Alexandersmap

    Category: Learning

    • Forever Working Towards Arete

      “Homer’s epic poems brought into focus a notion of arete, or excellence in life, that was at the center of the Greek understanding of human being…. Excellence in the Greek sense involves neither the Christian notion of humility and love nor the Roman ideal of stoic adherence to one’s duty. Instead, excellence in the Homeric world depends crucially on one’s sense of gratitude and wonder. …. the Greek word arete is etymologically related to the Greek verb “to pray” (araomai). It follows that Homer’s basic account of human excellence involves the necessity of being in an appropriate relationship to whatever is understood to be sacred in the culture.” — Hubert Drefus, All Things Shining

      My first memory of hearing the word arete was when a history professor I was quite fond of suggested we use it as the name of a new rowing shell our crew had acquired. The Greek word for excellence seemed as worthy a name as any to aspire to, and so I proposed it. The rowing coach, never one to embrace such things, chose a different name. And it turned out that we never did quite achieve excellence, settling somewhere into better than average. I wonder if we’d chosen it we might have been inclined to be so? One can’t very well name a rowing shell Arete and finish in the middle of the pack.

      What’s become clear to me over the years since that first encounter with arete is that it’s been my objective ever since. We reach, fall short, move a step closer and reach again. That’s how we move forward towards something greater than our previous self. Living with a sense of gratitude and wonder, embracing that which is sacred, and working towards excellence is a blueprint for a lifetime.

      We can’t control everything in life. Surely things happen along the way that may be chocked up to luck, timing or serendipity. But certainly, what we aspire to makes all the difference in how full our lives turn out to be.

    • The Big Reveal

      “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali

      “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

      Is courage the leap into the unknown or the perseverance and grit to see it through? I think Muhammad Ali would add that courage requires more of us than simply stepping into the ring, it’s taking the punches and standing up again round-after-round. We all have our own ring to step into, filled with work, family, relationships, fitness goals, writing goals, getting-through-the-day goals.

      What are we prioritizing and what do we let slip away? Isn’t it just as courageous to say no as it is to say yes to something? Perhaps more so? Which does beg the question: What are we really trying to accomplish in our brief time here?

      A long and rewarding career? Wrestling a career from the ground up is a grind, filled with moments of sacrifice and tactics, honor and betrayal, tedium and tenure. How we play it determines just how long and rewarding it turns out to be. Maybe we also prioritize building a strong nest and raising a family. It takes courage simply to have children, especially for the mother, but also courage to stay in the game for the long haul—raising them to be strong advocates for decency and hope.

      Just what do we lean into for the long haul? Comfort? Adventure? Can you be comfortable when you seek adventure? Perhaps, but isn’t it a different kind of comfort than the comfort the person who seeks comfort seeks? Every climb requires discomfort. Every leaper must bear the impact of the landing before leaping again. Discomfort is what we pay now for comfort later. Conversely, comfort now tends to make later more discomfortable. We each must pay our dues in life to get to the place we want to be. Life takes time and courage to see it through.

      The neighbors through the woods had a large shed built last year during the summer months. My bride and I debated just what they were building as it seemingly took all summer to complete the work. She said that whatever it was, we’d have the big reveal when the leaves dropped in the fall and everything would become obvious. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

      It’s worth asking ourselves every time we stand up in our own ring, why am I doing this? For there’s no long-term courage without a compelling purpose. Sometimes the answers are obvious, and sometimes we have to wait for our own big reveal, when the seasons change and the things that were most important all along become apparent. Often, courage is staying the course long enough to find out.

    • Something’s Gained

      Tears and fears and feeling proud
      To say, “I love you” right out loud
      Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
      I’ve looked at life that way
      Oh, but now old friends they’re acting strange
      And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed
      Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
      In living every day
      I’ve looked at life from both sides now
      From win and lose and still somehow
      It’s life’s illusions I recall
      I really don’t know life at all
      — Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

      When Joni Mitchell sang this song at Newport Folk Festival at the age of 78 this summer, you might say the song resonated more than ever. You might even call that an understatement. Life throws all sorts of challenges at us, and there’s no doubt Joni Mitchell has faced a few herself over the years. That’s living, after all, and meaning is derived from challenging and blissful moments just the same.

      Mitchell wrote the song when she was 23, an old soul to be sure, but having navigated some challenging moments in her young life already. She’d given up a daughter for adoption when the father left them, as I understand it. How do you process that at 23, full of dreams and schemes dashed so early on? You either give up in despair or you get up, brush yourself off and get back to living every day. You might indulge yourself in the former for a beat, but life demands we carry on or drift away forever lost.

      We must live and change every day, leaving some bits of ourselves behind, welcoming our best bits to join us on the next stage of life, and sometimes welcoming the return of old parts of our identity we’d drifted away from. Living our lives one day at a time, we tackle our hopes and dreams and illusions of grandeur as best we can, sometimes losing track of what’s important, and sometimes finding our way back to the path that feels most natural for us. Life is funny that way. We do with it what we will, and looking back, we might see how far we’ve come.

      Looking around, I’ve noticed a growing collection of philosophy on my reading list. I’ve also noticed an increasing inclination for active living. To ponder deep thoughts or to step out into the world? To make the most of this living business you need to pursue both, don’t you? We don’t really know life at all, just what we perceive of it as viewed through the lens of our experiences and present circumstances. But the thing is, we can keep searching and growing, and discover what we might in the time we have.

    • Mechanics and Magicians

      Let wise men piece the world together with wisdom
      Or poets with holy magic.
      Hey-di-ho.
      — Wallace Stevens, Hieroglyphica       (via Rhys Tranter)

      I’ll admit to this: I need a bit of magic to begin some of my Mondays. Magic that goes beyond the second cuppa, beyond the brace of cold water on the skin, but something that acts upon me as caffeine works to clear early morning fog or cold water shocks the extremities to action. Poetry or great prose will do in such circumstances.

      Seeing the first two lines of the Stevens poem on a social media feed, I received the desired jolt, but if we learn anything from social media, it’s to confirm the source before repeating (if only the world took such care!). These particular lines seem evasive, quoted either with or without the Hey-di-ho bit, but largely found as the simple nugget of bright insight you see above. What to do with it? Hold for another day or perpetuate the magic in the quote? I choose to perpetuate. Blame it on Monday, if you will.

      Most of us are skeptical of magic. When confronted with it we search for an answer. But should we wonder how the magician pulls off their sleight of hand or simply wonder in the act? No doubt, progress lies in wisdom, and it’s a very fine thing. There’s a time for knowing the mechanics happening just behind the curtain. For process is progress, quite necessary for us to make productive use of our lifetime of Mondays. The car isn’t going to fix itself, you know.

      But, conceding that, isn’t there also a time for leaving magic just so now and then, that we may sprinkle it over moments otherwise mundane?

    • Shaking the Perception of Sameness

      “You start earning a million dollars, and you get all the stuff that comes with it. On week one, when you get a nice house with a nice shower, and a nice car, that feels good. But by week two or three, that’s just your shower. That’s just your car. It’s just your house. You’ve stopped noticing all the great things about it. This is a bad feature of human psychology for all the fantastic things in life. Even the best things in life, we will wind up getting used to.” — Laurie Santos, The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish: #139 Laurie Santos

      What do we get used to? We relish that first cup of coffee in the morning, but by the second we’re simply maintaining our energy, akin to filling up the tank in our cars. There’s magic in the ritual of making and savoring that first cup, isn’t there? So why does the novelty wear off so quickly on subsequent cups?

      Now take out the coffee analogy and insert any other thing that we begin to take for granted in our lives. The place we live, the car we drive, the people we hold most dear. At what point does routine dull our appreciation for the things we cherish the most in our lives? And more importantly, how do we break ourselves of this mindset?

      That’s what the Stoics were pushing themselves towards when they reminded themselves that the entire game is temporary. Memento mori, Carpe diem, Amor Fati… not just clever Latin phrases to throw around at parties, but a way of living with awareness. A way to focus on the now and appreciate where we are. Stuff is temporary, people come and go from our lives, good fortune can turn bad and back again in an instant, and through it all each moment remains a blessing.

      We humans get caught up in our annoyances, setbacks and frustrations du jour, but perhaps the worst thing that can ever happen to us is to simply getting used to living the way we do. Same job, same friends and family, same lunch… there’s just no savoring when we’re focused on sameness. Like salt sprinkled over an otherwise bland meal, a good shake of Stoicism offers us the opportunity to savor. For this is our big night out, and we ought to celebrate it for the special occasion it is.

    • This New Glimpse

      Starting here, what do you want to remember?
      How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
      What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
      sound from outside fills the air?

      Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
      than the breathing respect that you carry
      wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
      for time to show you some better thoughts?

      When you turn around, starting here, lift this
      new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
      all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
      reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

      What can anyone give you greater than now,
      starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
      — William Stafford, You, Reading This, Be Ready

      Isn’t the magic in a poem is in its discovery? It’s the chance encounter with a voice from beyond our moment, and the quiet conversation that ensues. Like life itself, we find our stride in this world one encounter, and one lesson, at a time.

      Maybe heightened awareness of living is the thing. Poetry offers a new recipe for living. It’s meeting each day as they roll past, relentlessly, until we beach this life and move on to infinity. It’s living each day with curiosity and a yearning to understand. It’s not accepting the beliefs we’ve layered together like a lasagna of closed-mindedness and moving beyond that recipe to find a new way of savoring this life.

      Maybe the questions are the thing. Poetry brings forward questions we never thought of before. How do we make the most of our days, and of our encounters? Through work and contribution? Through raising children to be better humans than we are? Are we here to serve as ambassadors to the world? Or simply to find a bit of dark sky to borrow for an evening to reacquaint ourselves with distant cousins? For aren’t we derived from stardust too?

      Maybe finally seeing is the thing. Poetry brings us to places previously unseen. This glimpse of new ways of living is a gift, should we accept it. In opening our eyes and living a fuller life than we previously did we transcend who we once were in favor of the potential for a larger life. For what can anyone give us that is greater than now?

    • In Favor of Wonder

      “Sadly it is not only the force of gravity we get used to as we grow up. The world itself becomes a habit in no time at all. It seems as if in the process of growing up we lose the ability to wonder about the world. And in doing so, we lose something central—something philosophers try to restore. For somewhere inside ourselves, something tells us that life is a huge mystery. This is something we once experienced, long before we learned to think the thought.” — Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

      Gaarder’s premise is sound: We come into the world full of wonder, but as we grow up being alive becomes a habit. We reach a point where we think we’ve seen it all before and grow comfortable with the general act of our daily existence. Each day remains a miracle, but the vast majority of people take it for granted. What a pity.

      I’ve been working to break this habit in myself for years through deep immersion in philosophy, poetry, history, travel and the deliberate process of savoring the moment. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I slip into the routine of the day-to-day. But every day I try to begin with reflection on this miracle of being alive. The blog forces me to stay in this lane, if only for a short while, before work and responsibilities draw my attention elsewhere. But I always strive to return to wonder.

      What if instead of returning to wonder we found a way to stay on the dance floor with it? Not in some stupor or drug-induced high, but through deliberate focus on each moment. Turning the habit of living day-to-day on its head and instead embracing heightened awareness and the quiet delight available to us in each encounter along the way. Isn’t that taking the act of living to a higher level?

      We all want more wonder and delight in our lives, for it’s the frosting on our cake—our exclamation point on our moments. The thing is, to break the old habit of merely living, we’ve got to favor wonder and make it a regular part of us. Like any habit, it becomes a part of our identity through consistency. That’s putting the wonder in a full life.

    • Crispy Days

      “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

      Who says beginnings should be saved for New Year’s or spring? Every day offers the same opportunity for transformation. Aside from seasonal planting and certain outdoor sports, a crisp autumn day seems just as appropriate a time to change things up as the first day of spring.

      Crispy days conjure memories of the first day of school, or heading off to college or beginning a new season of your favorite fall sport. The connection to beginnings isn’t all that much of a reach after all.

      So as the air gets good and crispy, and as the earth tilts just so in the Northern Hemisphere, what are we to do with it?

    • Something to Savor

      “How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.” ― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

      When we think back on our days, how many are frosted with magic and delight? The very definition of ordinary points to the relative sameness in each day. Sprinkling a bit of magic on each moment seems frivolous, unorthodox, and perhaps a little… irresponsible. Shouldn’t magic be saved for weddings, holidays and other such highlight reel moments? We can’t very well sprinkle magic into everything, could we? For wouldn’t that make the magical mundane?

      Don’t listen to the nihilists and the fearful, for they have no taste for spice. We must look up at our remaining time and decide to meet it. We can enhance the flavor profile of our life one dash at a time. And make our lives something to savor.

      Raising our standard doesn’t inherently level the field of play. On the contrary—we just play at a higher level. Our lives won’t run out of magic until we stop making it. So go on, stir a bit more audacity and adventure into your day. Punctuate each moment with purpose. You may just develop a taste for it.

    • What Escapes Us

      “Our life is also what we have not dared to do … what escaped us.” — Javier Marias

      Javier Marias passed away on September 11th, triggering a series of tributes to a productive literary life. This quote stood out for me, for all the reasons you might expect from this particular blogger. If there’s a theme woven throughout, it’s Stoic: Memento Mori, Amor Fati, Carpe diem.

      Life is a series of leaps forward from one identity to the next as we cross the chasm of our brief time, yet some bits of our stardust are never fully changed, other paths remain untaken. And we think sometimes about where it might have carried us. What might have been.

      Does that read as regret? It’s not meant to be so. Life is full of choices good and poor. We celebrate where we’ve arrived at either way. Regret is a useless emotion best reserved for the instant you realize you’ve driven off the cliff or studied the wrong material for the exam. Otherwise it’s distraction from the path forward. We all ought to accept the guidance of previous decisions without living in the past.

      We know what we said yes to, because it brought us here. We must also accept what we say no to in our lives. We ought to celebrate the omissions for where they brought us. For these things are as much a part of who we become as the things we do choose. Every no is a yes to something else. Each decision carries us, transforms us, and we dance with the music we’re left with. Mostly it’s a real toe tapper.

      Do remember though, as we dance with where we’ve arrived at, that daring is always on the table.