Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • All the Miracles

      “To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings—it’s all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.” — Artur Rubinstein

      We get tired sometimes, and forget about miracles like being born at all, in this time, relatively healthy and of sound mind. We’re blessed, but still find things to complain about, to compare ourselves against, to make us feel less of a miracle than we are. Isn’t that a shame? We ought to dabble in magic and dance in the miracle of where we are, and instead we dwell on the incremental differences between us.

      I went out in the rain for a walk with the puppy. She’s not so much a puppy now, but still curious and a little fearful of the unknown things around her. But she loves the rain tickling her skin and the feeling of cold, wet grass on her belly. We can learn a few things seeing the world through the eyes of the youngest among us. Puppies and toddlers experience the miracle differently than adults do. We know it’s not practical to dwell on every little thing—we’d never get anything done! But what are we really doing anyway?

      Now and then I get tired of things as they are. Routines are made to keep us in line, but are inherently routine. That we take all the miracles around us and dull them down to average is very adult of us. But is it any way to live?

    • Talkin’ to Myself

      Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
      Sometimes I’d like to quit
      Nothin’ ever seems to fit
      Hangin’ around
      Nothin’ to do but frown
      Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
      — The Carpenters/Adam Williams, Rainy Days and Mondays

      Rainy days and Mondays never really drag me down. Sure, we’ve had way more rain than we should this season, while others aren’t getting nearly enough of it. I can fret about climate change but I don’t usually care that it’s raining or sunny on any given day. Likewise, I don’t worry all that much whether it’s a Monday or a Saturday, as each is a gift. The key is whether you feel in control of your days or whether you feel someone else is controlling them. We can’t control the passing of time or the weather, only our reaction to it. The jury is still out on whether we collectively have the fortitude to do anything about climate change.

      I saw a friend the other day who parroted the dangers of “mass murderers swarming crossing the border and descending upon innocents across the country”. I didn’t have the energy to get in a debate with him, having learned during the last two elections in the United States that people are going to believe what they believe and you just can’t force an alternate story line upon a zealot. It made me sad to see another one gone though, reminding me of that closing moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when you realize someone you once believed in had switched over to the dark side. Sometimes you just want to scream. But like the weather, this is a reaction we can choose or opt out of. Instead I focused on what we had in common.

      The quality of our lives is always going to be about who is controlling our time and our belief system. When we accept that some things are out of our control, we learn to work with what we can. Amor fati. Our beliefs, on the other hand, can be developed independently of what those around us may believe. We may yet become who we want to be in this life, and we ought to have faith in others to find a way forward too.

      Lately my posts have been all over the place in both content and when they’re published. It’s a sign of a complicated life, perhaps, or maybe it’s just the time bucket I happen to reside in at the moment. Either way, it’s documented and best viewed through the lens of time. What I’m sure of is that I’ve often wanted to quit, but just keep writing anyway. That’s how life works too. Just keep showing up and doing the work and things usually work out in the end. Nothing to be down about at all, really. Just one soul in a wild world, talking to himself.

    • Meeting the Changes

      “A talent for following the ways of yesterday is not sufficient to improve the world of today. — King Wuling of Zhao

      When you habitually surf waves of change as part of your identity, few things really surprise you in the world. But now and then the world throws even the most antifragile person for a loop. Even Superman had kryptonite to knock him down to human now and then.

      The thing is we all need to be willing to change, and meet it head-on, in order to fully optimize our lives. But we all get comfortable with being comfortable too. These two opposite states lend themselves to discomfort in the best of situations and emotional distress when we spiral into deep internal conflict over the changes.

      Part of being a functional adult is developing adaptability and a willingness to pivot when necessary. Think about all the changes we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Think about how much change we’re going to be faced with for the balance of our lives. Change happens. Our role is to change with change.

      When I was a teenager I learned the trade of drafting. To be a draftsman combined a love of architecture and mechanical detail with a love of art and creating something from scratch. The thing is, the trade was dying quickly even as I learned it, moving to CAD and beyond. To have learned such a trade seemed frivolous in hindsight, but I learned much more than how to draw lines on a piece of paper. I find myself still using some of the skills I developed then, like reading a set of blueprints to understand the scope of work needed for a project. Talking with architects and engineers, I find I know their nomenclature and what they need to complete a project. But on the whole, that drafting skillset is dead and gone.

      I could mourn the passing of a career path I once coveted, or embrace change and leap from one to the next until I arrive at a place I can add the most value in. Sure enough, that eventually happened, and I continue to build on new skills until one day they too become less relevant and I’m faced with the need to pivot once again. This is the way of the world. The ways of yesterday are not sufficient for us to become what we will be tomorrow. We can never rest on our strengths, but we can use them as a foundation for who we may become next.

    • Beyond Meaning

      “Life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness

      How we process things in our lives determines how happy we are with the sum of it. Writing is an essential way to process it for me. Deep reading does wonders for me too. But I don’t use activity for processing. Perhaps you’ve found the secret to multitasking activity and combined it with processing, if so kudos, but for me it’s never really worked. There’s something to be said for long walks in the woods or an empty beach, but such activities help empty my restless mind, these things rarely help me process anything important.

      And so I write, and read, and singularly process what I can. And share it in this blog and other communication threads for those inclined to follow the breadcrumbs. So maybe my someday great-grandchildren can sort out who this character was in his day. And maybe you, dear reader, somewhere in this world and in your time, may find something insightful too. Or maybe it gets trapped forever in the anonymous amber of the Internet. The things we ponder in this world…

      The thing is, if life has no meaning, we waste time trying to find it. We ought to just live, and fill that lifetime with purpose and wonder and love. That’s something beyond “the meaning of life”, yet it’s meaningful to the living. That’s you and me and some imagined reader of ancient blogs “someday, when”. We are here, writing our verse, as best we can. So make it compelling. Make it fun. Make it a story worth reading about. The rest will take care of itself.

    • Nothing Gold Can Stay

      Nature’s first green is gold,
      Her hardest hue to hold.
      Her early leaf’s a flower;
      But only so an hour.
      Then leaf subsides to leaf.
      So Eden sank to grief,
      So dawn goes down to day.
      Nothing gold can stay.
      — Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

      Halfway through another month as I publish this, and I shake my head at the magic I’ve missed doing other things. But there are always other things. We do what we can with the time we’re given.

      Memento mori is a statement of freedom. When we understand that we have an expiration date, we go out and live our lives uniquely focused. Carpe diem. There should be nothing more to it than this.

      And yet there are things out of our control that must be addressed as they hit us squarely. Life is an ongoing reality check. The world is not perfect, there are storms brewing, and no matter how well we plan the party sometimes it just rains. Amor fati: Love of fate. As The Police reminded us in a song, “when the world is runnin’ down, you make the best of what’s still around”.

      But this is the deal we made entering this world: We are young and vibrant for just so long. We grow and become what we can in our season and then we hand the reigns in the next season. Nothing gold can stay.

      There is freedom in knowing the truth. It’s a calling that we answer every day. To live with urgency and purpose, gratitude and joyfulness. This is our poem. This is our song. This is our life.

    • Being Alive

      “People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

      We are most alive when we are actively engaged with the world. This can mean summiting a mountaintop, or stepping into the unknown in a room full of people you don’t know, or reading the words of someone who passed from this world centuries ago. The point is to put ourselves out there to experience what we would completely miss were we to stay in our shell. So step out of the comfort zone and be alive.

    • The Layer Cake of Happiness and Purpose

      “[There is an] age-old debate over two kinds of happiness that scholars refer to as hedonia and eudaimonia. Hedonia is about feeling good; eudaimonia is about living a purpose-filled life. In truth, we need both. Hedonia without eudaimonia devolves into empty pleasure; eudaimonia without hedonia can become dry…. I think we should seek work that is a balance of enjoyable and meaningful. At the nexus of enjoyable and meaningful is interesting.” — Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      There’s a special kind of joy that comes from marrying purpose with happiness. When we find our engagement with the world has both a why and joyfulness we enter blissful work. If this seems evasive, it’s because it is. Some people never find one or the other, let alone both in their lives. I believe it’s usually tapping us on the shoulder asking us to stop staring straight ahead and take a look at what we’ve been missing all along.

      The secret, always, is the people we surround ourselves with. When we’re constantly lifting up those around us, we can’t help but be dragged down ourselves. When others share the lift, the weight of the world seems lighter. When others lift us up in turn, we reach heights we might not have thought possible previously. We are the average of the people we surround ourselves with, so we ought to raise the average both in whom we spend our time with and the character we bring to the table.

      When we stop trying so damned hard to be happy or to find purpose and simply contribute our verse, we find over time that things like happiness simply happen organically. Building a lifetime of contribution and engagement with the world we find our foundation becomes stronger and we’re able to weather the inevitable storms that wash over us that erode weaker foundations. Life becomes a layer cake of happiness and purpose, repeated. When done in the company of exceptional people, what a wonderful life we might build together.

    • Open to the Unpredictable

      “The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you’ll quickly discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations. More often than not, you’ll discover that “adventure” is a decision after the fact—a way of deciphering an event or an experience that you can’t quite explain.” — Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

      Inevitably I awaken well before my alarm goes off, and I believe it to be because I rarely set an alarm anymore. It’s saved for early flights and precious little else. As such, my mind is wrapped around the process of travel instead of deep, restful sleep. Did I pack everything? How does traffic look today? What’s the weather at my destination and have I properly prepared for it? Such is the restlessness of a traveler’s mind.

      This idea of being properly prepared is a form of control. We don’t control all that much when we travel, other than our own actions. A series of random events can turn an itinerary upside down in the blink of an eye. And so we create contingencies and build extra time in to ensure we don’t miss the trains, planes and automobiles that bring us from here to there and back again.

      As we open ourselves up to encounters with the unexpected, we face the very things we can’t always be prepared for. Adapting to the challenges we face builds resilience and a higher level of worldliness than we had before. As we become more worldly we condition ourselves for the unexpected.

      Louis Pasteur said that “fortune favors the prepared mind”. When we feel ready for the unexpected we become more open to receiving it when it arrives. Openness is a developed skill as much as it is a mindset. So as I rose to meet the day, I took comfort in the preparation that would carry me through the host of unexpected that will surely greet me.

    • Wants and Needs

      “Your satisfaction is what you have, divided by what you want.”
      ― Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      “Satisfaction comes not from chasing bigger and bigger things, but paying attention to smaller and smaller things.”
      ― Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      “Don’t forget it: he has most who needs least. Don’t create needs for yourself.” — Josemaría Escrivá

      This business of creating needs is familiar. Just now I’m distracted by the perceived need to buy a book I’ve heard about, knowing I have a stack of unread books on the shelf. We want what we want in this lifetime, and either push the thought away to focus on what we have or we let it gnaw at us like a teething puppy gnaws at furniture. Which reminds me, I wanted a puppy recently, and reconcile myself to the lifestyle changes she’s imposed upon me ever since (she filled a tangible void in an empty nest, but she also fills poop bags with surprising efficiency).

      The thing is, to find peace in this marketing-induced manic world, we must find satisfaction in the little things in our lifetime. Life is more satisfying when you stop craving every shiny new thing that splashes across your preferred media feed. We can never keep up with the Joneses, and why would we want to anyway?

      During the pandemic I began watching YouTube sailing videos, and soon began craving the lifestyle myself. Wouldn’t it be nice to own a boat and just slide into some beautiful cove for sunset before allowing the gentle rocking of the waves lull you to blissful sleep? Wouldn’t it be nice to pull up anchor and sail anywhere in the free world? It sure seems like a dream. But I soon realized that it’s not my dream, not at this point in my life. Put another way, a boat is a really nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Give me a quiet garden and some body of water to plunge into now and then and I’m generally happy.

      Yet the wanderlust remains. The call of places unseen stirs something deep inside. Is this want a need? The question we always must ask is, what will I say no to in order to say yes to this? Another question to ask is whether this is the time for this yes in my life or is it best deferred to another time bucket in this life? Combined these questions resolve a lot of impulsive decisions and bring peace to a restless soul.

      That puppy who was gnawing on furniture not too long ago has become a sweet, energetic companion. My bride and I know the tradeoffs of having such responsibilities in our life once again, but we also know that it’s what we needed, not just what we wanted in some moment of impulsiveness. Let others chase those shiny new toys, those biggers and betters, we’re doing just fine with what we have.

    • Faster Things

      Last Sunday morning, the sunshine felt like rain
      The week before, they all seemed the same
      With the help of God and true friends, I’ve come to realize
      I still have two strong legs, and even wings to fly
      So I, ain’t a-wastin time no more
      ‘Cause time goes by like hurricanes, and faster things
      — Gregg L. Allman, Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More

      The years fly by, and we begin to notice this at our own pace. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to shake us out of the fog of distraction, as it did for Gregg Allman when his brother Duane died in a motorcycle accident, prompting lyrics like those above. When someone is taken from us in the prime of life it shakes the survivors around that person to the core. At some point, if we’re lucky, we awaken to the reality of memento mori without being turned upside down by tragedy, and simply begin at last to live in earnest.

      The whole point of remembering that we all must die is to live now, while there’s still time. It’s easier said than done, as life piles on the busy. Life will never be perfectly aligned to do everything we possibly could do in our lifetime, but if we focus on essential things we might feel we’ve done enough. A lifetime is always a faster thing than we care to believe, so a bit of structure and purpose go a long way towards feeling we did what we could in the time we have.

      The trick is to structure is to put everything in it’s season. Bill Perkins called this time buckets in his book Die With Zero. Using time buckets, we may prioritize what is most essential now, and what can (and cannot) be deferred to later. For example, I may never hike the Appalachian Trail as I thought I might at 20, but I can still chip away at other things that require the fitness and time I have available now for other worthy life goals. But how do you determine what is essential when if you don’t make the time to make the list and assign it to its proper time? We are what we prioritize. Use this time bucket to map out all the rest.

      Since I began writing this post we’ve seen a few famous people pass away, and we’ve all collectively gained another week of experience in our lifetime. Those sands keep pouring out of the hourglass, whether we’re ready for it or not. Our best chance at a full lifetime is to wrestle with our days one at a time, but with the structure of an overriding purpose and plan for how to use each season. Because time goes by like hurricanes, and faster things.