Alexandersmap

    Category: Learning

    • Be Alive

      Quiet Sunday mornings are precious things.  This first Sunday morning back from vacation with no travel scheduled for the next week makes it even more so. A good time to contemplate picked-up pieces and solve the puzzle … like this Oscar Wilde quote:

      “Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”

      Which seems to pair well with this (recurring) observation from Seth Godin just this morning:

      “A few people somehow avoid these lessons [of following the rules school lays out] and become instigators, impresarios and disruptors instead. They’re not only dancing with infinity but completely unsure what’s going to work, and yet they are hooked on leaping forward.”

      There are some bold concepts to shake the complacency here. Most people try to avoid mistakes, but it turns out those mistakes are leaps forward not achieved if you don’t make them. Ironic, isn’t it? Go out on the floor and dance with infinity, or be a wall flower wishing you’d taken the risk. If I’ve learned anything in my time here, it’s that the risks can be mitigated, and the leaps are worthwhile.

      That “creeping common sense” Wilde talks about is something I’ve struggled with. But I smile at the mistakes I’ve made that have moved me forward, if only a little. Following the rules, waiting your turn, deferring to others and knowing your place each serve to bring order to society. There’s nothing wrong with making the bed, holding the door for someone else, driving safely and showing up on time for an appointment. These courtesies help us leap forward too. If you don’t weed the garden your harvest will suffer. But a little bend of the rules, an occasional left turn, a break from the norm and a few more mistakes along the way offer a bit of Miracle Grow in that dance with infinity.

      “… the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”

      Ultimately Wilde isn’t indicting us for not taking risks (we do enough of that to ourselves), but rather, poking us to stop wringing our hands about whether it’s the right time or the right move and to just do it already. There are only so many days in store for all of us, and who cares if it turns out to be a mistake anyway? And I think of an image of a Polish man during the darkest days of World War II begging for his life, hands raised to his chest, seeking to be understood. Next to him are two other men, resigned to their fate, which is about to be the same as the bodies of other men sprawled on the ground. I felt empathy for that guy, who was caught up in a moment larger than himself, only wanting to be understood and to live another day. And he calls to me still, Memento mori! Go on, take the risks. Live your life today, as I myself cannot. Be alive.

    • Stumbling Upon Buried Treasure

      While waiting for a taxi to the airport I scanned the wonderful old books lining the shelves at the London hotel I’d been staying in. I do this often when I have moments like this, it’s where the buried treasure is after all. I saw two books on a shelf at eye level that drew my attention; Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana Jr. and an old collection of English poems. I’d read Two Years Before The Mast several years ago at the recommendation of a friend who’s doing exactly that at the moment. I flipped through it quickly, saw the old stamps indicating it was a library book and smiled. Libraries were where I found most of my buried treasure before the Google and Amazon changed everything.

      To this day my favorite discovery was an old copy of Typee by Hermin Melville pulled at random from a university library shelf in the fall of 1984. I was a freshman then, figuring out this college thing, and fascinated with the vast rows of books I could walk through. I picked up Typee and brought it to a reading nook and read the first couple of chapters, quickly falling in love with this other world. I’d return the book and come back again and again to it in the same fashion until I finished it, never checking it out (sadly not including my name on the stamp), but finishing it nonetheless. That friend who loaned me Two Years Before The Mast in turn took my recommendation to read Typee and now has a boat named Fayaway, a compelling character in the story.

      That other book, the one on poetry? I opened to a completely random page in a completely random book in an old library book stuck on a hotel shelf in London….. so you know; random. And I read this:

      Care-Charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,

      Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose

      On this afflicted prince; fall, like a cloud,

      In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud

      Or painful to his slumbers; easy, light,

      And as a purling stream, thou son of Night,

      Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain,

      Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain;

      Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide,

      And kiss him into slumbers like a bride! – John Fletcher

      Fletcher died in 1625. Analogies between sleep and dying are common, and Fletcher dabbling with the concept in this poem/song from 400 years ago illustrates that. We all want to gently fall asleep, and given the choice we’d likely all wish the same for our final sleep. Poetry either grabs you or it doesn’t. I haven’t made up my mind on this one, which means it’s the latter. Not everything you pick up in a book is going to be buried treasure. If it were what would be the value anyway? But there’s something to chew on here anyway.

      Two Years Before The Mast was written by a man named Richard Henry Dana Jr. after he left Harvard to regain his health after contracting measles. It’s a fascinating book that illustrates life onboard a merchant ship on a two year journey as they rounded Cape Horn to pick up cattle hides in California to haul back to Massachusetts. Seeing the book again prompted me to read a bit more about Dana, and I was struck by one part of his legacy. Dana Point, California is named after him. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Dana Point, but never made the connection to the book until today. It seems I found some buried treasure after all.

    • The Great Conversation

      I’m bouncing again, book-to-book, pulling this book off the shelf, scanning over that sentence on the Kindle app, and stacking the pile higher. It’s funny how one thing sparks another thing, it’s what Robert Maynard Hutchins called The Great Conversation, written work building on written work, theory built on theory, across time, but shrunken down to just the books in my personal library. Each offering a little something to keep the imagination abuzz. This morning’s great conversation started with a little stoicism:

      “What’s the meaning of life? Why was I born? Most of us struggle with these questions—sometimes when we’re young, sometimes not until we’re older. Rarely do we find much in the way of direction. But that’s simply because we miss the point. As Viktor Frankl points out in Man’s Search for Meaning , it is not our question to ask. Instead, it is we who are being asked the question. It’s our lives that are the answer.” – Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

      That led me right to the source, and I pulled Frankl’s classic off the shelf for additional perspective:

      “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning

      Outside I hear the telltale roar of hot air balloon burners. It breaks my focus and I walk outside barefoot to look for the familiar visitors, but all I hear is them announcing “we’re close”. Bare feet quickly turn cold on the pool deck and I move back inside. Shoes are one of our best inventions as a species, but we miss so much information about our environment that is telegraphed through our bare feet (today’s telegraph: put some shoes on you fool, that’s what they were invented for). I glance outside and spot the yellow top of smiley face balloon over the trees and, seeing its landing elsewhere, give a nod of welcome and get back inside to the great conversation. Life is calling, but I have a few things to mull over first.

      “Well, what are you? What is it about you that you have always known as yourself? What are you conscious of in yourself: your kidneys, your liver, your blood vessels? No. However far back you go in your memory it is always some external manifestation of yourself where you came across your identity: in the work of your hands, in your family, in other people. And now, listen carefully. You in others – this is what you are, this is what your consciousness has breathed, and lived on, and enjoyed throughout your life, your soul, your immortality – your life in others.” – Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

      I read that passage for the first time in 1989, the year I graduated from college, not in Doctor Zhivago, but as a quote from a book by Warren Bennis called On Becoming a Leader. This book, along with Frankl and more recently Holiday’s books, can be thought of as stepping stones in the stream of life, there for me when I needed a solid footing on my way across. And they’re also voices at the table, part of the great conversation happening still. There are hundreds of voices at that table: authors, poets, songwriters, coaches, family and friends. All voices in that great conversation, ripples across time, influencing me in ways subtle and profound. And you’re at the table too. Welcome.

    • Solving the Wren Riddle

      I was clearly wrong. My educated guess was off the mark. My attempts at online research failed. Apps I trusted to point me in the right direction flopped. So it goes.

      I’ve written about my attempts to identify a bird I wasn’t familiar with that has moved into the neighborhood. And not just this neighborhood but I’ve heard a similar song on Cape Cod, as if it was following me across the Bourne Bridge, taunting me all along.  After many fruitless searches I’d finally settled on the Brown Thrasher as the most likely candidate, and have referred to the Brown Thrasher ever since.  But it wasn’t a Brown Thrasher at all.  It was a Carolina Wren.

      The Carolina Wren, as the name indicates, is typically seen (and heard) further south of here.  I’ve seen another “southern bird”‘, the Baltimore Oriole, in Massachusetts and New Hamphire, but this was a new song; a song I couldn’t get out of my head until I solved the riddle.  An app that records birds singing and analyzes it like Shazam continually got the wrong answers.  So I tried a different app, and still continually got the wrong answers.  Frustrated, I emailed the .m4a voice file to Chirp, the second app I tried, and they responded within 24 hours with the elusive answer; Carolina Wren.  A quick search online confirmed this was indeed the singer I’d been searching for all season.  It seems the bird song apps use a strong location filter to eliminate matches that wouldn’t normally be found in your area.  And Carolina Wren’s weren’t thought to settle in New Hampshire so Chirp was eliminating it as a choice.  Well, welcome to the Granite State, my southern friend.

      The New York Times recently published an article detailing the decline of North American birds, and followed that with an article detailing birds moving away from natural territory as the climate changes.  New Hampshire’s Purple Finch is apparently considering a move to other climates.  Thankfully the one’s who visit my backyard haven’t felt so inclined as of yet.  But then again, I have this new visitor to my backyard whom I’ve never had before who might be singing that there’s something to this story after all.

      Carolina Wren teasing me with her song, July 2019

    • Let the Clamor Be

      Wednesday afternoon I found myself in a customer’s Audi driving to lunch. His customer in turn was also in the car (my role being “vendor”). The 15 minutes spent in the car was spent listening to the driver’s pro-Trump diatribe on the impeachment investigation and his firm belief that anything he said would result in strong nods of agreement from the two passengers in his car. He didn’t notice that neither of us said anything. I don’t know the political views of the end user, but I do know mine. More importantly, neither of them know my political views. I happen to have strong views on this topic, but those views had no place in a business meeting. Aside from lack of professionalism, it’s unnecessary noise that distracts from purpose. Me jumping in on this topic would have created more rather than relieved tension.

      “Learn to stop trying to fix things, to stop being so preoccupied with trying to control one’s experience of the world, to give up trying to replace unpleasant thoughts and emotions with more pleasant ones, and to see that, through dropping the ‘pursuit of happiness’ a more profound peace will result.” – Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

      I’m not seeking “happiness” (that’s akin to playing Whac-A-Mole) but I do have a fair amount of restlessness I work through. So it’s interesting if only to me when two books arrive at the top of my stack of real and virtual books at the same time. Burkeman’s and Ryan Holiday’s latest, Stillness is the Key. Both tackle similar ground – with focus on the value of Stoicism in particular, but common themes in Buddhism and (in Holiday’s book), other world religions and philosophies.

      Burkeman throws out a nugget in his book that struck me as profound: “Let the Clamour be.”  In American English we’d spell that ‘clamor’.  But no matter, the point is made.  I’ve worked on that for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so.  What I don’t do is actively meditate.  I take my meditation in turning off the noise and doing yardwork, or gardening, washing dishes or simply taking a quiet walk.  Am I missing out on something significant by not meditating?  Probably, but I feel better about myself for getting something done while I’m in my mind.

      Which brings me to the acorns.  I’ve got 10’s of thousands of them sitting on my front lawn right now, just waiting for me to rake them up.  Just me, a rake, shovel and barrel, and endless acorns.  I can feel the stillness already.

    • It’s Just a Bird

      “Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here – and, by extension, what we are supposed to be writing.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

      Yesterday afternoon I re-read my blog post from the morning and noticed an ugly spelling error. Things like that used to horrify me, now I just laughed at my mistake and clicked on the edit button to make it go away forever. If every blog post had to be perfect I’d never get anything done. Which is why Lamott’s quote above resonates with me. I’d read Bird by Bird years ago and it didn’t stick. I didn’t write then, I just thought about writing.

      Lamott’s title is derived from a story about her brother and father, who basically told his son to just chip away at a project one part (birds, of course) at a time instead of being overwhelmed by the whole. It reminds me of something my daughter and I say to each other… “It’s just a bird”, or “no big deal”… at any rate the bird analogy stands. Take things one step at a time, chip away at things and don’t worry about making it perfect on the first draft (there’s no such thing anyway). Just do it as Nike would tell you.

      That chipping away at it concept applies to any project. Just stop thinking about applying it and do it already. Isn’t that the root of every motivational mantra ever written? And every kick-starter campaign? And every sales meeting? But knowing the trick and doing the trick aren’t the same thing, are they? Planning to do something feels like you’re doing something. But we know better.

      I’m reading six books at once right now, and for the life of me I don’t know why I picked up Bird by Bird to read again. But a little bird was calling me and here we are. And in reading it again it resonates as it hadn’t before.

      “When the student is ready the teacher will appear”

      There’s more to do. My day job calls and I know there’s more to say. There’s always more to say. Every great book I’ve ever read left me satisfied but wanting more. This clunky little blog is bouncing between history, gardening, birds, travel, music and a hundred other passing fancies. But the heart of it is the journey towards better writing. The ritual, practiced daily. Bird by bird.

    • Go Above Your Nerve

      “If your Nerve, deny you—

      Go above your Nerve”

      – Emily Dickinson

      How the hell did I go all these years without reading that Dickinson poem? Too much time not reading poetry, I’d say. And not casting the net farther. That’s on me, but I’m catching up. Learning is a lifetime sport, and I woke up this morning still very much alive.

      I first felt the whispers of Dickinson when I coached at Amherst College. She lived in Amherst, appropriately there’s a Dickinson museum there, and a thriving community of scholars too. The Amherst air is full of her whispers. But I wasn’t ready to hear them, and left after a year following other voices.

      Perhaps if I’d read this poem before I left I may have listened more. I heard other voices then. The call of other places made it hard to hear. A shame it took so long really, but I’m catching up now. Emily was patiently waiting, and she whispers to me now:

      “If your Nerve, deny you—

      Go above your Nerve

      He can lean against the Grave,

      if he fail to swerve”

      Do you hear her whisper? Get on with it already. What are you afraid of?

    • Opting In

      “A man is worked upon by what he works on.” – Frederick Douglass

      I’m not a photographer by profession, but I fill Instagram with pictures.

      I’m not an author by profession, but this will be my 416th blog post.

      I’m not a horticulturist. but I’ve spent hundreds of hours painting vibrant portraits with amended soil and pruning shears.

      And so on…

      We aren’t what we want to be, we’re what we do. Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena comes to mind. There are too many cavalier critics in the world. Too many armchair quarterbacks. Get out there and do something already! Opt in and act. Memento mori; remember we all must die, so do something meaningful while you’re here!

      “People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life… people who are passive create a mental landscape that is rather barren. Because of their limited experiences and action, all kinds of connections in the brain die off from lack of use. Pushing against the passive trend of these times, you must work to see how far you can extend control of your circumstances and create the kind of mind you desire.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      The more you do, the more you become. And the more interesting you become. Being interesting is a byproduct of being interested. Being interesting to others of course isn’t the objective, but being interesting with others should be. Engagement offers enlightenment. The curious mind is alive, vibrant and accretive, the disinterested mind is on life support, dull and diminishing.

      Hobbies like gardening and photography aren’t going to get me invited to do a TED talk mind you, but they do make the world a little better, move some electrons around in the brain, and hopefully give me something more to contribute than someone less interested in opting in. If you’re still talking about your conquests in college when you’re over 50 or freeze up when the conversation goes beyond last week’s game you aren’t really growing, are you? Writing for me is no longer a hobby, but not [yet] a profession. Blogging, fueled by travel, reading and curiosity, is my apprenticeship; Teaching consistency, discipline and the art of putting words together from the mind to the screen. I’ll never use this blog to make money, but hope to enrich myself in other ways in the process of daily, consistent writing. I owe that to myself.

    • As the Twig is Bent the Tree Inclines

      “Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.  Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface, nor concluded in the appendix.  Even Virgil’s poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries.  It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, providing that man is still man in the world…  It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and then they failed, read them again, or perchance write more.” – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      I keep returning to Thoreau this year.  And he rarely lets me down.  When he wrote these lines he was referencing the poetry of the long dead Virgil, contemplating the power of his words in his time, even as they meant something slightly different to him.  And now I read Thoreau’s words, in turn contemplating the power of his words in the same fashion.      We all are influenced by the collective wisdom of the ages, and if we’re bold write about our own perceptions of the world to in turn influence others.  I’m not so bold as to compare myself to Virgil or Thoreau mind you, but I’ll keep working towards it nonetheless.

      “Your descendants shall gather your fruits.” – Virgil

      I’ll follow Thoreau’s lead and contemplate some of Virgil’s writing for a moment.  Whether my writing amounts to anything more than the ramblings of a restless mind or the beginning of something greater remains to be seen at this point, but those descendants will know a bit more about that mind for having done the writing.  Neither could have envisioned the world as it is today, and who might be contemplating their words.  We all add to the chorus with our voice.

      “As the twig is bent the tree inclines.” – Virgil

      There’s no doubt that blogging has bent the twig a bit, so to speak.  The benefit of this daily writing habit is that the behavior inclines us more towards greater things.  Ultimately that’s the entire point of the exercise (and thank you for being part of the journey), chipping away at it.  Getting that 10,000 hours in.  Refining, building, becoming something better for the effort and consistency.  And maybe add a little great poetry to the world in the process.

    • Honing a Curious Mind

      I’ve been trying to figure out who is singing in the neighborhood for the last six weeks. I make a point of being outdoors whenever possible in the early morning (New Hampshire summers are very short after all). Some singers are obvious, others are more evasively unfamiliar to me. I regret that my education never included identifying birdsong. But as with many things I’ve made it a point of my adult learning path. I’m currently in the 101 level birdsong classes.

      I tried an app that analyzes bird song, but the bluebirds always sing at the same time as this character and tend to confuse the analytics. It keeps think its a mockingbird when I can hear the differences clearly. Eventually I came to the conclusion that this was a Brown Thrasher. In the process of figuring that out I’ve come to learn the songs of another half dozen birds I’ve heard in the background music but never took the time to learn about. I’m far from an expert on any of this, but the path is more vibrant.

      In the last 18 months I’ve learned about or reacquainted myself with local and world history, stoicism, transcendentalism, world religions, the power of habits, physiology, native trees, horticulture, birds, bugs, the environment and other diverse (eclectic?) side paths on the route from here to, well, there. Side paths lead to other side paths and before you know it maybe you’ve accumulated something meaningful in the old brain. You can’t write about what you don’t know about, and this cajoles me from tangential interest to deeper learning about topics. As a side benefit I’ve become better at writing too… you’ll see it eventually.

      “The discipline of sharing something daily is priceless.” – Seth Godin