Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Wealth in Health

      “The greatest wealth is health.” — Virgil

      On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t get out for a ride on the bike. It’s been leaning against the wall mocking me for weeks, waiting for my excuses to run out. Busy should never be our excuse for not exercising, not when the true answer is that we chose to prioritize something else with our precious time. So I got out there, and quickly surprised myself with the gains I’d made.

      If we remember our three currencies in life—health, wealth and time—we ought to consider both our accumulation and spend rate of each. Will I be riding a bike up steep hills when I’m 85? Probably not, but I can do it today. And in doing it today I’m increasing the probability of doing it one day when I’m 85. So I ought to do the work today that makes me healthier tomorrow.

      But it’s hard for us to work hard to accumulate for some imagined version of ourselves in a few decades. Perhaps the better thing to do is focus on more immediate gains in health and vitality and let the compound interest of a lifetime of fitness do the rest. The trick is not just to be active, but to do the activities that are enjoyable so that we keep on doing them for the rest of our days.

      I’ve come to enjoy weight circuits because they’re relatively enjoyable to do (and I get to play my favorite music loudly). Those weight circuits have made me stronger and leaner, making those hill climbs on the bike easier, which in turn makes riding the bike even more fun than it already was. After not being on a bike for a month, I set four PR’s on four measured segments of the route, making for one exhilarating ride yesterday. It wasn’t like I set out to do a time trial, it just happened because I was more fit than the last time I rode.

      I know that each workout is going to help me as I grow older, but the payoff can’t be some far off tomorrow if I hope to be inspired enough to make it a lifetime habit. But thankfully, today’s reward is an immediate increase in energy, vitality, athletic performance and in the way we feel about ourselves as we see gains. It all builds on itself, allowing us to reap the rewards of an active life now while building a stronger foundation of fitness for our latter years. And that, friends, is a win-win.

    • The Dog and the Frog

      “A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” — Albert Einstein

      Every morning I let the puppy out to relieve herself. Inevitably, she ignores her full bladder and makes a beeline for the pool to see who is swimming there today. Most mornings this time of year there’s a frog bobbing around with the acorns believing it’s found paradise on earth. And so the standoff begins. The pup will circle for hours if I let her, chasing something that she’ll never catch. The only way to break the spell is to take the net and rescue the frog from the pool, relocating it over the fence. Tomorrow it will likely be right back in there again, awaiting the pup. This would go on each morning until the end of time if the season wasn’t drawing to a close.

      Are we any better than the dog following the frog? We also run around in circles relentlessly pursuing some concept of happiness or success, as if either are tangible. Reach for either and we find it’s bobbing somewhere other than the place we just dove for it. Each are nothing but ideas of what we think we ought to be.

      The aim of life is growth. A tadpole or a mighty oak measures it’s time alive in growth, and so should we. We ought to break the spell of chasing happiness or success, whatever the heck those mean to us and focus instead on purposeful gain. What might our net gain be today with a change in focus? Knowledge or strength? Enlightenment? A deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in this world?

      Forget about running in circles with nothing to show for it but a wet nose. Break the spell of the chase and focus on incremental growth instead. Whatever moves the needle forward in a meaningful way towards personal excellence and growth are the true wins for the day. Stack enough of these wins together and we may realize a state of happiness and success.

    • Always Mine Time

      “When I paint a picture, the time it takes will always be mine, or I get something out of it; time doesn’t end because it has passed. I feel sick when I think about the days that are passing—interminably. And I don’t have anything, or I can’t get at it. It’s torture; I can get so furious that I have to pace the floor and sing something idiotic so that I won’t start crying with rage, and then I almost go crazy when I stop again and realize that meanwhile time has been passing, and is passing while I’m thinking, and keeps on passing and passing. There is nothing so wretched as being an artist.” — Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

      When we stumble across that which captures our move through time, traps it in amber as Vonnegut put it, we realize the infinite—that which is timeless. Timelessness is itself an illusion, as is time, we simply capture our passage through it with something that will outlast us.

      Do you doubt this? Look at an old photograph from a moment in the past and feel what stirs within. Read an old letter, when people still wrote those, and see what is captured in amber. I write this blog post, as with all the rest of them, knowing that once I hit publish it becomes always mine time—this moment of thought and emotion and intellectual momentum (or perhaps inertia) are now captured. I move on to the next thing in my day, and the next; passing and passing. What of the rest is captured? Precious little, but these words remain.

      What artist hasn’t felt swept up in the moment of creation? What artist hasn’t felt the emptiness of uncreative moments? We must be productive in our time, or watch it drift away like so many empty days. The only answer to the coldness of time is to do work that matters, and to strive towards mastery in it. Personal excellence (arete) may be forever out of reach, but to reach for it is to make something more out of… time.

    • Stoke the Fire

      “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” — Anonymous (often attributed to Socrates)

      We often feel the least satisfaction with our busiest days. We learn that there is always something else pressing upon us—our best is never enough. And this is the time when we must step away from the grindstone before we ourselves are ground to dust.

      The older we get, the more the fallacy of busy becomes apparent. All those getting ahead stories were told to stoke the fire. Did we ever realize that we were the coal? That fire was someone else’s. Hustle and sacrifice are noble traits, but we must be very clear about what is being hustled and sacrificed, and who we’re doing it for. Hustle is time, applied with energy and vigor to some endeavor. Sacrifice is what we would be doing otherwise, given the clarity of choice.

      There is no time to sacrifice our very best years to the factory furnace. The answer is to slow down and see what stokes our own fire. Do the essential, move deliberately away from all the rest. While there is still time to realize the dream.

    • The Schooner Ardelle on a Celtic Sunset Cruise

      These summer clouds she sets for sail,
      The sun is her masthead light,
      She tows the moon like a pinnace frail
      Where her phosphor wake churns bright.
      Now hid, now looming clear,
      On the face of the dangerous blue
      The star fleets tack and wheel and veer,
      But on, but on does the old earth steer
      As if her port she knew.
      — William Vaughn Moody, Gloucester Moors

      We know when we are in the midst of something extraordinary. Anticipation creeps up on us as the minutes pass by, awaiting our participation. Awareness floods in as the magic unfolds. Joy and gratitude edge in, provoking other emotions. There comes a time when we must simply put away the camera, stop searching for just the right word or phrase, and simply be a part of all that is happening around us.

      Gloucester, Massachusetts has a long history with the sea. Its famous harbor has long welcomed home fisherman and sailors from passages as far and wide as the ocean’s reach. One feels the history sailing in this harbor, and you play some small part in the play for having been here at all. The fleets of old are mostly all gone now, ghosts of what once was. But there are a few holdouts, and newcomers built in the traditional way, to offer some hint of what it was like long ago.

      Harold Burnham has built several schooners in the traditional fashion. For a couple of centuries the Burnham’s have built ships in Essex, Massachusetts. Two of his schooners are harbored in nearby Gloucester, and Harold himself captains sunset cruises. You simply have to put yourself in the way of beauty and sign up to participate. And if you’re especially fortunate, you may join on a night of Celtic music to offer a proper soundtrack for a September night when the clouds are just so to harness a bit of heavenly magic.

      Maritime Heritage Charters offers many opportunities to learn and experience a few hours on a schooner sailing in Gloucester Harbor. One not to miss is the Celtic Music Sunset Sail with Michael O’Leary & Friends cruise, when traditional music and song fill the heart and soul as you slip past history and witness the divine dance of fading light. The experience is one that will stay with you forever.

      The Schooner Ardelle, Gloucester, Massachusetts

    • Framing the Day

      Come, read to me some poem,
      Some simple and heartfelt lay,
      That shall soothe this restless feeling,
      And banish the thoughts of day.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day is Done

      This blog may ultimately stand for something, or perhaps it will simply be a lifetime of favorite poetry, lyrics and prose quoted as prompts for the words that follow. We all write for our own reasons. To share it at all is the audacious act. The words, cherished while embraced, are simply allowed to float away into infinity, where we will one day join them.

      I’ve grown weary of debate. It doesn’t matter a lick when each side is dug in and unwilling to consider common ground. To reach across the aisle is considered weak. So we learn to ignore each other’s radical ideas. And we are collectively the lesser for closing the door on each other’s most passionate pleas. Instead we get bland exchanges about the weather. How lonely is a life devoid of meaningful engagement with the larger world?

      I may have it all backwards. I begin my day with hopefulness and close it with resignation that the work didn’t change much of anything. That’s no way to end the day. We must bookend our days with aspiration and hope. The trivial thoughts of the day will not be remembered—they will dissolve as all the rest have before them. It is only the way we frame our days that will have the structural resilience to hold together the story of a lifetime. Choosing the right material for that frame thus becomes a critical affair.

      And so I build my frame of poetry and song. I glue it together with philosophy. I make it rigid through engagement with the world, beginning in the garden and venturing outward as far as the travel budget allows. All of this living means something, I’ve come to understand, mostly to me. But that doesn’t make the frame any less solid. Or any less a part of someone else’s frame for having shared at all.

    • Where We Have to Be

      “Your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” — Jen Alvares

      Do hard things. It’s the only way to grow beyond the comfortable place we find ourselves in now. Sure, but why move on from comfortable places? For the same reason that we get out of a cozy bed in the morning—because as nice as comfort feels in the moment, it isn’t bringing us to where we have to be.

      And there it is: where we have to be. Something beyond where we presently are is calling, and we must go to it. Every hero’s journey, every odyssey, every bold leap, lies beyond this comfortable place we’ve grown to love.

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” — Henry David Thoreau

      Comfort has its own momentum. We get swept up in our routine, find ourselves doing the same things over and over again, habitual and familiar: “I’ll have the usual.” “Already have it poured, friend.”

      The thing is, doing hard things also develops its own momentum. Exchanging comfort for harder is a daily negotiation with identity. We are where we are, lovely as it is, but we wish to do and be more than this, and that, friend, is hard.

      Everything we truly want in life has a cost. Comfort has a cost, and so does hard. Decide what to be and go be it. There’s no momentum in stasis: we must get up and get going, now, if we are ever going to get to that loftier place.

    • Our Box of Stories

      I spent a few minutes scanning the Substack of a clever hipster with far more subscribers than I have on that platform and really all of my platforms combined. She stated that blogging is long dead, and Substack was getting there itself. And I smiled to myself, knowing just how uncool I’ve become for still calling it a blog. Why not simply call it writing? Or a daily newsletter? Or the complicated ramblings of a self-absorbed passenger on this ship of fools we call now? It’s all just the great conversation, in whatever way we dare to put it out there. The rest is positioning ourselves as close to relevance as we can get, if we choose to. Some of us forgo influence for deeper, calmer waters. It all matters, and none of it matters, all at once. We do the best we can where we are, with what we have.

      Our box of stories is that which surrounds us, holding us in place so we don’t stray too far into reckless places. My story is telling me to be responsible today and go to work after writing this [whatever we want to call it] and doing a few chores around the homestead so it’s still in one piece when I eventually return. There’s more to the story than that, but why bog down your story by going long with mine? Let’s keep it real, and really concise.

      The thing is, we know we ought to re-write our stories now and then, just to change the box we find ourselves trapped in. We’re all running out of time to experience all that lies outside our box. That’s the underlying story, no matter how we write it. We don’t have to ruin all our stories, but we ought to stretch the box beyond the limits those stories have given us. Today is as good a day to try something new as any. What are we currently writing? Make it fresh and a little bolder than the box can contain.

    • For Now

      When is the last time you will ever do something? Sometimes we know in the moment, like saying goodbye to someone on their deathbed, or closing the door on an apartment we spend some notable time living in as we move out and move on. The weight of that last goodbye may hit us particularly hard, or barely register in that busy moment but whisper to us for years afterward. Last goodbyes mark transition points in our lives—points from which we know we’re never going back again.

      Goodbye, for nows are a less permanent but still notable closure on some chapter of our lives. Yesterday I went for a swim in the bay, the air a little crisp, the water warmer but clearly cooling off, and a wave of goodbye for now emotion rolled over me as I toweled off in the cool breeze. I may well swim again this season, but odds are it was the last one until next summer. Or maybe forever. We never really know, do we? So we must savor each experience like we’re turning the last breathless page in a thrilling novel. We may never pass this way again.

      September brings obvious signs that the season is ending. The cucumbers are fading rapidly now, and so are the tomatoes. Savor, they remind me, for you’ll be doomed to the supermarket variety soon enough (good god—no!). Venus and Jupiter rise in the early morning sky and Orion is more prominent again. The crickets are having a final, desperate word, the nut-gathering rodents play chicken with cars and frantic frisbee dogs. It’s all happening, right before our eyes and waiting for us to notice.

      Life doesn’t wait for us, we must experience the season we’re in before it’s over forever. Tempus fugit, friend: Time flies. So, if only for now, trap yourself in the amber of this moment a beat longer. Each day offers a goodbye. Be sure to look it squarely in the eye just once, that we may remember something of it.

    • Solid and Perfected

      “I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to an extreme old age.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      Some people hit the ground running. They learn and adapt quickly, show promise and then exceed expectations with every step. They make those lists of rising stars and show exactly why they got there. I appreciate the relentless drive they show each day to reach for excellence.

      That wasn’t my path. Forget about being the smartest person in the room, I hadn’t earned a ticket to enter it in the first place. So began a quest to fill in gaps through formal and self-education. Forever a work in progress, we grow closer to our potential through consistent action.

      We are where we are, most of us arriving here through a series of events largely out of our control, the very occasional good choice made at the right time, and a healthy dose of dumb luck. We may not have been labeled a rising star or have the pedigree of the elite, but we’ve all hit the lottery anyway, didn’t we? Arriving here, largely intact despite some poor choices along the way. Lucky us.

      This moment in our life is always and forever our beginning. From here we rise to meet our future. To become more resilient, stronger and wiser is a choice. So is the choice to coast into (or remain in) something easier. Beginning again today, with the skills, knowledge and fitness level that yesterday’s choices earned us, we get to choose based on who we wish to become. Our growth depends on our being rooted in aspirations higher than our current position: To grow into someone solid and perfected.