“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” — André Gide
The truth is, we each concede more than we consent. The truth is, discovery is a shore too far for many of us. And yet we each set sail in our own way from the past every day. What seems the same alters ever so slightly each day, imperceptibly, inalterably, and we wrestle with the truth of it whether we set our course for distant shores or futilely try to hold on with all our might to what once was.
This is the time of year when parents post pictures of children heading off to school, on their way to discovering their own new lands. The discovery isn’t just for the children, but the parents too, as they return to a home different than it was before. At such moments the daily leap is profound in its breadth.
So often we dwell on the gap between where we are and where we hope to be and our confidence waivers. Discovery requires a leap into the unknown, and the courageous consent to make that leap. Indeed, the thrill of losing sight of who we once were and gliding into an unknown future might be frightening, but ultimately, doesn’t it bring us to places we never thought possible?
Sometimes we get so caught up in what we might lose that we forget about what we might find.
We must consume books and art and bits of the universe both sweet and bitter to produce anything of consequence. From birth we’re actively consuming to stay alive and grow, to learn from those who came before us and ultimately to mold ourselves into an active, thinking adult. But we weren’t born to be sponges, we were born to produce.
Input and output go hand-in-hand, but output isn’t guaranteed simply because there was input. We need agency, don’t we, to transform all that input into something resembling output? It’s comfortable always being the student of life, soaking in all that this universe offers. The stakes go up considerably when we put ourselves out there with our own work. To raise our hand and speak up, to offer a new twist, to boldly contribute to the Great Conversation.
If there’s a disease in humanity, amplified in these times, it’s mistaking combativeness and criticism for output. This is “Man in the Arena” territory, where those who don’t do the work feel perfectly fine condemning those who do the work. We ought to collectively have no patience for it and turn the trolls and charlatans away. Yet too many treat the noise as input, and think themselves clever by parroting the same sound bite as their own output. These are empty calories for the brain, and distract us from building.
We don’t need more noise, but we definitely need more insight, more contribution to the critical issues of our time, more solving of problems, and more collaboration and meeting in the middle to find a way forward. We are what we consume, this is true, and we are also what our actions demonstrate we are. We must do better, collectively, with our output.
Input is fine, I suppose, but where are we going with it?
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” — E. B. White
I grow cilantro, not so much to eat it, but to watch bees roll around in the wispy white flowers that wave ever so lightly in the breeze. Surely someone must grow cilantro for all the tasty dishes (or soapy dishes) one might imagine it worthy of, but give me the bees, please. Summer officially ends for me the moment the cilantro peters out—like life itself—entirely too soon.
The dance between the earnestness of rolling up your sleeves and fixing things versus opening up your heart and savoring all the world offers is a constant struggle. As with everything, we must skate the line between the world of order and the world of chaos, Yin and yang. Nobody said this living business would be easy, but it’s such a short ride we ought to make the most of it.
Still, there’s work to be done, and no time to waste in solving the world’s problems. As anyone out there trying to get things done knows, there’s just not enough people willing to make a go of it and do the work. Every school, every hospital, every landscaper and construction firm and restaurant is struggling to find a warm body with an eager mind to simply do the work. Who are we to ignore the call? Yet so many do.
Every day should be filled with a bit of challenge, and a bit of seduction. Every life lived well ends with a measure of satisfaction for the things we did well and a measure of consternation for that which wasn’t accomplished. That’s life, and we must learn to skate that line. In the end, we do with it what we will.
“We think of inertia as the state of being inert or motionless—one of our purer displays of passivity and disengagement. It’s not. Inertia is an active event in which we are persisting in the state we’re already in rather than switching to something else… The most reliable predictor of what you’ll be doing five minutes from now is what you’re doing now… The most reliable predictor of who you’ll be five years from now is who you are now.” — Marshall Goldsmith, The Earned Life
Yes, you might detect a pattern in the writing recently. I keep returning to the Tom Peters statement that excellence is the next five minutes. Habits are hard to break, routine is either a prison or a path to a brighter future. And inertia now can predict who we are in five years if we don’t take that next step to change right now.
Does that sound unnecessarily urgent? Perhaps, but aren’t the stakes just that high? We are what we repeatedly do, and more often than not we repeat the same damned thing this five minutes as we did last. So we ought to take this next five minutes and demand something more of ourselves than the previous five. We ought to make it an active event that transcends our previous place.
The easiest way to determine the truth in that is to look at what we did last week and compare it to what we did last year. Sure, there are highlight moments of trips and events that break up the sameness, and a pandemic mixed in to skew the data, but on the whole things are roughly the same. If our habit loop is positive this can be a very good thing, but if we keep repeating bad habits we might be living in a rut that runs straight to the grave.
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.” ― James Clear, Atomic Habits
It’s easy to spot inertia when we look at intentions. If we intend to write the book or run the marathon or summit the mountain but find ourselves dancing with the same excuses we had yesterday and five years ago, well, let me introduce you to our friends inertia and low agency. On the flip side, if you’ll allow me to use a few of my own examples, inertia is publishing this blog every day for the last four years, reading early every morning and most nights and maintaining a streak on Duolingo that’s approaching 1000 days. Maybe each is small in the big scheme of things, but each is a +1 on the path to becoming.
@jackbutcher
Moment-to-moment we make decisions that pull us forward or set us back. We default to the familiar, which both reinforces our identity now and reinforces it in our future. That past moment isn’t this moment unless we choose the same thing. Will it be a plus or a minus? Our vote ought to be for an active event, our action should be a plus.
To understand many things you must reach out of your own condition. — Mary Oliver, Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way
There’s a place for nuance. There’s a place for understanding. And above all, there’s a place for meeting in the middle. This inclination to receptiveness runs counter to the toxic stagnation of self-centered.
There is another virus spreading through the world—it’s a virus of the closed mind. We’ve become closed to new perspectives that might challenge our own. Too many sip the same flavor of Kool-Aid (blue, red, orange seem to be the only flavors at the moment in the U. S.). But a full life doesn’t fit neatly into such rigid choices, does it?
Like a root-bound plant left too long in its pot, we must reach out of our own condition to grow to our potential.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” — Howard Thurman
Most people remain too busy to worry about such things as coming alive. They’re too busy getting things done. Bills to pay, a calendar full of meetings, chores to do, calls to make… it’s all too much, really, to be thinking about things like doing something more than this.
I wonder, who is more alive, a monk living in seclusion and contemplating the big questions or a business tycoon living their answer to a different set of questions? Are humans built for thinking or for action? Most people would point to the latter, for the modern world and our very resilience was built on action: overcoming enemies and disease and solving the riddles of science and technology to arrive right here at this extraordinary moment in time (!).
But who do we seek out for answers? It’s the poets and philosophers and deep thinkers who seclude themselves from the madness and settle down with the questions everyone else is too busy to answer. The wisdom of the ages was derived from contemplation. So can’t we make a solid case for the monk?
The world needs both, of course. Action and contemplation are each essential elements for the progress of humanity. Yet each can be a form of procrastination and avoidance. It’s fair to ask ourselves which path is right for us, but we can’t get so caught up in the question that we don’t go anywhere. The world is already full of people who never come alive. Ultimately, we must stop wrestling with questions and seek our own answer.
So is it ready, aim, fire or ready, fire, aim? The order isn’t always as important as the balance between the two. Running around in circles is just as pointless as sitting there thinking about what you’re going to do without ever actually taking a step. Action and contemplation lead us to vibrancy together. We can’t know what makes us alive without each.
“With each encounter with truth one draws nearer to reaching communion with it.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
What resonates? Doesn’t it change moment-to-moment as we ourselves change? As the world offers lessons, from subtle and brutal? Just what is our truth, our first principle?
We try to arrive by sorting. We must process the world as it comes to us, and indeed, encounter the things that challenge our worldview. Assumptions and beliefs fall aside for the willing truth seeker. We must find and embrace each encounter for all that it offers us. Like the body adapting to exercise, the stronger mind is capable of handling even more challenges. Each challenge in turn makes us stronger (if we don’t let them destroy us).
The truth is, we are alone on this journey. Surely friends and family offer support, mentors guidance, and those who came before us breadcrumbs to follow (or ignore), but this is our vision quest. We follow the winding path and see the changes in ourselves as we climb.
She has seen me changing It ain’t easy rearranging And it gets harder as you get older Farther away as you get closer And I don’t know the answer Does it even matter? I’m wonderin’ how — Crosby, Stills & Nash, See the Changes
We ought to leave our own breadcrumbs. For the conversation to continue with those we love, and those we’ll never meet, we must draw from ourselves and leave it for the world to accept or ignore. It’s not ours to choose, but when we suck the marrow out of life and gleen the wisdom of the ages our voice becomes more compelling.
We won’t ever fully arrive at the truth. We might accomplish some noteworthy things, reach conclusions that resonate, grow closer than we ever thought possible to certain people while remaining dissatisfied and chagrined at the ones that got away… but we never will fully arrive. Still, we ought to be satisfied in the end that we gave it a go to grow and know. And to celebrate the journey wherever it leads us.
Everything that was broken has forgotten its brokenness. I live now in a sky-house, through every window the sun. Also your presence. Our touching, our stories. Earthy and holy both. How can this be, but it is. Every day has something in it whose name is Forever. — Mary Oliver, Everything That Was Broken
Nobody said life was supposed to be a happily ever after greatest hits package of days to remember. Yet even the most tedious, frustratingly mundane days offers a gift of timelessness. We only have this one, no matter how it goes, and ought to celebrate the smallest sparkle of light just as we celebrate the highlight reel moments that come along, however so infrequently.
The artists, poets and some not-always-so-poetic blog writers share one thing in common; an appreciation for the moment at hand. For every day has something to offer, should we go looking for it. Every moment offers a gift of possibility. What will forever look like today?
He went to Paris Looking for answers To questions that bothered him so — Jimmy Buffett, He Went to Paris
“As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes. At least, closer. And, cordially. — Mary Oliver, Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?
It struck me reading a book on Existentialism that it’s almost impossible to arrive at enlightenment and sagacity when life becomes relentlessly hectic. Try absorbing deep thoughts from another era when you’re exhausted and grabbing a few pages in between commitments and sleep. We’re all so damned busy that we don’t take the time to understand the universe, let alone ourselves. The maze might have a beginning and an end, but we get so caught up finding the cheese that we forget to figure out where we are.
Busy never answers, busy avoids answers.
As we stack experiences one atop the other, do we take the time to sort them into insight? We spend so much time focused on becoming and belonging that we short the time required to being. The quest for answers never really ends, but we can edge closer to that which resonates for us. It seems the benefit of aging is capturing the time that eluded us when we were younger to sit with deep thoughts, reflect on the universe and find ourself.
The real question is, why do we wait so long to sift through the answers?
“You want to become a clearer thinker, you need to spend more time alone with your own thoughts, and keep writing every day.” — @Orangebook
How do we reach clarity? Don’t we have to wrestle with conflicting thoughts to see which emerges more persuasive than the rest? The vehicle to clarity might be walking or meditation or therapy or writing, but the wrestling within that vehicle must happen. The alternative is to reach for distraction. We all have moments with each, but which way do the scales tip?
Maybe we never reach clarity at all, maybe we reach contentment with the great compromise of the clear and the unknown. The stoics have a saying, amor fati, which translates to love of fate. We control very little in this universe, the rest belongs to the universe to decide. Accepting what we can control is certainly a milestone moment on our journey to clarity.
The thing is, the process of sorting out the journey is what life is. We might think more clearly, but this step in becoming brings us into a more complex head full of doubt, which, transcended, in turn leads to another. We ought to celebrate the journey to clarity, without expecting to actually arrive.
