Alexandersmap

    Category: Learning

    • Worthy of Its Own Passion

      “What else is love but understanding and rejoicing that another lives, works, and feels in a different and opposite way to ourselves? That love may be able to bridge over the contrasts by joys, we must not remove or deny those contrasts. Even self-love presupposes an irreconcilable duality (or plurality) in one person.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

      We all understand the concept of the battle of good and evil. It’s deeply embedded in every aspect of our lives, from religion to politics to movies and literature. Good and evil always gets our attention, which is why dualism is used so frequently by those who would divide us. As a society and as individuals, just who do we want to become? If there is an evil in this world, it surely resides in those who would divide us.

      The rhetoric of good and evil is a red flag for extremism. Such all or nothing, black and white language is designed to call us out. We’re either with the crowd or we’re suspect. They used to burn people at the stake for such things. Now we cancel people, deport or ostracize them. The outcome is the same with less screaming. If we aren’t good we must be evil, and evil must be wiped out. The voice of reason gets drowned out in the fervor.

      Manichaeism was a religion founded on this idea of light and darkness, good and evil and all that. It lasted a thousand years before being swept away by Christianity, which has it’s own dualistic tendencies. Manichaeism may have died out, but dualism is alive and kicking. We know it when we hear it, because it’s just so commonplace in our culture.

      Being a voice of reason in an unreasonable time is a lonely path. People want us to pick a side, and dismiss anyone who attempts to weigh the opinion of others deemed woke or MAGA or some other version of dark and evil. Isn’t it a pity that we’ve reached a point where reason isn’t heard? The thing is, dualism stirs the survival instinct within us, where “fight or flight” overpowers the nuance of reason.

      We ought to turn off the noise that would draw us away from reason. We ought to find more creative ways to influence and help people to see that most of the world is good, and very little of it is evil. That those who would use dualism to divide us are stoking that fire for their own gain. Is it so unreasonable to see that unity is a path worthy of its own passion?

    • Paper Tigers

      “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” ― Amelia Earhart

      What are we afraid of anyway? Decide what to be and go be it. The alternative is to never try anything. What kind of a life is that? When we make a habit of making the bold choice something stirs within. We learn that we can do things beyond the ordinary.

      And so it is that we make our way towards the person we wish to become. Some days we leap forward, some days we slog along hoping for progress but finding we slid backwards. Looking around, we wonder if we made the right choice.

      Who we once were seems more attractive when things get especially challenging. But deep down we know better. Keep moving forward, towards the dream. Ordinary was nice, but extraordinary offers a better view.

      Be bold today—if only so that when we reach the end of the day we feel like we’ve really done something with the time. Which paper tiger do we need to tackle first? They tend to scatter once we’ve knocked off one or two of the big ones. There is no time like now to show them who’s boss.

    • Worthy of Devotion

      “Before you come alive, life is nothing; it’s up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

      We may not know why we are here, or even why we should get out of bed at all, but the fact remains that we are here, contributing our verse (work in progress that it is), and isn’t participating in the bold act of discovery far more interesting than simply conceding that we don’t know, so why try at all? Do try, if only to find the next piece of the puzzle. If only to get beyond nothing to the abundance of somethings awaiting our discovery.

      If a daily devotional provides a spiritual set of the sail, suggesting a course correction that may need to happen, then Satre’s challenge to seek meaning is as informative as prayer. What is a devotional but the ritual of focus beyond ourselves to some greater purpose? To ask ourselves daily why we are here and what to do with the opportunity is a path to higher purpose.

      To ponder the potential of the self isn’t narcissistic, it’s expansive. When we ask, “what have I got to offer?”, we don’t focus on the “I”, but the “offer”. Devotion draws us beyond self, slipping towards the spiritual and the gracious—it slips towards meaning.

      Waking up is a strong indicator of being alive. In our quest to make this day something better than the last, shouldn’t we seek that which makes us truly feel alive? Simply going through the motions is a disservice to the potential of our vitality. What is worthy of our devotion? We may begin there.

    • Let It Go

      “Let go, or be dragged.” — Zen proverb

      Each day we step out into the world offers ample opportunity to challenge our sense of what’s wrong and what’s right. We ought to fight for what is right, but be careful how many wrongs we wrap ourselves up in. We have a finite amount of time to spend and it’s slipping away even as we speak. Just how do we want to use this precious time before it’s gone forever?

      Counting blessings is far more enjoyable than counting grudges. That may seem naive in a complex world that wants all our attention, time and money, but what good is going to come from getting all spun up? Let it go, or be dragged down with it. Rise above it all instead.

    • For Your Consideration

      If I could write words
      Like leaves on an autumn forest floor,
      What a bonfire my letters would make.

      If I could speak words of water,
      You would drown when I said
      “I love you.”
      — Spike Milligan, If I Could Write Words

      When I look at the number of words written and published in this blog this year, it equals the length of a long novel. Looking back over the last six years since I turned blogging from an every now and then thing to an every day thing, it translates into roughly eight novels of average length worth of words. And there are another couple of novels-worth of blog posts sitting in draft form. That, friends, is a lot of words given to the vacuum of the Internet. And here is one more for your consideration.

      All this talk of words has me wondering where they’ll lead to next. Words pull the writer along just as much as the reader—perhaps more so. Pile the words just so and you have a blog post or a poem or a novel. Which is worthy of our weight in words? We know it when we feel it. The act of creating things is a ritual of discovery.

      Just because we write a lot of words doesn’t mean that we have a lot to say. Our voice (if we’re lucky enough to be born in a free society) is our birthright, our audience is earned. We ought to experience a few things in this lifetime to pick up the pieces, glued together with our perspective, and presented to the reader to wander about with and occasionally knock down our walls. Burn it all down if you like—the words that were once mine are now those of someone I used to know.

      These words have turned into a blog post. If you’ve followed along this far, thank you. If the words and I should meet again tomorrow, I hope we will have our time together yet again. Until then?

    • Old Riddles and New Creeds

      After one moment when I bowed my head
      And the whole world turned over and came upright,
      And I came out where the old road shone white.
      I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
      Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
      Being not unlovable but strange and light;
      Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
      But softly, as men smile about the dead

      The sages have a hundred maps to give
      That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
      They rattle reason out through many a sieve
      That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
      And all these things are less than dust to me
      Because my name is Lazarus and I live.
      — G.K. Chesterton, The Convert

      Chesterton famously converted to Christianity when he was 48. The fame came with his zealous endorsement of the Catholic faith in his writing. The poem above is one example of that, indicating his joy at being born again. He passed away at 62, which seems really young now, but a full life in 1934 when his whole world turned over and came upright.

      Now I’m not especially religious, but I fancy myself a spiritual being on a quest for experience, knowledge and enlightenment. This blog is a ship’s log of sorts, showing where my journey has taken me thus far. I’d like to think I’ve come a long way. I’d like to think there are many pages left to write. ’tis not for us to know such things, only to do what we can with today’s entry.

      I’ve come to value the sands of time more than gold, and the wisdom of voices who have crossed the threshold. The young seek shortcuts to influence and wealth, the old seek solace in a life of connection and comfort. I’m somewhere in between, learning what I will, sharing what I feel s’éclairer. This is our age of discovery, friend, for we are here, now and alive. Picking up what we can in our time even as it falls away.

    • Never Mind

      For every ailment under the sun
      There is a remedy, or there is none;
      If there be one, try to find it;
      If there be none, never mind it.
      — W.W. Bartley

      Life piles on some days. Some things demand our full attention. Mostly though, we choose what to burden ourselves with and what to release from our shoulders. Developing a mind focused on what we can control is the path to some measure of serenity in a chaotic world.

      “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer

      I’m not the first to associate the Bartley poem with the Niebuhr sermon—you can find it right on Wikipedia if you like. I share them both here because they dance well together, and who doesn’t love a beautiful dance? Both offer timeless wisdom, yet each originated within the last hundred years.

      It helps to find something that will remind us that we must pause and assess all that washes over us, if only for a beat, and choose how to react. Some things we must endure. Some things we can work to change. But there are some things that we should never mind at all, for they aren’t ours to carry.

    • If We Choose To

      Do you want to know the truth about yourself? Hold a forearm plank for as long as you can and your abdominal muscles will offer you all the truth you can handle. The truth is right in front of us when we dare to notice it. Getting fit is harder than staying fit, but staying fit is a matter of making harder choices over easier options.

      For what it’s worth, I’m far more fit than I was on my last birthday. I hope when I arrive at my next birthday to be far more fit than I currently am. Call it a birthday gift to myself. Fitness is itself worthy of pursuit, if only to improve the quality and perhaps duration of our time while we’re alive. When we’re fit we become more alert, with more energy, and we feel better about ourselves when the favorite jeans slide on easily. Doesn’t that just brighten up a day?

      There’s another key benefit to consistently choosing harder over easier. When we do what we say we’re going to do, we learn to trust ourselves. Our promises aren’t empty. It counts for a lot in a world increasingly jaded and skeptical when we can look in the mirror and trust the character looking back at us.

      It’s evident that consistent and challenging workouts will move us to a healthier body. We could apply this knowledge to other pursuits like reading, writing or learning about something that will open doors for us in our career. Imagine the shine on that kitchen floor if we’d simply take the harder path and mop it regularly.

      We ought to do hard things, because hard things move us to a meaningfully better place. Easy things feel comfortable but aren’t moving us in the direction we want to go in. Pay the piper now or surely we’ll pay later. We learn that personal excellence is forever evasive, but always within our power to strive towards. If we choose to, anyway.

    • The Stuff We Write

      Boldly I dip it in the well,
      My writing flows, and all
      I try succeeds. Of course, the spatter
      Of this tormented night
      Is quite illegible. No matter:
      Who reads the stuff I write?
      — Friedrich Nietzche, “Ecce homo”, The Gay Science

      For all the perceived sternness of Nietzche, there’s a funny, charming character hiding within. It was said that he was an introvert and lonely. When compared to whom? The world is full of introverts. That many of them are creative, deep thinkers is no surprise. The trick is to find an audience worthy of the work. Right. Try to tell an introvert that they must reach beyond themselves to find an audience and watch how quickly they backpedal away from you. Yet Nietzche did it. What of us?

      We’re all introverts in some way or another. We all may be extroverted when we let our guard down and step into the role. It’s something you get used to over time. Introverts are great in conversation because they listen to what is being said to them instead of simply waiting for us to shut up so that they can speak again. There’s nothing more grating than a conversation with someone who won’t simply listen and absorb what we’re trying to say before responding. Two ears, one mouth is the rule: we must listen more than speak.

      Now clearly, I have a lot to say myself. I mean, I write this blog every day, often repeating myself in my zeal to live a worthy life. But writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, we must digest to produce. Ah, produce what? Garbage in, garbage out? To simply put content out for clicks may raise our number of views, but is it moving us closer to who we aspire to become? Is it helping others find a path towards their own personal excellence? Just why are we burning our precious time creating content anyway?

      “Be so good they can’t ignore you” — Steve Martin

      Knowing why we do anything offers clarity of purpose. The stuff we write may not solve the world’s problems, but it offers a hint at who we were in the moment, for anyone that cares to find out. That includes the writer, of course. Who were we today? How does this step connect to all that will follow? Does it lead to an ascent or a spiral? Time will tell. It matters, if only to us, but maybe also to a reader this one time. Still here, figuring it all out, together. If what we produce is good enough, it will resonate. Steve Martin is another introvert who broke through.

      The root of the world’s problems is that we’re not inclined to listen and understand each other as much as we ought to. When we’re all screaming at and over each other we aren’t listening or finding creative answers to those compounding problems. The world needs more creative introverts stepping out from the shadows and finding ways to connect us all together. What binds us? Step outside of that shell and share some of that. The only place to grow is outside of who we already are.

    • October Skies

      Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance
      With the stars up above in your eyes
      A fantabulous night to make romance
      ‘Neath the cover of October skies
      And all the leaves on the trees are fallin’
      To the sound of the breezes that blow
      And I’m trying to please to the callin’
      Of your heart strings that play soft and low
      — Van Morrison, Moondance

      The October sky in New England is a wonderful thing. Sunrises and sunsets are full of color that somehow match the foliage as it peaks. There is a crescendo when all of the colors are most vibrant and then it all seems to fade away. And so we ought to put ourselves in the way of beauty, just as Cheryl Strayed’s mother suggested. We are either there for it or we aren’t.

      It all goes so quickly. Autumn foliage sprinkles us with magic and all too soon fades and returns to the earth. Blink and we miss it. The lesson is to get out and see what we can while the opportunity presents itself. And we know that the lesson applies well beyond leaves.

      Tempus fugit. Time flies. Dare to use our time, or risk losing it. Every day may be a love affair with life. As with any love, life will only offer to us what we put into it. It’s up to us to notice the details. We may choose to play an active role in the chores that make each day meaningful and productive. We may dare to ask ourselves in those moments of hopeful scheming, how may we extend this magic just a little longer?