Alexandersmap

    Category: Learning

    • Bundles of Rain

      Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?
      Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible. I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
      Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.
      — Mary Oliver, Do Stones Feel?

      After a month of no rain, it’s rained at the most inconvenient time, at least for the outdoor projects I’ve had planned for the last few days. But so what? Rain is to be celebrated just as much as sunshine. At least in moderation. This hasn’t been moderation, but I loved it nonetheless.

      People who wish for sunny days all the time ought to live in the desert. The rest of us quietly yearn for change. We’d be ungrateful if we complained about it when it arrived. And so it is that we ought to dress for the occasion and worked with the gift the universe presents to us.

      I’ve learn that I’m not lazy when it rains. Instead of sitting quietly with a book and a steaming mug of tea, I do bundles of projects that have been postponed too long. Indoor projects, surely, but also outdoor projects that want for a bit of watering anyway. The garden is as grateful for the rain as I am in such moments.

      Rainy day projects are beneficial, but sometimes the best answer to a soggy day is to immerse ourselves in the solitude it offers. Soon the productivity will concede to completion. To celebrate the rain for all it brings to the day is just as essential as any project might be. And those books, and that solitude, call to me, reminding me that I must return to them soon.

    • The Like of This

      “There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.” — Henry David Thoreau, from Thoreau’s Journal

      A long quote to start the blog today, and not really a quote at all but Thoreau’s entire entry from April 24, 1959. He wrote this for himself, of course, but like Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations we’re left with his words as guideposts for our own lives. Thoreau reminds us to up our game. Henry never had a 401(k) to consider, this is true, but consider this: He’d be dead three years after writing this journal entry at the shockingly young age of forty-four. What’s a 401(k) to someone who would never live to realize the savings? Today is our day of reckoning, Thoreau implores to himself and now us.

      Lately the world is reminding me that we all have an expiration date. People come and go from our lives all the time, and phases of our lives are merely seasons we scarcely pay attention to until they’re slipping away. To live a long life is to find ourselves navigating many such seasons, and if we pay attention, learning a thing or two from each. Our greatest lesson is the one we’ve been hearing all our lives: There is no postponing life, we must do what calls to us now.

      The trick is to actually do that, isn’t it? The days fly by fiercely, with no apologies from eternity on its march. We are the only ones who are audacious enough to believe that we have the agency to do something in our time. We either rise to meet our days or regret their passing. There is no other life but this, or the like of this. Indeed, we shall never see the likes of this season again in our own lifetime. Will it be remarkable or fall with all the rest?

    • Digging Holes to Yesterday

      “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” — Will Rogers

      The pup is obsessed with yesterday. She saw a chipmunk go into a small hole and proceeded to make it a big hole (just when we thought she was past the digging stage of life). This morning she was right back out there, chasing chipmunks because they were right there for the catching yesterday. Of course, the chipmunk has moved on to safer places, it’s just the memory that remains. Still, our pup remains a prisoner of what once was.

      What of us? What holes are we digging to yesterday, instead of being in today’s moment? I can think of a few of my own holes that ought to be filled in and left behind. It’s hard to climb when we’re deep in a hole.

    • Ship of Fools

      Save me, save me from tomorrow
      I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools, no, no, no
      Save me, save me from tomorrow
      I don’t want to sail with this ship of fools
      Where’s it comin’ from?
      Oh, where’s it goin’ to?
      It’s just a, it’s just a ship of fools
      — World Party, Ship of Fools

      We’re all collectively setting sail for tomorrow. Who do we want steering the ship? Why exactly are we on this ship anyway? Why not sail to a better place on a ship surrounded by a better crew? We’re acting foolish ourselves when we don’t use our agency to set our course for the destination we wish to go to.

      We’ve been here before. It’s easy to recognize fools when you’ve seen their act in other chapters. We can’t blame the fools, for they only know the fool’s game, but we ought to find another game for ourselves when we see the way the game is going. For this game is played by the clock.

      It’s hard to change. That’s why the ship is so full of people looking around at each other wondering if they’re being foolish but not lowering the lifeboats and rowing like mad for shore. But sometimes we’ve got to risk all that comes with change to find a better ship.

      We may yet be the change we wish to see in this world.

    • Exhausting Our Present Capacity

      “A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.” ― Susan Sontag

      As an active reader, I keep searching for the perfect book to read. Someone once said that the only perfect book for us is the one we write ourselves. I think the self-critic in me laughs at the very idea of creating perfection. Perfection is an excuse for not doing our best in the moment. It’s a way of saying we aren’t ready yet, before we even begin.

      There are always excuses. We must put them aside and follow the call. We may still tap into something unique within ourselves and draw it out for the world to see. But why put ourselves through the process of writing—the blank page mockery, the wrestling with the order of words, the feeling of not good enough rewrites—while precious moments of a brief life tick away? With so much to do in a lifetime, why write when there are so many unread books in the world already?

      I believe that the best writers are seeking enlightenment themselves, and the words written are merely the breadcrumbs of where they’ve been on the journey. Those breadcrumbs are a generous gift that show the way for those of us who would follow. Sometimes we find the path is not to our liking, sometimes we find it leads to a better climb altogether, but that path took us somewhere. Otherwise, we’re no better than those unread books, just gathering dust and waiting to be tossed aside in favor of the next generation.

      Perhaps even more than taking a path, each book read is filling up a void within us that we weren’t quite aware was there until we sensed fulfillment. The funny thing is, that substance isn’t subtracted in the process of sharing for the writer, it merely expands the capacity of the writer to share more. In this way it’s like exercise: the growth begins when we exhaust our present capacity. The more we do, the more we grow. And there lies our call to action, with no time to waste. Somewhere beyond our present capacity is possibility.

    • The Lifetime Study

      “Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

      When I was an undergrad I took a Philosophy class that turned me upside down. I promised myself at that time that I’d go back to school someday, maybe after retirement, to study it more completely. I was young then and it never occurred to me that philosophy is a lifetime study, not something you do in school.

      This weekend was productive. In fact, far more productive than my work week last week was. That says a lot about the state of mind I was in last week in my chosen career, as well as during the weekend when I channeled all that untapped productivity into getting things done. Reflecting on it now, it makes me reassess how I’m spending my Monday through Friday. We’ll see how this week goes. I’ve started it with two of the three things that kick off a great day: reading and writing. And a brisk walk with the pup is just around the corner for the trifecta.

      But what then? We must schedule our productivity, lest we slip into bad habits. There’s a whole list of things that must be done, but what’s the one thing that, having done it, would make this day as good as one of our best days? Focusing on productivity seems far more effective than dwelling on philosophy. But really, the two go hand-in-hand. We must know how to optimize our what, but surely we must begin with understanding our why.

      So it is that I dive deeply into philosophical works that challenge my casual why’s, and dare myself to write about them here on this blog. Travel and history and observations about my current fitness challenges will surely be a part of this blog for as long as I’m capable of writing it, but they’re all means to an end. We never stop being a student, we just pay more taxes as we grow. Understanding just why we’re here in the first place, and what to do with that realization when we reach it, was our thesis all along. It’s fair to ask ourselves regularly, how’s it coming along?

    • Borrowed Experience

      “It is far better to borrow experience than to buy it.” — Charles Caleb Colton

      Our lifestyle is roughly the same most days. My bride and I have nomadic tendencies, but circumstances are keeping us local lately more than in other ports of call. The pup and aging parents are our chosen anchors at this season in our lives, and we largely embrace the opportunity to spend time we won’t get back with each. Still, those nomadic tendencies stir under the surface. And this is where strategically borrowed experience can fill the gap.

      Most of us borrow experience, through reading great novels, watching immersive media, taking a weekend in a bed & breakfast somewhere or living abroad for an extended period for work, school or simply to change the landscape we walk out to each day. Often these borrowed experiences are a right of passage at different stages of our lives: going off to summer camp, going off to university, moving to a new place to start a job, and finding the religious, philosophical, political and social structures to wrap around ourselves to make that experience more fulfilling for us in that time in our lives.

      When does borrowed experience become a wholesale change in lifestyle? Probably the moment you stop thinking of the experience you’re having as borrowed at all. We grow into our lives, don’t we? Those structures we build around ourselves become our normal: physical structures like the roof over our heads or the boat we bob around in, social structures like the people who act as our touchstones in the world, each become part of our identity as we root ourselves into living that experience. At some point we aren’t borrowing the experience, the experience is who we are.

      Isn’t it better to try on the shoes before you buy them, just to see how they fit? We may find that once tried is just enough, or alternatively, that we love how we feel in them. Either way, we’ve had the experience and, if we’re fortunate, have the agency to choose what to do next. Life is change, after all, and those things we dabble in for a weekend getaway can easily become who we have become. The thing is, once we become that next thing, we begin to borrow other experiences and the whole thing begins again.

    • 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 ?

    • The Evasive There

      “The surface of the water is beautiful, but it is no good to sleep on.” — African proverb

      Lately I’ve been assessing next moves. Surely that’s been telegraphed in this blog for long enough now that none of you are floored by that statement. But next moves are tricky things. We don’t just say yes to every opportunity that comes our way, do we? Most opportunities are merely future problems with lipstick on. We ought to look hard before we leap.

      The future always looks beautiful and full of possibility for the optimist, and dark and treacherous for the pessimist. We’ve got to be objective in assessing which direction we’ll go in next to truly see what is in front of us for what it is. Our “there” will always be evasive if we won’t ever take the leap from “here” into the unknown. Then again, leaping is all fine and good so long as we know what we’re landing into. We must choose our leaps with the landing in mind.

      And so it is that most people keep looking for the next thing and never actually leaping into much of anything at all. We can easily find reasons to just keep doing what we’ve done for years, because things are working okay and why change now? It’s rather easy to talk about most people, but when you recognize that you’ve been one of them it’s a tough mirror to look into. And this is where philosophy and poetry and writing assist greatly in the journey from here to that evasive there. We all must sort out who we’re becoming in the most thoughtful and deliberate of ways. Just don’t forget to leap now and then.

    • The Bright Side of the Road

      “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” — Joseph Campbell

      Walking the dog yesterday, we came across two women; one pushing a baby stroller and the other walking two dogs. It was immediately obvious that one of the dogs was aggressive towards our dog. He pulled at his leash and snarled at our pup. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and he backed between the legs of the woman and squirmed out of his collar. Game on! As he charged towards our pup I quickly scooped her up in my arms and turned her away from the jaws of the charging dog until its owner was able to regain control of him. After some abundant apologies we each went our way on an otherwise pleasant walk.

      I get frustrated sometimes when close friends and family dwell on the darkness in the world. It’s always been there, and it always will be there. To believe otherwise is to believe in fairy tales or the flowery lies of politicians. The underlying truth is that joy has also existed in the world since the beginning of humanity. Quite often we get precisely what we seek in this life.

      “The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see.” — Barry Neil Kaufman

      I’m not advocating blindly navigating the world without awareness of the darker side of humanity. We must be aware and resilient to thwart threats against all we hold dear, but we can be aware of evil without wrapping our lives around it like a cloak. We may still trust in the inherent goodness in the world while still locking the door at night. Even still, we may be the light that illuminates the darkness that others may navigate to something better. When enough of us choose the bright side of the road the world may indeed become a more joyful place.