Here we may warm ourselves in the glow of our potential, realized in this, our moment of fragile keeping.

    • Learn to Reawaken

      “The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      How rare is the poetic or divine life today? It’s hard to say. In talking to people, there is a distinct lack of engagement in the workforce. A lack of inspiration for putting yourself into things, no passion for the work, a going through of the motions that must be reconciled. If one in a hundred million souls were sparked by the poetic or divine in Thoreau’s time, I wonder what the ratio is now?

      Do we linger in a post-pandemic stupor? Is it a generational change as the kids raised with iPhones and social media and gaming become the primary fuel that powers economic and cultural life? Is it older generations, churned and manipulated, poked and prodded, finally having enough? Is it the relentlessly obvious climate change impacting everything while seemingly nothing is done about it? It makes you want to sail away sometimes, especially when you see how much fun those who did are having. But there’s inspired work to be done still, and clearly a need for more of us to lift others.

      We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake. We each have purpose in this lifetime that must be fulfilled. To do otherwise is to live in quiet desperation, as Henry would point out. But how do we keep ourselves awake in such a noisy, conflicted and demanding world? He showed the way, didn’t he? Walk away from the noise, find a quiet place to contemplate your place in the world and pay attention to what happens to you. He didn’t travel very far himself (his friends would take the short walk to visit him, and he them). Mostly, solitude is turning off the electronic babysitter and the insistent chatter of the uninspired and listening to yourself. Writing it all down surely helps.

      Thoreau has always been my grounding rod. When I become disenchanted or feel that quiet desperation stirring inside or have simply had enough of the loud talkers in my world I return to Thoreau’s work, or visit his grave, or take a pilgrimage to Walden. He remains a voice of reason in an unreasonable world, speaking universal truths like so many time travelers. Their spark forever awake, forever informing, forever a beacon to light the way even as their physical selves forever rest.

      From where do we derive hope and an infinite expectation of the dawn? Answers are inclined to find us. Don’t let its whisper be drowned out in the noise.

    • See the Signs and Know Their Meaning

      “Two students had studied for many years with a wise old master. One day the master said to them, “Students, the time has come for you to go out into the world. Your life there will be felicitous if you find in it all things shining.” The students left the master with a mixture of sadness and excitement, and each of them went a separate way. Many years later they met up by chance. They were happy to see one another again, and each was excited to learn how the other’s life had gone. Said the first to the second, glumly, “I have learned to see many shining things in the world, but alas I remain unhappy. For I also find many sad and disappointing things, and I feel I have failed to heed the master’s advice. Perhaps I will never be filled with happiness and joy, because I am simply unable to find all things shining.” Said the second to the first, radiant with happiness, “All things are not shining, but all the shining things are.” — Hubert Dreyfus, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age

      All Things Shining, linked above, is a heavy lift in places. When you wade deeply into western literature with a heavy emphasis on Homer, Dante, Jesus and Melville’s Moby Dick, you’re going for a deep dive. Nobody said delving into nihilism, polytheism, and monotheism would be a page turner. I’m the better for having read it, but earned the finish that I’ve just given you freely. For it ended with this delightful epilogue, casting a glow that lingers.

      We may live a life full of routine and tedium, nastiness and fear of the unknown. We may also live a full life overflowing with ritual and wonder, generosity and openness. The lens we view the world through matters greatly in determining how full this brief dance really is. Some of my closest acquaintances choose to complain about everything in their life. They aren’t leaving a trail of joy behind them. Other acquaintances are relentlessly optimistic about the world and their place in it. They lift the room with their presence. Surely, not everything is wonderful, but many things are. What do we focus on?

      These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break
      These days you might feel a shaft of light
      Make its way across your face
      And when you do you’ll know how it was meant to be
      See the signs and know their meaning
      It’s true
      You’ll know how it was meant to be
      Hear the signs and know they’re speaking to you, to you
      — 10,000 Maniacs, These Are Days

      These are days we’ll remember. Focusing on the joyful bits isn’t an escape from the harshness of the world, it’s an acknowledgement that there’s two sides to the coin in life. This isn’t putting our head in the sand, for joy coexists with sad and disappointing in this world. We can fixate on unrelenting misery and darkness, or flip the coin and give our attention to all the shining things in this lifetime. The choice has always been ours.

    • Something More Than Hope

      “You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” — Jim Collins

      At a mass of remembrance recently, a Catholic priest, speaking on faith in the face of loss, said that there are two sides of the coin with regard to hopelessness: despair and practicality. His point was that, not surprisingly, we lose hope when we reside in despair, but we also do when we succumb to logic and believe that there is nothing that can be done about the matter. There’s a place for hope in this world, he suggested, and it requires the antonyms of despair and practicality: faith, confidence and maybe even a small but healthy dose of idealism.

      His words triggered a memory of the “Stockdale Paradox”, which Jim Collins explains quite effectively in the quote above. Faith and hope are great, but we have to be practical too. There are sometimes things out of our control that must be dealt with. When we balance those two sides of the coin, we might realize the optimal outcome given the circumstances. Or we might not, but we gave it a good fight. Life isn’t fair: We must reconcile ourselves to that fact and do with it what we can to stay afloat. The alternative is to sink.

      Surely, there are things we have no business hoping for. Sometimes the brutal facts make hope a frivolous distraction. Then again, sometimes we get so caught up in things like despair and practicality that we give up on hope too soon. The world is full of stories of epic comebacks fueled by faith in the outcome and decisive action despite ridiculously bad odds. Being from New England, I can quickly think of two favorites:

      “Don’t Let Us Win Tonight!” — Kevin Millar, Boston Red Sox, before the game 4 comeback against the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series. The Red Sox were down 3 games to none and came back to win the series.

      “Let’s go, baby. It’s going to be one hell of a story.” — Julian Edelman, New England Patriots wide receiver, prior to the Super Bowl comeback from a 28-3 deficit against the Atlanta Falcons to win the Super Bowl.

      In both situations, the logical thing to do would be to sink. But each team flipped the script and did whatever they had to do to win in the end. Granted, sports aren’t life, but they represent the dynamic nature of living in a contentious, competitive world that doesn’t care about our feelings, only the results.

      Brutal facts are indeed often brutal, and mandate clear thinking and deliberate action. There’s no going through the motions in such moments. Unwavering faith may fuel you, but surviving and thriving require heightened awareness and strategic execution. And even then things don’t always go our way. But then again, sometimes—sometimes, they do.