Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • A February Visit to the Blue Lagoon

      The Blue Lagoon is one of those tourist hot spots that are absolutely worth being a tourist for. Going there straight from the airport offers another benefit; you get to soak away the aches and pains in a delightful setting. Visiting during a windblown snow/sleet mix, it proved a surreal and wonderful experience.

      The lagoon itself is fed from the water from a geothermal plant nearby, which produces electricity for the area and hot water for the lagoon. This makes it a highly profitable place indeed. With biting cold wind making us wonder what we were getting ourselves into, the reservation was pleasantly validated as we stepping into the water. This was a place you want to linger in, especially in winter.

      They tell us there are many health benefits to immersing yourself in the waters of the Blue Lagoon, largely derived from the briny water, some beneficial algae and an abundance of silica, which turned everything a milky white. After a few hours in the water, I certainly felt the difference on my skin, but also in my overall mood. This place has magical powers. Visit if you go, but be sure to make a reservation well before you go.

    • Each Page

      All of Time began when you first answered
      to the names your mother and father gave you.

      Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.
      Then, you can trade places with the wind.

      Then you’ll remember your life
      as a book of candles,
      each page read by the light of its own burning.
      — Li-Young Lee, Become Becoming

      Recently, I spoke about travel with people who aren’t traveling right now for the same reasons I once didn’t travel. Different chapter of life, as the saying aptly goes. Each page offers value and helps complete the story, but we don’t always see that when the story is incomplete.

      The thing is, the story is always incomplete to the very end. We live a novel life with the last page ripped out. There’s simply no knowing how this one turns out until we get there ourselves. Each page is ours to write, mostly ours anyway, edited by the troupe that presently surrounds us. Our task is to make it a hell of a story.

      Page-turners tend to be thrilling but lack substance. Weightier tomes sometimes feel plodding and a chore to get through but leave a mark long after we’ve tucked them up on the shelf. Somewhere in between is a life’s work that is meaningfully appealing and often reflected upon.

      Ultimately there will be other chapters. Aware of this, we might choose to weave magic and depth into this one. When we arrive later in our story, the pieces may finally all come together. It’s then that we’ll remember the true meaning of each page.

    • The Grand Accumulation

      “The value of things is not in the duration, but in the intensity in which they occur. This is why there are unforgettable moments, inexplicable things and incomparable people. ” — Fernando Pessoa

      Experiences matter a great deal in moving us. For this reason seeking diverse and rich experiences in our lives moves us a great deal farther along the path to becoming than limited experiences do, but it all counts. We are what we repeatedly do (and I repeatedly use Aristotle’s quote in this blog as a reminder to myself), so we ought to do things that move us in the direction we aspire to go.

      The question of value is appropriate to ask ourselves. Just why do we value certain things more than others? Is a dinner at a Michelin-level fancy restaurant a greater experience than eating an apple on the summit of a mountain you’ve struggled to reach? One can make a case for the apple without diminishing the value of the restaurant experience. Each resonates in their own way. Each may be savored. Each counts towards completing our picture.

      Experiences may pull us up or drag us down, so we must be diligently aware of the collection of experiences that, stacked together, make up our lives. With value as a lens, we may be selective in the experiences we seek, the things we collect and the people we associate with. If this sounds rather elitist, it’s just the opposite. We can be inclusive and open in our engagement with the world, while prioritizing the moments that resonate most deeply for us.

      When we think back on the days gone by, what moments shine particularly brightly? Usually it’s something surprisingly ordinary, amplified by something unique, like a chance encounter with an old friend, a beautiful vista earned with a hike or early rise, an unusual bird at the feeder, a line from a poem that floored us, a new song that we’ll forever associate with the moment we heard it. These are highlight moments amongst the ordinary prose of life.

      Still, we can make a case for ordinary too. The ordinary is the foundation from which the extraordinary rises. With each extraordinary moment, layered ever higher one upon the next, our foundation also rises. This grand accumulation of moments, things and the people we surround ourselves with may just lead to an unforgettable life. Perhaps even we ourselves will reach incomparable. Too bold? Add another layer. It won’t be such a reach.

    • Walking to a Better Place

      “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” — Søren Kierkegaard

      As I write this, it’s warmed up to -12 degrees Fahrenheit outside. On the summit of Mount Washington, a few hour’s drive away from me, the temperature is currently -45 with a wind chill of -107 degrees. Simply put, this is not a good day for a hike. But every day is a good day for a walk, conceding that some days we have got to be a little more creative to get the steps in.

      If my family or my neighbors were to observe my behavior on certain days when I feel trapped in the house, they’d think I was crazy (they likely do already). I’ll walk up and down the stairs ten times to get the blood moving between meetings, circumnavigating the interior of the house in a circle (always counterclockwise, for reasons I can’t explain) and now and then throw in some burpees or pushups to spice things up. This has not led to six-pack abs, but nonetheless it does a body good.

      Clearly, getting outside is the better way to move. Long walks on pavement are okay, but I prefer to walk on local trails not far from home, with trees and the occasional dog walker as company. Hiking is a favorite form of exercise, practiced in moderation for reasons of practical living as opposed to lack of desire for more. We simply can’t do everything, but doing a lot of things in moderation seems to work for me. We are as much what we say no to as the things we say yes to.

      Walking has remained the one constant form of exercise that has followed me wherever I’ve gone in this world. I’ve walked in places as diverse as the Old City in Jerusalem, the Mayan port city of Tulum, Red Square in Moscow, amongst the Redwoods in Muir Woods and followed in the footsteps of Thoreau at Walden Pond, but I’ve never taken more steps in any place than I have on the plot of land I currently reside on in New Hampshire. Place is variable, the stride varies, but the act of walking remains a constant companion.

      As the temperatures creep back up I’ll plot my escape from this self-imposed exile I call home and get back to outdoor walking. There are empty beaches to explore, ridge trails to traverse, and faraway places calling me. Walking is the most reliable way to get to a better place, simply by putting one foot in front of the other.

    • Eternal Sunrise

      Having been married awhile, my bride and I know each other’s tendencies. She rolls her eyes at me when she sees me watching YouTube videos of faraway places. I’ve got a regular playlist of places I’d like to go that I visit regularly, and virtually tag along with friends as they sail around the world. She anticipates my travel proposals well before I open my mouth. In turn, I roll my eyes when I hear her turn on home improvement shows, and feel like I live in one for all the projects her viewing inspires.

      There’s an undercurrent of restlessness that flows through many of us, wanted more in our time, whatever that “more” happens to be. In the best of times it’s positive and productive. Perhaps improvement on our lot in life or progress towards a personal goal. In the worst of times it might inspire jealousy and betrayal. Look around at the world, it’s easy to see examples of both.

      The question of how we’re perceived, or how we perceive ourselves, begs to be answered. The world is very good at showing us what’s possible with the right mix of resourcefulness and boldness. For all the cries for instant gratification in media, in reality most of us simply chip away at things until we get there. We can become some version of who we choose to be over time, but we must apply patient action.

      “The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” — Fernando Pessoa

      At what point is enough enough? When are we satiated and content with our share, pushing our proverbial plate away? This seems to be the moment where we embrace bliss. Change will always happen, we just learn to focus on what we can control and find happiness there. The rest is just an entertainment of ideas.

      For us, the nest is always being improved upon, even as we try to fly away from it. Sometimes we go, but we always return. Both the nest and the residents of it change over time. This is our eternal sunrise, as we are forever becoming something new, embracing change as it rises before us.

    • The Shape of Our Circles

      “We are mirrors reflecting one another. The people with whom we surround ourselves shape us, and we shape those around us, too.” — Brad Stulberg, The Practice of Groundedness

      I had a conversation with two strong players in my circle of influence who both disliked The Banshees of Inisherin, a movie I absolutely loved. The movie shows the desperation of breaking free of circles when you feel trapped in a place. The four main characters each deal with this in their own way, but ultimately the circle is broken. How you react to the character’s choices generally informs what you think of the movie, but it isn’t about their choices, it’s about the desperate friction of a limited circle.

      We don’t live in a movie, but they capture our imagination because they often mirror moments in our own lives. Our circle can be a trap that surrounds us or a blessing that informs us. It’s often both, and when we break out of it we can reshape ourselves. People come and go from our lives, and the circle around us fluctuates with the stages of our lives. We ourselves have the agency to choose our dance partners in this lifetime. We’ve each felt the sting that each character in the movie feels.

      We’re collectors of people, each of us, gathering relationships and nurturing them over time. We aren’t meant to go it alone for the long haul. Solitude is a blessing best savored in doses. And we are the average of the five people who we associated with the most. This in itself is a blessing or a curse, offering guidance with whom we ought to spend our days with. Our closest relationships help inform us of who we really are, and also reveal where we’re going.

      Sometimes we find that the circle doesn’t suit as anymore, and sometimes we find that the people in our circle feel more alive in a different one. Over time we reconcile our place in a series of circles. We’re either running around in circles, circling the wagons or spinning off to another place. That’s life, dizzying as it might seem. But we must always remember we have a hand in shaping our circle even as it shapes us.

    • What to Do With Our Time

      you will never catch up.
      Walk around feeling like a leaf
      know you could tumble at any second.
      Then decide what to do with your time.
      ― Naomi Shihab Nye, The Art of Disappearing

      I’ve fallen in love with the bullet journal again. It’s not so much because of a love of organization, it’s more a need for organization that draws me deep into the pages of a blank notebook. Each X drawn through a bullet is uniquely satisfying, each habit represented as a filled in square that designates a day when I did what I told myself I was going to do fuels a desire to keep the streak alive one more day. As lines grow on paper day-after-day like a sideways bar graph, lies we tell ourselves become as apparent as the promises kept. How we reconcile each line tells us who we really are.

      If there’s one fatal flaw in the life of a busy soul, it’s following through on all that we want for ourselves. There’s only so many things we can say yes to, and endless things we must dismiss with a no. The yes’s seem so trivial stacked next to the no’s, but we forget that the collection of no’s is ours too. No’s matter a great deal in keeping us from tumbling. We aren’t leaves in the wind, to borrow Nye’s lovely analogy, we’re purposeful humans finding our way in the world.

      We must decide what we won’t be good at in this lifetime. We must see the path through the wilderness that carries us to a place where we might thrive. Breaking up is hard to do because we don’t want to let others down, but when we don’t break from things that don’t matter to us we’re letting ourselves down. Just who are we breaking up with? We must choose identity over misguided altruism. The world will ask for everything we’ve got. The best response in such moments is “Thank you, but that’s not for me”.

      Decide what to be and go be it. No isn’t fun, but it’s not ours to hold onto. The trade-off, becoming, is where the real fun is, for this is where we set our sights on big yes’s and watch them grow.

    • Selective Watering

      “Research increasingly shows that what is important doesn’t necessarily get our attention, but what gets our attention becomes important. This mirrors a concept in ancient Buddhist psychology that is often referred to as selective watering. In short, the mind contains a diverse variety of seeds: joy, integrity, anger, jealousy, greed, love, delusion, creativity, and so on. Buddhist psychology taught that we should think of ourselves as gardeners and our presence and attention as nourishment for the seeds. The seeds that we water are the seeds that grow. The seeds that grow shape the kind of person we become. In other words, the quality of our presence—its intensity and where we choose to channel it—determines the quality of our lives.” — Brad Stulberg, The Practice of Groundedness

      We know intuitively to focus on what is important in our lives, but focus can be challenging in this hyper-distracting world. The thing is, most of that hyper-distraction is self-created. We layer on all manner of apps and channels on top of the minutes that matter, and each promises something more fascinating, perhaps, than the sometimes tedious business of becoming we’re currently engaged in. We simmer in the stew of our own distractions while time relentlessly boils away.

      The concept of selective watering is a lovely way to consider what gets to grow in our lives and what we ought to let wither away. Writing this blog every day is selective watering, and so is my long-standing choice to eliminate broadcast news from my information diet. For each of us, our days begin with a series of habits selectively watered over time. We reinforce our identity as we follow through on these habits or eliminate others. Likewise, the beliefs we have about others are based as much on the way we look at the world, our biases, as they are from the acts of another. The seeds that we water are the seeds that grow.

      Knowing this, we can quickly see the breadcrumbs that brought us to this place in our lives. We are what we’ve repeatedly done, to hijack Aristotle, and so here we are; all that and a bag of chips. Assessing our current state, we may love who we’ve become or find that shell rather hollow inside. Either is an incomplete assessment, for we remain a work in progress to the end of our days. And this is our call to action! Active living is deciding what happens next. We ought to be very selective in our watering.

    • Table for One

      “I can be by myself because I’m never lonely, I’m simply alone, living in my heavily populated solitude, a harum-scarum of infinity and eternity, and Infinity and Eternity seem to take a liking to the likes of me.” — Bohumil Hrabal

      There is a moment in solo business travel where you’re inevitably going to feel the aloneness. It might be choosing that table for one instead of the bar, it might be walking into a large hotel suite ridiculously big enough to emphasize the sole nature of your occupancy, or it might just be not talking to a human being for hours on end. But this is the nature of travel: it amplifies the distance between us and those we choose to be with. The leap for the seasoned traveler is when you recognize alone isn’t lonely at all. It’s just an opportunity to be present with your own thoughts.

      We all seek connection with the larger world, and the opportunity to see associates around the world face-to-face is a uniquely special gift for those of us lucky enough to travel for work. All of these moments add up to a life beyond all that was previously familiar, and they in turn become familiar. This routine adds structure and normalcy to being on the road, wherever it might take us next.

      Alone is a courageous choice of self-selection. Meaningless banter at the bar may do now and then, but deep dialog with ourselves carries us to places we wouldn’t arrive at in the noise of the hive. We must seek solitude to think, and travel offers solitude in spades. Sitting at my table for one last night, I made the most of the opportunity to read a book I’ve been struggling to find time for, to ponder decisions I’ve been deferring for another time, and to savor the moment.

      Our time alone is limited. Eventually we dive back into the mix of friends and family and associates that make our world go ’round. This is as it should be, for it represents a healthy diet of solo and ensemble time. Each should be savored for the growth opportunities they offer and for the celebration of returning to the other soon. Each state is temporary, and each is essential.

    • Positive Engagement

      “The most courageous decision that you can make each day is to be in a good mood.” — Voltaire

      Each of us has our default setting on how we view the world. Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty. Some just see a glass with water in it and don’t dwell on how level it actually is.

      Ultimately, the ride is short and it’s unfair far more often than it should be. That’s realistic, and the starting point for how we view everything else after that understanding. Good and bad things happen to each of us, but the way an optimist looks at the world is vastly different from the way a pessimist looks at it. Which is realistic? Neither, really, at least on the surface. One can be grounded in realism and focus on the worst the world has to offer, or alternatively, focus on hope and silver linings and a way forward from the darkness.

      To live a positive life in a world we know is unfair and unforgiving is not delusional, it’s deliberate. Living optimistically offers benefits. We optimists tend to live a bit longer, and savor the time a bit more, than our pessimistic counterparts. Given the choice, positive engagement with the world sure seems more fun than negatively recoiling from it.