Alexandersmap

    Category: Learning

    • The Highest Alchemy

      “The process of life should be the birth of a soul. This is the highest alchemy, and this justifies our presence on earth. This is our calling and our virtue.” – Henri Amiel

      I’ve managed to finish three books this year, a disappointing total to be sure.  But I’m actively reading every day, and balance a stack of virtual books on the Kindle app that I read through often with an actual stack of books that I return to now and then.  I’m reading a lot, and yet I’m not finishing a lot of books.  Go figure.

      I’ll often read a quote like the Henri Amiel quote above and immediately research the author’s work on Wikipedia, scroll through highlights of their publicly available work and if inspired I go on Amazon and add to the stack.  I added to the stack with Amiel’s Journal, widely declared his master work (free on Kindle)… and published posthumously.  Which brings me back to the quote that inspired the search, and emphasis on the quote that wasn’t there previously.  Quotes are funny things, we pull out a set of words that seem especially powerful, tag the author and leave it out there like a neon sign on a dark night.   Knowing something of the author brings context and resonance.  It’s something that Maria Popova is masterful at with Brain Pickings, and you’ll see my own attempts at it here now and then.

      I’ve learned over the years to dig a bit deeper in my own process of life.  To linger on something that others might skim over.  And most of all to learn, and to hopefully add a bit of value to the rest of the souls walking this earth now, and maybe some future then too.  To pursue the highest alchemy, if you will.  And I’m seeing some return on investment with my two adult children.  Both are deeply empathetic, thoughtful observers with strong leadership traits.  If nothing else comes of my time on this earth, the ripples from these two might be enough.  But that shorts my own time here, doesn’t it?  We’re all a work in progress in our time, from day one to the final day, and there’s still plenty of time to add more.  Today anyway.

      Alexandersmap started out as a blog about the places I was visiting, digging deeper into the history of the place, occasional insight into the best fish and chips or whatever.  And I surely will dabble in these observations again when travel isn’t limited.  But the blog evolves as I read more, think more, observe more….  and write more.  It turns out I’m digging deeper into myself, and putting it all out there for the world to see (thanks) or not see (yet).  That’s writing for you: taking you places you didn’t expect to go.  Then again, maybe deep down I did expect to get here, I just needed to write about fish and chips enough to reach this point.

      “You get better at the craft of writing the more you do it, and that’s the beauty of non-fiction writing being a craft rather than an art. You can practice it, you can get better, whereas with an art, you’re either a genius or you’re not.” – Alex Perry (via Rolf Potts interview)

      Writing, like life itself, is a process.  We’re all just birthing our souls here.  Some remain soulless (I’m not naming names) while some illuminate the darkness for all to see.  Personally, I’m on the journey and marking the trail as I go.  I’m not sure I’m illuminating darkness for anyone, but I’m lighting the way for myself one post at a time.

       

       

    • Return of Wonder

      “Wonder dies and is replaced by boredom, as we develop language and words and concepts. Then hopefully, if we’re lucky, we’ll return to wonder again.” – Anthony de Mello, Awakening

      The hummingbirds work their way across the mounds of honeysuckle in turns. One fills up and flies off and another takes its place. The vine and the birds return year-after-year and each season I marvel at the intimate dance of the honeysuckle and the hummingbird. I’ve learned over many seasons together to sit silently and let the dance happen. I’m rewarded once again in 2020, a year like no other, and nod in gratitude to the dancers.

      I keep returning to Anthony de Mello, and why not? Every visit mines gold, like a hummingbird returning to honeysuckle. This is an especially good year to re-read Awakening, and lately I’m scanning a few pages in between history and philosophy and poetry. There’s so much you miss the first time through with great books, and I’m reading it again with a new sense of wonder. And isn’t that the way with everything worthwhile? The garden is different every time you visit it, and so is the forest, and the ocean, and mountains, and old friends in our lives and surely a spouse. And so are we, if we’ll just sit still long enough to see.

      I’m lucky. I know this. I can sit quietly in the garden and watch hummingbirds. I can walk on a dark street alone at night looking at the stars without concern. Born in a place and time with a skin color that offers me a silent leg up over people who are in every way my peers or a few notches above me. I’m not struggling the way many people struggle, and I’m grateful. But what do you do with the gift? Become bored with it? Jealousy hold it tight, not willing to share it with others? Lecture those who don’t see the wonder?

      I think the first step is to appreciate the beauty in your own life. To truly see it anew. And then share it with the world. Pull wisdom from the ages and embrace it, and shine a light on it for others to see. To be a stabilizing force for those who need a hand, and a teacher for those who need to see the wonder in all of us. I view the merit of another person by the sparkle in their eyes, not by the color of their skin or the position they hold. Help others to see. To find wonder themselves. We all live by concepts we’ve learned along the way. Concepts are funny things. They change when the student is ready and not a moment sooner. Offer a hand to those struggling with the climb, an ear for those who need you to hear and a shoulder for those who are hurting to cry on. Share wonder with the world and dance with those who rise up with you. And keep offering a place on the dance floor for those who aren’t there just yet. They could use some wonder too..

    • Represent Worthily

      “I learned not to fear infinity,
      The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
      The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
      The wheel turning away from itself,
      The sprawl of the wave,
      The on-coming water.”
      – Theodore Roethke. The Far Field

      In our dance with infinity it’s now a Thursday once again.  The days fly by.  Just as the weeks fly by.  Just as the months fly by.  Just as the years fly by.  And yet here we are, in the now, in this shining moment.  Nothing hammers that feeling home like being at home, day-after-day, doing the same thing over and over again.  This pandemic has highlighted for me – and maybe for you too – the dying of time in the white light of tomorrow.  The endless cycle of routine punctuated by another dawn.  What else is there but now?  Is tomorrow ours to wonder at?  There is only now.  And that brings to mind something I’d stored away long ago:

      “Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance….at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say?” – Samuel Beckett, Vladimir, Waiting for Godot

      I read Waiting for Godot in college, and found it repetitive and boring.  I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be reading such things.  I believe I felt the same way about Walden once too.  The restlessness of youth, or the immature mind…  no matter.  And yet I’ve returned to both recently.  I’ve re-read Walden three times since I was required to read it in college.  And Godot keeps coming to mind as we march along in this dance with the repetitive.  They say the mind never forgets anything, it just stores it away somewhere deep inside, dormant and untapped.  Today, after thousands of days, I’ve tapped Waiting for Godot and Vladimir stepped to the forefront with a few words of wisdom: There’s no time to be idle.  Represent us worthily, for you live in the white light of what was our tomorrow.  Don’t waste it.  And today, facing the windy cliffs of forever, that is my task.

       

    • Consider The Hummingbird

      “Consider the hummingbird for a long moment…. Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backward. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be… The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature.”

      “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.”

      “No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.” – Brian Doyle, Joyas Voladoras

      I get a bit breathless when I read something as stunning as Joyas Voladoras, and perhaps I share too much of it here.  It’s from a collection of essays by Brian Doyle in One Long River Of Song.  I’ve been saving it until I saw my first hummingbird of the season, figuring it would be a nice way to mark the occasion.  Well, that happened over two days ago, and I’m happy to share the sparkling light of Joyas Voladoras with you now.  Welcome back, hummingbirds, I’m glad to see you return to the garden.

      I play my part in keeping them from retreating to tupor with as many hummingbird-friendly plants and flowers as I can justify cramming into the sunniest corners of my backyard.  And in return they keep me from returning to tupor, if only for this short season.  For that I’m grateful, and I keep finding more excuses to add maybe just one more plant.  The bees return first, followed by the hummingbirds, and soon the butterflies will return too and the garden will be complete.  Or maybe it’s me that will be, or maybe all of us, in this together with our collection of heartbeats thumping to the song of today.

      Reading an essay like Joyas Voladoras swings the spotlight onto my own work, and I recognize that I have a ways to go in the writing.  But the blog serves as my apprenticeship and I keep putting it out there even if it misses the mark or is welcomed with grateful indifference.  I’m silently plotting an escape for my ambitions, one post at a time.  Words and structure of sentences are one thing, but weaving sparkling light and magic into those words is another.  What makes you breathless as a reader?  We all churn inside, don’t we?  How do we share that with the world?  Bird by bird, today and tomorrow too.  There’s enough tupor in the world, we all need a bit more warmth.

    • The State of Things

      “For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.” – Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

      I paid a friend to mow my lawn for ten years. I traveled often and didn’t have the time to keep up with it, so I’d simply throw money at the problem and it would be done. Something happens to your yard when you aren’t out in it doing the work. It pulls back from you, feeling shunned perhaps, or maybe reasserting the wild tendencies that were always there, but corralled in suburbia. Walk in the woods and count the cellar holes and stone fences and you’ll know the truth: The land has a longer memory than our lifetime.

      Over the last few years I’d walk about the yard on some gardening task, looking at the state of things. The lawn was cut well, with fine lines at expert angles, but the lawn itself was in a sorry state. So we’re the beds and walkways. In fact the whole yard was feeling a bit worn down and neglected. Sure, I’d rake or spread mulch or pick up the fallen branches after a storm, but the land was slowly returning to a wild state. I’d spent all my time at home on the garden and potted plants, and was getting the cold shoulder from the rest of the yard. No, this won’t do.

      The first step in repairing a damaged relationship is to put in the time building trust back. So I bought a Honda push mower that forces me to walk every step of the land and with the warmer weather I’m out there walking the property. You notice things when you walk every step of the land, things like the quality of the soil in certain places, and weeds you don’t have a name for, and chipmunk holes, and roots and stumps from experiments gone bad. Each step brought me closer to the truth, and forced me to reconcile my decade of indifference to the land. I’d have to do better.

      Eventually travel will return, and weather windows will make mowing an inconvenience. But other excuses like soccer games and basketball tournaments and dance recitals have given back time I’d used to justify the hired help now that the kids are adults. And I’ve found that I enjoy getting to know the land again. It keeps me honest with myself. It’s a form of penance for a decade of neglect, and I don’t seem to mind at all. There’s work to be completed, seasons to mark, tasks at hand, projects to do. A slow march to the infinite, one step at a time. The land might reject me still, but I’m back on it anyway, trying to keep up with the state of things and learning lessons along the way.

    • Going to Do

      “What’s the me in ten years going to think about what I did today?” – Hugh Howie, TKP Interview

      I wrote a 500 word post Friday night about what I was going to do, read it and tucked it away in the drafts folder. I won’t write about what I’m going to do, I’m just going to do it and write about it after I’ve accomplished something. I have nothing against planning, but I’ve been caught in the trap of making bold claims and not getting there. No more “We will go to the moon” proclamations, just set the goal and get it done. And then I listened to a couple of The Knowledge Project (TKP) podcast interviews I’ve been meaning to get to, and it clarified my thoughts on the matter. I’ve noted my short-term goals, and I’ll pursue them earnestly, but quietly.

      “A lot of our calcification, the inability to break our stasis and launch our lives in a different direction is the feeling that we should have done it ten years ago and we’ve lost the opportunity and now we can’t do it.  But ten years from now we’re going to think the same thing about this very moment, today…  whatever you think you could have done five or ten years ago to change the direction of your life, you can do that right now, today, and make that deflection point, that decision…” – Hugh Howie, TKP Interview

      I can look back and see deflection points throughout my life. Places where I did something that led me to something else that led me here. We all can, really. And sometimes you’ll wish you’d done this or that other thing along the way, or done more of something that clearly would have brought you further down the path to where you wish you were at. But Howie turns that around and points to the future you looking back on you today. Today is your deflection point – what will you do with it?

      And that brings me to another TKP podcast that the interviewer Shane Parrish highlighted in his newsletter; Robert Greene’s concept of alive time. It’s been borrowed and amplified by Ryan Holiday as well. I keep coming back to this concept, and the words “alive time” chirp in my ear whenever I waste time playing one-too-many games of computer chess or watching television or scrolling through political opinions on Twitter. No, you were meant for more than this, get to it already.

      “You really don’t own anything in life. When you’re born, and you come out of your mother’s womb, and you’re kicking and screaming, and you go through your 60, 70, 80, 90 years of life, you think that you own stock and money, and this, that, and the other, but really, you don’t own anything, because it all disappears, it all goes away, and you die, and there’s nothing left. The only thing, the only thing that you own, the only thing that we can say is that you own time. You have so much time to live. … Let’s just say you have 85 years to live. That is yours … Alive time is time that’s your own. Nobody tells you what to do, nobody is commanding you how to spend it. … Taking ownership of your time means I only have this much time to live, I’d better make the most of it, I’d better make it alive time, I’d better be urgent, have a bit of an edge, be aware of each moment as it’s passing and not in a fog.” – Robert Greene, TKP Interview

      So when we talk about this pandemic in ten years, how did it serve as a deflection point in your life? How did you use your alive time to pivot into a new and exciting pursuit? How did you use the extra time with family? What did you learn? What workout did you do that proved foundational in your path to better fitness? What’s the me in ten years going to think about what I did today?

    • Recently Collected Quotes

      My mind’s distracted by work and projects. I need to write them all down and get them out of my head. Prioritize and tackle the list. First on the list is writing, and in writing I’m tackling another distraction: I’ve noticed my quote collection piling up again, which means I’m not sharing enough of them. I save quotes for blogs, for inspiration, for reflection… or simply to remind myself that others thought deeply before my attempts to do so, so get out of your head and do something. I was raised to share, so here are some favorite recent acquisitions to the collection:

      “Don’t do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know.” – Naval

      “Wild success requires aggressive elimination. You can’t be great at everything.” – James Clear

      “Every great thing is done in a quiet, humble, simple way; to plow the land, to build houses, to breed cattle, even to think—you cannot do such things when there are thunder and lightning around you. Great and true things are always simple and humble.” – Leo Tolstoy

      “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” – Marcus Aurelius

      “Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.” – Mortimer J. Adler

      “Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.” – Jack Kerouac

      “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” – Henry David Thoreau

      “Nothing is so certain as that the evils of idleness can be shaken off by hard work.” —Seneca

      Until tomorrow then…

    • For My Next Trip Around The Sun

      For my next trip around the sun, if I may be so presumptuous, I’ll try harder to meet the Aurora Borealis on its terms. Maybe finally catch those evasive Northern Lights, I really do need to meet up with them this time around.  I’ll travel again to faraway places.  Places previously unknown to me that caught my imagination in a travel article or a book.  Places that Google street view hasn’t posted online.  I know these places are out there, I’ve tried in vain to reach them with a mouse before.

      For my next trip around the sun, if good fortune should shine upon me, I’ll rest a hand on the trunk of a Sequoioideae, but first I’ll learn how to spell it without copy and paste.  I once spent a week within an hour’s drive of Redwood National Forest and never bothered to go visit.  Some excuse about work, I suppose.  I don’t recall that mattering in the end anyway.  Touching a redwood tree and looking up to the sky would have mattered far more.

      For my next trip around the sun, if the stars align and I make the full trip, I’m going to celebrate the graduation of my first born and prepare for the graduation of my second born.  The world has changed in ways that seemed fictional not too long ago, and presents challenges that you and your generation will rise up to meet.  I hope my generation and my parents generation does the same and you have something to build on.  The world isn’t fair, we all know that, but a few generations collaborating on solutions to the world’s problems seems a logical next step.  The world is ready for non-violent transformation.  Will it begin with now?

      For my next trip around the sun, should I be so bold, I’ll strive more.  Strive for more meaningful contributions, strive for more engagement in conversation, strive to be more disciplined in the food and drink I take in, strive to be more consistent with the daily habits that make a difference today and for however many trips around the sun you have left.  We all know what we should do, how many do it?  I strive to do it this time around the sun.   You know I’ll write about it, so feel free to poke and prod me should I fall behind.

      For my next trip around the sun, if it should come to pass, I’ll savor more.  Savor the sounds and sights and smells that make up the moments of the day.  Sip a little slower, chew a little more, slow down just enough, look up from the phone and see what’s happening around you.  Savor the time passing by instead of grabbing it tighter and watching it escape anyway, like beach sand in a tight fist.  Savor the long walks and the long talks and the short moments that catch your breath.

      For my next trip around the sun, should the gods look down upon my favorably, I’ll look up more.  Look up at the sky to track our progress over the next year.  Look up old friends you don’t talk to nearly enough.  Look up at the stars and learn to identify them by the way they align with other stars from our unique perspective in the universe.  Look  out, up and out again as the sun rises, warms the skin and the earth around you and drops down again below the horizon, as we all must do eventually.  And so you begin another trip around the sun.  Where will it take you?

    • Spring Chorus At The Edge

      It began with a White-Throated Sparrow, with its extraordinary high-pitched song. It likely wasn’t the first singer of the morning, but it was the first to draw my attention. Soon I was sitting outside in the cold, dim light, sipping coffee and wondering at the divisi chorus rising with the lux level. I’m no expert on the songs of the forest, and cheat with an app to help me pick out unfamiliar singers. I mourn lost opportunities to learn such things as I grew up, but I push that aside and double down on learning now. Instead of mastering the songs of forest birds growing up I mastered the catalog of music spanning the 50’s to the 90’s. It’s a trade-off I can live with.

      But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn now. An active, engaged mind is the best student. And I’m quickly noting the various singers amongst me as I slowly walk around the edge of the woods: Robin, Carolina Wren, White-Breasted Nuthatch, Mourning Dove, Purple Finch, Black-Capped Chickadee, Cardinal, Northern Flicker, Crow, House Wren, Blue Jay, Eastern Towhee, Bluebird, Wild Turkey, Red-Bellied Woodpecker… I hear or see each of them in the span of an hour. There are others I don’t recognize and the app fails to decipher them amongst the dominant voices of the Nuthatch, Cardinal and the White-Throated Sparrow who started it all today. So it goes. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I’m happy to add another couple of singers to my catalog of favorites.

      The morning progresses and the hum of leaf blowers and lawn mowers and some form of pumping truck create their own chorus. The sounds of suburbia. I live on the edge of the woods, but the other edge is getting on with their weekend chores. All good things must come to an end I suppose. Until tomorrow, woodland chorus. Save me a seat up front, won’t you?

    • In Spite of It All

      “Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      Change is constant, and so must we be constantly embracing change. I’m grateful for the places I’ve been, for the things I’ve done, because if I hadn’t done them I might never have gotten to them. The pandemic has highlighted this for many people, I suppose. The world has changed massively in a short amount of time. Can we ever go back to what we were before? God, I hope not. So many sleepwalking through life, so much apathy. We have to live with urgency before we run out of our aliveness.

      I have friends currently anchored off a small island in Puerto Rico weighing their next move. They would tell you everything they initially planned has been upended by circumstances. They started later than they wanted because some critical work on their boat took longer than anticipated. They spent unexpected time in Bermuda because of weather. And now a combination of timing a weather window and global reaction to a pandemic has them waiting to finally weigh anchor and move again. But despite the strange twists of fate, to have begun when they did meant everything. Had they waited just one more year they might never have started. Might never have seen all they’ve seen. Learned all that they’ve learned about themselves and the world. To have started made all the difference.

      There are days when the writing is a struggle, when I want to just take one day off, but I write anyway and get something out of it. It’s hard to write about travel and my experiences in the world when I’m not traveling and experiencing the world. But you know that too. We all do now. These are my own plans upended by circumstances, and I’ve embraced the changes and learned more about myself along the way. I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be at this point in my writing, but I’m much farther along than I might have been had I not started, and had I not kept going despite it all.

      This pandemic will end at some point. We’ll all be transformed by it. But it will end and the world will shift into some state of new normal. That will be our own weather window to weigh anchor and get on with the business of living. Will we sail for new harbors, embracing the changes in our lives, or will we cling to the safe and familiar? There’s only one path to growth, to being alive, and our weather window is all too brief. Clearly we must weigh anchor, in spite of it all.