Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • By the Handful

      ‘You only go around once in life, and I’m going to grab a handful of it.’ — Steve McQueen

      The world is not back to “normal” post-pandemic, for there’s an increased state of madness and fragility buzzing around us all, but it’s clear that people are living larger lives. Who’s to blame them? Shouldn’t we be grabbing our handful of bold and earnest living in the face of it all? This is our time. Carpe diem.

      Las Vegas offers hope and distraction and a chance to step out of ourselves, just a little bit, and try new things. Sometimes those things are big and bold. Sometimes it’s a $10 dollar mechanical bull ride. Watching a line of buzzed glory riders ride the mechanical bull at Gilly’s late into the evening, I was struck by the parallel to McQueen’s statement. Each character climbed aboard, tucked one hand firmly onto the grip, the other high in the air and went for their crazy ride. Each held on for their time and no more. The bull always wins in the end. Still, the riders declared that we can each make something glorious before we’re thrown.

    • The Chill Lane

      “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes angry.” — Euripides

      Commuting was never my thing, but sometimes you’ve just gotta do what you’ve gotta do. When I was not very much younger, I used to grow angry at the neat rows of brake lights in front of me. Likewise, a red light when there was nobody else at the intersection would drive me crazy. My bride rolls her eyes when I detour a different way to avoid some particular egregious traffic lights. I still have a deeply engrained habit of active avoidance of traffic lights, and have stated I’ll move out of the town I live in the moment they install them. I may just be posturing, but still, there’s a grain of truth in every jest.

      Really, it’s a control thing. Traffic and traffic lights are mostly out of my control, which hints at the deeper truth that most of life is out of our control. So what’s the solution? Amor fati — Love of fate. Simply put, focus on the things that you can control, accept the rest, and stay in the chill lane.

      Anger is weakness, displayed. It will be our undoing if we let it be. So don’t let it be. As we learn and grow we come to see the world differently, and see the folly of the angry life. To reach our potential in this life we must remain clear on our purpose and avoid the petty distractions some bad commute or bad civil engineering might stir up. It’s all relative, of course, and none of this matters when we look at the bigger picture. Amor fati, friend.

    • Where Love and Need Are One

      My object in living is to unite
      My avocation and my vocation
      As my two eyes make one in sight.
      Only where love and need are one,
      And the work is play for mortal stakes,
      Is the deed ever really done
      For heaven and the future’s sakes.
      — Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time

      When people ask whether I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I sometimes pause a beat to ponder the question. Business travel is a trade-off of obligation and discovery. We can be productive and explore the ripe potential of place. This blog was born of an inclination to wander about during business travel, and I’ve been the better for having closed the gap between work and my curiosity about the world around me.

      And what of the work itself? I hear the laugh of a friend who thinks of work as nothing but a means to an end. It’s called work for a reason, she would tell me. What’s love got to do with it? But looking back on every job I’ve ever had, even the most tedious and miserable of jobs, I still found delight in discovery. Like Robert Frost finding joy in splitting wood, the joy lies in learning new tricks in our trade. We each have our verse to write in this world. There ought to be joy in finding ourselves in it.

    • Later is Too Late

      “Später ist zu spät.“ (Later is too late) — Peter Altenberg

      If there’s one theme we ought to have learned from living in the aftermath of the unexpected, it’s to make the most of the moment we’re currently in. We may never pass this way again, as the song goes. Memento mori. Carpe diem.

      If there’s a theme I’ve worked to embrace this spring, it’s living with urgency. We must do what we can in the time we have. This means prioritizing the important and deferring the trivial to later. There’s simply no other way to get to the most important things.

      This week I surprised myself at what I was able to do with a relatively short burst of creative energy. What might I do with consistent and sustained output? There’s never been a better time to find out than now. For later is indeed too late.

    • Insist on Color

      “I don’t trust the answers or the people who give me the answers. I believe in dirt and bone and flowers and fresh pasta and salsa cruda and red wine. I don’t believe in white wine; I insist on color.” ― Charles Bowden (Via Outlawspoetic)

      There are surely shades of gray that warrant discussion, for there’s a place for nuance in this complicated world. But give me color. Give me personality and vibrancy. Give me that jolt that knocks me off my complacency when I encounter something out of the ordinary.

      There’s a reason humans seek out sunsets and the aurora borealis, knock down doors to see Van Gogh or sing about pink houses. We humans crave brightness and a rich color palate. Life is full of enough muted living; give us bold.

      This blog was started as a lens on a particular corner of the world I happen to love. It’s grown as my attention shifted, as I’ve changed. What comes next is anyone’s guess, but expect colorful wherever we go.

      Early Morning Orange

    • Art With a Spritz of Lime

      “Art is art and life is life, but to live life artistically; that is the art of life.”— Peter Altenberg

      A close friend has a flare for living well. He’ll spritz lime on a potato dish and make something extraordinary of what was moments before thought to be disparate produce. He’s always looking for the exceptional in an otherwise average day. And he drives many people mad as a result. Like that burst of citrus in a starchy dish, I find his perspective punctuates life perfectly.

      This business of living artistically is something to aspire to. Capturing moments with a bit of magic and moving through the ordinary with je ne sais quoi, these are the things that matter very much in a world that wants you to fall in line and fit right in. Certainly, we must do our job and do it well, but why always settle for vanilla?

      We each live on both sides of ordinary. It’s a gift to be human at a time and place when you can express yourself freely. We ought to use that gift and add more flavor to our days. Like every gift, we must choose to use it. Art is a deliberate act, expressed uniquely. What might we bring to the table if we have the gumption to try something new?

      We all know the expression: when the world throws you lemons, make lemonade. There’s another clever expression I once found on a kitchen magnet that adds a twist: when the world throws you limes, make margaritas. To this I’ll add, don’t forget to save some lime for the potatoes.

    • More of This

      As I publish this, it’s the 18th of March, or the 77th day of the year. Lucky sevens, if you will, falling just after St. Patrick’s Day. The luck of the Irish following us? Let’s hope for that, but get back to living with purpose just the same. For we make our own luck, don’t we?

      We can usually predict the future by looking at what we consistently do. With that in mind, I’ll likely be writing every day, barely keeping the Duolingo streak alive and will have read my share of books (though never quite enough). It’s easy to see those filling in from now until the end, whatever that looks like. But what of the gaps? The inconsistencies also predict who we become, don’t they?

      It’s clear I need to get a dog soon if I want to maintain a walking streak, as walking the neighborhood at night without a dog just makes me feel like the weird neighbor. I probably don’t need to enhance that reputation. Alternatively, I could move to a place where walking is just the most obvious thing to do with your time. Kudos to friend and fellow blogger Joe, who managed to find a job and home in close enough proximity to each other that he can walk or snowshoe between the two. Joe doesn’t seem to complain about finding time to walk, he just walks. He proves every day that we can create the situation that works best for us when we focus on it.

      Life can surely be unpredictable, but we can safely predict that our life will mostly be more of this if we keep doing the same thing every day. The question to ask is, is more of this okay, or is it carrying us to a place we’d rather not go? Almost a quarter of the way into the year, we can see the trend we’re setting for ourselves, can’t we?

      “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
      ― James Clear, Atomic Habits

      When the year is over, it would be great to have written all I’d like to write, to have read all that I’ve got on my reading list, and to finally hold my own in a rapid-fire conversation in French. But it would also be great to be in better shape than I began the year, to have positioned myself for a successful year in my career, and to spend meaningful time with exceptional people. These are things we can look back on the blank spaces with regret, or we can celebrate as small wins strung together just so. More of this can be a positive statement, if we create the right situation for ourselves.

      So what’s the trajectory? Is more of this a good thing or bad? With this answered, we’ll know what to do next.

    • Become the Maker

      “Applauding yourself for the small successes, and taking the small bow, are good ways of learning to experience life each moment that you live it. And that’s part of inventing yourself, of creating your own destiny. To become a leader, then, you must become yourself, become the maker of your own life.” — Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

      There was a moment while driving when it came to me. I must do more. I must rise to meet the moment and determine what happens for the balance of my days. I’ve been too lenient with myself in my writing, in my work, and in my lifestyle. I must become the maker of what’s next.

      Now these words weren’t exactly what I said to myself, but they were suggested to me by old friend Warren Bennis, in another one of those books that sits ready for me on the shelf for moments like this one. We each draw inspiration from something, don’t we? I generally find mine in ghost whispers. Those who have come before us have seen this all before. We ought to listen to them more. We all know that when the student is ready the teacher shall appear. The teachers who endure leave their advice in writing.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in the business of becoming what’s next for some time. But the root of my impatience with myself was the belief that I’m settling into a steady state instead of pushing harder—living more, and doing more. And so it is that I’ll take a small bow at the incremental progress I’ve managed to make towards the goal, while reminding myself that there’s so much more left to do. And this is the root of all major progress in this world, isn’t it? Isn’t our life a progression?

      Bennis suggests celebrating the small wins, embracing the joy in each moment, but to then press on. Action is what carries us forward to what we aspire for ourselves. To become this version of ourselves, we must become the maker.

    • Building Familiarity

      Everything that was broken has
      forgotten its brokenness. I live
      now in a sky-house, through every
      window the sun. Also your presence.
      Our touching, our stories. Earthy
      and holy both. How can this be, but
      it is. Every day has something in
      it whose name is Forever.
      — Mary Oliver, Felicity

      Recently I received a new laptop computer from the company I work with to replace a Surface Pro that was beginning to show signs of duress (blue screens and such). The nice thing about technology is it’s easily transferrable from device-to-device. Apple seems to have mastered this with iPhone and Mac. The PC world isn’t quite as elegant but the process of transferring your life from one device to another is largely seamless… and yet disruptive at the same time. Fingers tap at places once familiar and now foreign. Something as simple as the angle of your wrists makes all the difference in the world. And don’t get me started on screen sizes.

      We build familiarity in our lives through the action in our days. The chairs we default to when we sit for dinner, where we store the plates or the raucous collection of Tupperware. Which side of the refrigerator holds the ketchup. And of course, how we coexist with life partners, children and pets in this space are what make it a home. When things change, we feel it viscerally. Something is amiss.

      If we’re blessed with a good foundation and sound choices, we might build something that lasts for a very long time. But everything changes when you sprinkle enough days together. Most notably, we change. Our preferences and appetite, our bodies, and those of the characters around us too. We are at once shaped by our environment even as we shape it. Every day has something in it whose name is Forever.

      Every interaction with the world is an opportunity to linger, if only for a little while. Or maybe a lifetime. We have a say in what becomes essential to us. We can’t always control its durability. Familiarity is another form of seeing things through to its natural end. Or maybe ours. This, of course, is our forever.

    • The Mind of the Restless Spirit

      “Do not be deceived! The busiest people harbor the greatest weariness, their restlessness is weakness—they no longer have the capacity for waiting and idleness.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

      I think about being idle, but rarely find myself able to contain my restlessness. If busy is a weakness then I confess to being weak. For me, being active in my days is the only way to survive. Like a shark, I suppose, I need forward motion.

      Naturally, I don’t believe that forward motion is weakness; merely the bold act of being alive. Sitting still and thinking may feel like idleness, but to me it feels like a lost opportunity. Doesn’t that time belong to reading or writing, or maybe weeding the garden? Idleness feels like active avoidance to me. There’s so very much to do in this brief lifetime! So yes, call me weak.

      Writing this blog fills idle time. Time I might use for other things like sitting still and meditating. Maybe quietly sipping a cup of tea and contemplating existentialism. To be fair to Nietzsche, busy isn’t the intent, for busy for the sake of busy truly is folly. Productive is really the point. Give me an hour and I’ll do my best to dance with it. Productive makes the world go ’round, I believe.

      Someday we all find idle. But what will we do with now? Such is the mind of the restless spirit.