Alexandersmap

    Category: Language

    • Tickled By Audacity

      “Il faut vivre et créer. Vivre à pleurer”
      (Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears)
      ― Albert Camus

      I’ve moved away from apps that teach me to read other languages, because they never really brought me to conversational French or German or Spanish. They aren’t immersive enough for that. Perhaps some of the AI-driven apps will deliver on the promise of multilingual proclivity, but as with most things, we learn by immersing ourselves in proximity to others doing that which we aspire to do. Which is another way to say we ought to challenge ourselves to go and do and be that person who is beyond where we currently are.

      French, for me, is the language I’ve dabbled with too long without mastering. We are all students of something, aren’t we? We may dabble in some things and attempt to master one, maybe two things in a lifetime. Conversational French is as good a skill to aspire to as anything. But skills are merely acquired to bring us to something else. Perhaps reading Camus in the language he wrote in, or perhaps holding one’s own in a local café where the tourists rarely go. We reach places we would never get to through the knowledge and skills we acquire and use.

      To live—vivre—is more than simply going through the motions. We can make a case that going through motions is not living at all. Going through anything is mere existence. To be alive we must do and dare, create and share. Embrace living by turning away from existing, towards something bolder and a little tingly. Those tingles are the nervous system expressing being tickled by audacity.

      Well, to live’s to fly
      All low and high
      So shake the dust off of your wings
      And the sleep out of your eyes
      — Townes Van Zandt, To Live Is to Fly

      How many ways must we say it? Be bold today. Live an expansive life. Try new things with frequency. Wings should never accumulate dust and skills should never be allowed to rust. We’re here to fly and strut our stuff. What is a day but another chance to make something memorable of it? What will we embark on next? What will we finally complete before we run out of time? Immerse yourself. Live and be bold! Vivre à pleurer.

    • Quo Fata Ferunt: How Fate Created Bermuda

      The normal way to cross the Atlantic east to west is to go south to the Canary Islands and catch the trade winds over to the Caribbean. But what should one do when the two end points are controlled by hostile forces? The answer for the British in 1609 was to sail the route north of the accepted route to avoid the Spanish altogether. And this led them to fate.

      The Sea Venture was the lead ship in a small flotilla resupplying Jamestown, Virginia. They ran into a major storm and the ships got separated. One ship sank with all souls lost, and the Sea Venture was foundering, taking on dangerous levels of seawater after the chalking between the ship’s timbers failed. And then by some miracle (that northern route), they spotted land. Admiral Sir George Saunders attempted to navigate the reefs to land and the ship wedged into it, saving all hands. They landed, built two ships and continued on to Jamestown. But having discovered it, the British would soon return to found Bermuda and establish another foothold in the New World.

      Quo fata ferunt (“Whither the fates carry us”) is thus an appropriate motto for Bermuda, and maybe for the rest of us too. We cannot control where fate might bring us, but we can accept it (amor fati) and make the most of the moment. Like Bermuda, we may be adapt and become resilient to whatever circumstances arise, and sometimes even thrive for having risen to the occasion.

      Coat of Arms of Bermuda (image: wikipedia)

    • Practicing Lagom: Moderation and Balance

      “Lagom (pronounced [ˈlɑ̂ːɡɔm], LAW-gom) is a Swedish word meaning ‘just the right amount’ or ‘not too much, not too little’.
      The word can be variously translated as ‘in moderation’, ‘in balance’, ‘perfect-simple’, ‘just enough’, ‘ideal’ and ‘suitable’ (in matter of amounts).” — via Wikipedia

      I try (sometimes successfully) to live by the maxim, “all things in moderation”. So when I came across this Swedish word, lagom, that means roughly the same thing while awaiting a large latte at a cafe last week, I had to look into it more. I’m guessing that cafe has seen its share of over-caffeinated zombies shuffling in. A little art to remind us to chill was appropriate. When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

      Life is simple when we allow it to be. We ought to practice a routine of self-regulation, which also serves as an act of self-preservation. Like anything we hoard or overindulge in, it can overwhelm us if we let it. We can’t have it all, so why try to grab it all? It will drag us down and drown us if we don’t let go of the non-essential. What is essential? It’s really not all that much when we really think about it.

      My bride spent hours on a slushy Saturday cleaning up the attic, bagging used clothing to donate, throwing away things that couldn’t be donated but were no longer of use and generally getting things sorted for the new season. It was a good way to spend a wet and raw day. We accumulate things, and if we’re not careful those things end up ruling our lives.

      In that spirit of spring cleaning, springtime is also a good time to clean up some habits we’ve accumulated along the way. Perhaps we eat more than we should, or indulge in a bit too much wine or coffee or social media outrage. Perhaps we’ve grown lazy with a habit or two we thought would make all the difference in those heady days leading up to New Years Eve. Why not use this time to clean out the old and introduce something new?

      If life seems pretty tense at the moment, it may be a sign that we need to find a way to self-regulate. Stop over-indulging in the non-essential. Spring is a great time to reset and embrace the things that make us healthier, happier and more resilient against the stressors that are out of our control. What is “just enough” for us? Consume less, carry less, and lighten the load we bear. Stay in that lane awhile and we may find we have more spring in our step.

    • Sisu

      “The exact meaning of sisu is difficult to define. There’s no one word in the English language with a literal parallel, and even in Finnish, sisu stands for a cluster of traits that includes stoic determination, hardiness, courage, bravery, willpower, tenacity and resilience. Sisu is an action-oriented mindset: it comes into play as you take on a challenge seemingly beyond your capacity. It is called upon when adversity and opposition force you to give up and only your courage allows you to hold on.” — Joanna Nylund, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      I’ve encountered this word, sisu, several times over the last few years. Each time I’ve told myself to write a blog post about it to explore it further, maybe in hopes of internalizing the traits that make up sisu into my own mindset. After all, I’ve been writing about stoicism for years with the same goal—surely some stoic traits have permeated the thick scull of this writer. But writing about sisu felt different because it’s not my word to write about. I’m not Finnish, and the traits that are sisu are something you display, not some clever term the marketing team can hijack.

      “An essential trait of sisu is the lack of a need to talk about it. Any kind of swagger or talking up your bravery has no place in sisu. It’s no good just saying you have sisu if you can’t show it – let your actions do the talking.” — Joanna Nylund, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      So we aren’t talking about bravado here. Living a life more aligned with sisu feels an internal calling. An aspiration to be bold in the face of all of this crap the world is throwing at us nowadays. This is no time to be soft. This is no time to be wringing our hands and giving up. These are our days to reach for personal excellence (refer to my other favorite word; arete). We can’t very well let ourselves down now, when there’s so much at stake in our lives.

      We know that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Maybe this is the right time to finally embrace the word and simply be more stoic, be more brave and tenacious and courageous. To stoke the fire within and push through the challenges ahead. Then again, hasn’t it always been that time? We must simply rise up to meet the moment, again and again. And knowing what we now know about the word, isn’t that sisu?

    • The Two Characters We Meet Every Day

      “I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.” — Michel Foucault

      “When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak? ” — Seth Godin, This is Strategy

      It’s been a couple of weeks since I stopped using Duolingo, and even though I grew dissatisfied with the app, I’ve grown more dissatisfied with not consistently working on being multilingual. And so I purchased a competing app, Babbel, to give that a go. I’ve evaluated it before, but at the time didn’t want to invest in a second app. So we’ll see how it goes.

      This will not be a blog post about learning a language. It is (partially) about becoming the person we could be if we just applied ourselves to the task every day. I fancy myself a writer, and so I write. The blog isn’t quite enough for me, and so I’ve set daily goals beyond the blog that I must honor. As with Babbel, we’ll see how it goes, but we learn with everything we aspire to in our lives that it’s now or never.

      There’s a reason that Planet Fitness sponsors the New Years Eve celebration in Times Square. They’re aware that we’re all looking at who we’re becoming as the year turns and deciding whether we’re going to be heartbroken by the encounter or have reason to celebrate. We all want this next year to be our best year ever, don’t we? The trick is in how we realize that. One resolution does not an identity make, but our incremental daily actions carry us a long way.

      The thing is, that character we’re becoming is simply the course we set for ourselves. The character we live with every day ought to be interesting, productive and fun or we’ll inevitably back away slowly to find a better dance partner. Becoming is a daily reckoning of who we are with who we want to be. The key to a successful, joyful life is to make the character who is marching towards the future to meet our desired future self the kind of person we want to be around every day.

    • Opening Doors

      “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
      —Frank Smith, To Think: In Language, Learning and Education

      I’ve been skimming along with multiple languages for years now. Visit a country, try to learn some of the language. Visit another country, do it again with their native language. The similarities are easy to see when you do this with several languages in this way, we’re all connected after all. The thing about skimming is you pick up just enough to ask for the bathroom at a cafe or say please and thank you, but you aren’t immersing yourself in it long enough to keep up with rapid fire conversation, let alone mastery.

      I recently surpassed 1600 days in a row of learning on Duolingo. It’s a bit of an artificial accolade because there are streak busters that patch up a missing day here and there. Just before that 1600 day mark I missed two days in a row while on business travel and thought the whole thing would reset to zero. But no, it just repaired itself and here I am, a master of French, German, Portuguese and Italian (the languages I’ve been learning off and on during that streak). Which is nonsense, because dabbling in an app makes you a master of nothing but casual productivity.

      Still, there’s something about meeting someone halfway by learning their native language just enough to maintain a slow roll through a pleasant conversation. They almost certainly know some of my native language, but my speaking theirs informs them that I have some measure of respect for their identity that I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone and give it a go. Opening doors to new experiences begins with a bit of discomfort about what we’ll find when we step through. But I have yet to have it slammed in my face.

      My nephew teaches Spanish, and goes to Spain every summer to guide students on an immersion experience for several weeks. I think immersion is my own next step towards competency in another language. French is the likely candidate since I’ve been most consistent with it, but really any place that would have me sounds like a great candidate to me. Don’t we owe it to ourselves and those we may interact with to step out of the corridor we’ve been settling for and open some doors?

      When we dabble in anything we never develop the calluses earned through grinding it out. An athlete knows when another athlete has put the work in just by looking at them. A native speaker may appreciate us meeting them halfway by attempting a few words in their language, but would delight in a full conversation at natural speed with someone who put the work in to master it. To reach that point is something to aspire to on this road to becoming something more in our brief go with living. Life should be ever expansive as we grow into our potential. Tu ne serais pas d’accord ?

    • Skating vs. Swimming

      I was thinking about Duolingo as I reviewed the years-long streak I’m currently on of using the app every day. It seems I’m on a streak of days going back more than 3 1/2 years. Yet I’m completely lost in a conversation in rapid-fire French or German. All I can do is tell people what my name is and ask where the toilets are. Perhaps that’s enough to find the bathroom, but deep down you know you’re missing all the fun. I felt this most profoundly riding the electric passenger launch on Lake Königssee in Bavaria with the entire boat of passengers laughing at the jokes the guide was telling. I smiled and nodded and recognized that I had a long way to go.

      We skate across the surface on most things, doing just enough: It’s the Cliff Notes version of studying to pass the exam but forgetting the material immediately afterwards. It’s reading the slide deck verbatim instead of reaching out to the audience. It’s buying the expensive hiking boots and only wearing them to shovel snow. It’s using a heart emoji to note someone’s deeply personal post on social media but not immediately calling them to see how they’re really doing. These are examples of checking boxes, not immersion.

      Swimming is immersion. Diving deeply into the subject matter to understand it. Getting pulled by the rip current and finding our way out of it. It’s going to another country where we barely speak the language and figuring things out one phrase at a time. It’s re-reading the book a second and third time to truly understand what we missed the first time. It’s taking a long walk with an old friend to chat about what is going on in their world that has them so withdrawn from ours. This is immersion, not checking boxes.

      We tend to do both if we’re honest about it. We can’t swim through everything. We must skate across some surfaces just to get to the other side. Life is full of things we could immerse ourselves in, but soon we find ourselves drowning in it all. It’s better to skate over the trivial and swim through the essential. The trick is knowing which is which. A long term, healthy marriage involves a great deal of swimming. To skate is to invite trouble. We’ve all encountered plenty of people with troubled marriages. Some things in life simply can’t be skated over. We break the surface willingly or unwillingly and learn to swim lest we drown.

      Skating may feel faster, but we find we reach the other side barely familiar with everything we’ve just crossed. That’s no way to live a lifetime. Swimming isn’t always efficient, but we become more engaged with the world when we get beyond simply treading water. To have a strong marriage, we must navigate deep and sometimes turbulent waters. To engage with an audience we must reach a level of mastery and rapport strong enough to close the gap between the podium and the last row. To reach the summit we’ve got to strap on those boots and start walking uphill. And to learn a language we must immerse ourselves in it enough that eventually we get the jokes.

      An exceptional life requires less skating and more swimming.

    • Words

      “Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.” — Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Six

      “A word is no light matter. Words have with truth been called fossil poetry, each, that is, a symbol of a creative thought.” — Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

      Some of us admit to being word geeks. It’s not the complexity of the word, not even its origin (itself a delicious riddle), but the meaning packed into the deliberate placement of that word that draws us in. We become more deliberate readers as a result. This is where the magic in poetry, in music, and in prose resides. Surely something to aspire to in our own writing, and in our very conversations. Words matter a great deal.

      When someone says they would like to have a word with you, why does it have a negative connotation? Is it the singularity inferred in the statement? It’s not a conversation, it’s a word. What they mean, of course, is they want to tell you something while you actively listen to them. We have two ears and one mouth: we should always be actively listening more than we talk. The loudest talkers are rarely the most powerful people in the room, would you agree? We should learn to find the clues hidden in plain sight. Active listening is a superpower.

      As it is with people, so too with words. If writing has taught me anything, it’s to read more deliberately. Every word, placed just so, means something to a great author or poet. So it should mean something to us.

    • On Valentine’s Day, Accept Þetta Reddast

      In Iceland there’s a saying that speaks of resilience and hopefulness. In only a few days there I heard it several times, evidence of the shared belief of her people, . Þetta Reddast means it (Þetta) will all work out (Reddast). In case you’re wondering, as I did, Þetta Reddast is pronounced “thet tah red ahst“. As with countless visitors before me I fell in love with Iceland almost immediately. And I also learned that she won’t always love you back but not to worry because it all works out in the end. Þetta Reddast, friend.

      On Valentine’s Day, we celebrate the love we have for that special someone. But love is a fickle and evasive thing indeed. Live a few years and you’ll experience the good, bad and ugly of love. Some of us are lucky and find a lifetime partner. Some of us never find love at all. Most are somewhere in the middle sorting it out one day at a time. As with Iceland, it all works out in the end, mostly. Enjoy the chocolate either way.

      I say love will come to you
      Hoping just because I spoke the words that they’re true
      As if I offered up a crystal ball to look through
      Where there’s now one there will be two
      — The Indigo Girls, Love Will Come to You

      The thing about finding true love is you can’t expect it, but you have to have faith that love will sort itself out for you eventually. It’s never perfect, for none of us are perfect, and to expect it to be so is a fools game. It’s simply two people finding each other at the right time and place in their lives, when the single track trail becomes wide enough for two to walk the path together. But trails narrow and widen as we keep hiking, don’t they? Þetta Reddast. Remember it will all work out in time.

      My bride and I went to Iceland looking for adventure and a glimpse of the Northern Lights. We found adventure, but we danced with Iceland’s notorious weather and wind each night instead of the Aurora Borealis. Looking at the Aurora app, we could see epic reds, oranges and greens dancing just out of reach. We learned quickly to accept the truth in Þetta Reddast. It just wasn’t our time to be on the dance floor with Norðurljós. Perhaps, as with love, our paths will cross some other time. I’m hoping just because I spoke the words that they’re true.

    • Measuring Growth

      “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” — Joan Didion

      “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ― Thomas Merton

      The gift of writing is not as much about putting all that you want to say on paper or on a screen for the world to read, although that is a motivation of sorts. No, the gift is in the sorting out of what you encounter in the world and finding a way to articulate it better than we might have yesterday. One doesn’t place a Didion or Merton quote just ahead of one’s own thoughts, let alone both, without recognizing that measuring up becomes ridiculous. But this is how we grow.

      Growth is measured against whatever it is we’re reaching for. Slowly chipping away at the French language for years now, I’ve picked up enough to know I’ve made measurable progress, but not enough that I’m not lost when a rapid-fire conversation amongst native speakers surrounds me. But at least I can tell them my name and ask where the toilettes are. Progress, and a clear indicator that more immersion is in order to grow into the language I too casually aspire to master.

      The meaning in the moment is derived from accumulated experience. If our experience is limited, we might not pick up the nuance in a conversation, know the double entendre, the obscure reference or an inside joke that is derived from being out there in the world and just knowing. The trick in living is to put ourselves out there in the mix, and sort things out as best we can. Writing is active processing, documented. Hopefully edited well enough to make it interesting.

      The thing is, we learn to recognize the darkness in the world, but also the light. The tenuous line between the two is where active living takes place. We become more resilient, more informed, more street-smart as we grow, and bring that to new places where we quickly discover how we measure up. The alternative to growth is stasis and atrophy. It’s more fun to grow. Plus we finally get the jokes we missed when we were someone else.