Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Fear (The Little Death)

      “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

      Fear seems to be popping up a lot in my world lately. Not because I’m afraid so much as the idea of it comes up all the time. We know that once we notice something we see it everywhere. Well, fear was noticed, and here we are.

      What are we afraid of anyway? Death? Memento mori. Whether we’re afraid or not, we will all die anyway. Failure? Life is one failure after another. But it’s also one success after another. Need an example? We all woke up today. Call it a win.

      The thing is, most fear that holds us back from doing something is a dream dying on the vine. String enough dead dreams together and we’ve wasted our lives. Ignore enough fears and maybe we reach summits we’d hardly dare to dream of they seemed so audacious.

      We’re wounded by fear
      Injured in doubt
      I can lose myself
      You I can’t live without
      — U2, Red Hill Mining Town

      What is so important to us that we feel the fear and do it anyway? What is worthy of our courage now? What are we waiting for? We know deep down that tomorrow is too late. Socrates told us that we must seize what flees. Tempus fugit: Time flies. And the opportunities of a lifetime fly with it.

    • Expanding Circles

      “Travel is a fantastic self-development tool, because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves. This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it’s not necessarily the best way to live.”
      ― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

      How comfortable are we, wrapped up in the stories we tell ourselves? Life either reinforces all that we hold to be true or it refutes it. We know that to get more physically fit we must break down our muscles through stress for them to grow. It’s the same with the mind. Diverse experience breaks down the stories we tell ourselves, that we may grow and learn to be something more than we were before. This all seems obvious, but it’s somehow controversial in certain circles.

      I’ve had a few conversations with people who don’t want to travel to places that they believe live by different stories than the ones they tell themselves. Herein lies the problem. We must first seek to understand, that we may be understood. We know already why we’re different. It’s our curated belief system—where we were born, the programming that sucked us in and has a hold on us, and that circle that we’re inclined to stay inside of for fear of what’s on the other side. Our life depends on escaping those circles that would imprison us in belief.

      The thing is, circles are useful too. They help define who we are and what we stand for. What is our identity? It’s right here in this circle of experience and learning, developed over a lifetime. We just can’t forget that we can grow the circle too. When we look at life as a series of discoveries that fill in the story of who we might be, we learn to be excited about the search for more experiences and challenges that test what we once believed, that we may fill in more of the circle and make it grow. What are we missing by staying within our current circle? Shouldn’t we go see for ourselves? A full life is expansive by nature.

    • Cordwood Sacrifices

      Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
      I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

      In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
      Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

      Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
      And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

      It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
      I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.
      — William Ernest Henley, Invictus

      We see where our choices have brought us over time. Or rather, we see if we are aware of our agency. So many learn helplessness as their primary lesson, and not agency. Not mastery of themselves. Mastery of self is a lifetime course. We are all students to the very end. To believe we have already reached mastery is to miss the lesson entirely.

      Everyone knows the final stanza of Invictus, even if they don’t know the poet. Even if they cannot recite the lines exactly. This idea of being the master of our fate and captain of our soul latches on to us like burrs to cloth. We like to think it so, this level of agency.

      Mastery requires choice. Mostly, it’s all that we will say no to that we may say yes to some primary purpose. A yes to what should be a no may be just the thing we desire most after a long day of grinding away towards our primary goal, but that which leads us astray leads us to mediocrity.

      Too harsh? We know the truth of where we are when measured against where we might have been. Choices matter a great deal on our course to personal excellence. I hear the curses mumbled for bringing up arete again. What are we here for but to do our best towards something larger than ourselves? Something godlike in its audacity? We may aspire to greatness while remaining humble servants of this moment we were made for.

      To favor no is to be mentally tough. It’s to decide what our yes will be and get used to stacking no’s one after the other like cordwood sacrifices to our yes. Decide what to be and go be it. Arete is ours to define, and ours to navigate towards through our decisions today.

    • AI Chili

      I went through a drive-thru yesterday (you know you’re in America by the number of drive-thru’s you come across). I prefer not to frequent such places, but circumstances being what they were, I took advantage of it for what I hoped would be a quick bite between customer meetings. And my drive-thru host wasn’t human. It’s not my first rodeo with Artificial Intelligence (AI), or even audio AI (try getting a human on the phone at your bank or service provider nowadays), but surely the first time I’ve ordered a bowl of chili at a drive-thru with an audio AI host. Another small step for mankind, another great leap for humanity.

      We encounter the artificial every day now. We hardly think about it it’s so ubiquitous in our lives. Our politicians are artificial. Our music is increasingly artificial. This blog could be artificial if I wanted it to be. But I don’t want it to be, even if it will be scrubbed and duplicated by an artificial world even before I click publish. We must hold the line on genuine humanity in an increasingly artificial world. Isn’t it pretty to think so?

      The thing about AI that makes it so great is that it’s designed to make life easier for us. The thing about AI that makes it so awful is that it makes life easier for us. One challenge at a time, it’s robbing us of the challenges that make us grow. We don’t have to learn and remember things anymore. We don’t have to stumble through a language seeking to understand someone when a translation application can simply tell each of us what the other was saying.

      Technology is a tool that makes life easier for us, but we should still strive to do more difficult things, with technology as a tool to help us rise to a more enlightened place than we otherwise could reach. Maybe the person making minimum wage to staff that drive-thru could rise to some other role. That’s the promise of AI; that it takes away the menial while offering up exponential possibility for each of us.

      What’s it all about Alfie? Why are we here if not to be human? To learn and grow and be or not be that other thing? All of this technology is making the artificial increasingly more of our reality. Where will that stop? We’re living science fiction, but also wandering deep into a psychological thriller. A simple bowl of chili is surely only the beginning.

    • Moving Through Us

      “Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
      — Frank Herbert, Dune

      You know when you’re in the midst of greatness. You can see it with your own eyes, feel it in your nervous system. There are so few who reach that level, and fewer still who can stay there for any amount of time, that it’s memorable when it washes over a moment. Tom Brady had a long dance with greatness. So did Michael Phelps. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is currently in the midst of greatness in the 400 meter hurdles and dash. Greatness is myth-like because it’s just so far beyond merely being good.

      To be sardonic is to be cynical, highly skeptical, and maybe a little sarcastic. Tom Brady had the perfect foil in Bill Belichick. We all need someone that keeps our ego in check and knock us down a notch when we begin to believe the hype. The alternative is to get too big for one’s britches. How many rise to greatness only to stumble back down to average when they succumb to the myth?

      People love the hero’s journey, but they learn to hate the person who is on top for too long. Maybe that’s because they keep the next hero from rising all the way to the top. It’s the rare few who are loved for their greatness because they exude something beyond the norm. Usain Bolt ran with a brash joyfulness that thrilled even the most casual observer.

      We may aspire to greatness but still be humble. Like a writer or artist who view themselves as a vehicle for the muse to bring art to the world, each of us are similarly bringing something beyond ourselves to whatever it is that we do. We ought to do it exceptionally well, that we may earn the right to do it again tomorrow. And maybe even better. We just can’t get so full of ourselves that the greatness has no room to move through us.

    • A Win For the Day

      “The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future.” — Gifford Pinchot

      I was pondering a different quote than the one above, one by John Wooden, who said, “Make each day your masterpiece.” I think we’d all love to make a masterpiece, but find most days the end product is somewhere closer to good enough. Maybe that’s why there are so few masters in any field. That singularity of purpose is exceedingly rare.

      I believe Wooden meant to raise our personal standard. When we hold ourselves to a standard of excellence, we may not exceed that standard, but we may get far closer to it than we otherwise would have. String enough of those days together and we’re really on to something.

      The thing is, we know most of that talk is great for a motivational poster on the break room wall, but it doesn’t mean a thing unless we internalize it and make it our own. We either raise our standard or we opt for something less for ourselves. Whether that’s comfort or laziness or distraction, something pulls us down from reaching excellence most days. But maybe today we can see some incremental improvement and call that a win for the day.

      When I write about arete, or personal excellence, it’s not some fluffy self-motivational expression, it’s a reminder to try a little harder today. As adults, we must be responsible for our own development and do a little better at the things we do today, and then stretch even further tomorrow. And see where it takes us. It can’t help but be somewhere better than the place we started.

    • Worthy of Our Time

      “Beware the barrenness of a busy life” — Socrates

      The peril of productivity is that we get so busy doing things that we forget to look up and see all that’s passing right before our eyes. I’m not a fan of busy, but I love being productive with my time. And of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We can feel when our time is well spent and when it’s not.

      It helps to look ahead. What will we miss most when it’s gone forever? Conversations with people we love. The field that deer and turkey gather in on foggy mornings that will become a development in a growth-at-all-costs community. The quiet rituals in a role we are currently in but won’t be in forever. So much is here today and gone tomorrow. What is worth saving and what is worth letting go?

      The key to a full life is to look for the barrenness and to endeavor to fill it with meaning. What’s missing? What can we add to fill that void? Filling gaps is not busyness when it’s purposeful. And what is full of meaning already that we should endeavor to save for a future we all hope will be brighter? If barrenness is the antithesis of a full life, what is truly worthy of our time?

    • Deliberate With the Highlights

      How do we fill our days? Life is a stack of days, as we know. What fills them fills a life. So we ought to choose wisely. I may have said that once or twice, but I assure you it’s to remind myself to bring out the highlighter now and then.

      On a warm October weekend, I spent the bulk of it working to ready the home and yard for the coming of colder days. Hours with a pressure washer cleaning all the newly vacated surfaces. And warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt. The tropical plants were stunned to be cut to the base and tucked in the cellar. Am I crazy putting summer away on such a warm weekend? It doesn’t matter what the thermometer says, it’s what the calendar tells me. And so my tropical paradise has receded back to memory for the next six months.

      Will I remember the yard work? Maybe. A clean shed offers evidence we can certainly refer back to. But life isn’t meant to be a series of chores before we die. If we’re smart with our time, we should fill the days with highlighter moments too. A late afternoon walk on the beach and dinner out with family are highlighter moments in and of themselves, but within each we can choose something even brighter to mark it as special. Each could have been highlighted with something uniquely out of the box. We know it when we see it. I was more tame than I might have been. Let’s call it refinement.

      All of this makes for compelling reading, no doubt. But the point is, we ought to embrace the productive work that moves the chains in a full life but save a little time and energy for something extra. Our one line a day may be completing a bunch of chores, but it might also a call to catch up with an old friend, splurging on dessert or a fancy drink we normally wouldn’t order, or getting up and out early to witness the Harvest Moon before it too fades into the past. The chores tend to line up all by themselves—we ought to be deliberate with the highlights too.

    • Low Ground, High Places.

      Autumn is when most people flock to the high ground, searching for vantage points from which to take in the foliage. It’s a lovely thing, that foliage. What is less lovely is the flock of people. Foliage gridlock is the ugly phenomenon of fall. So those of us who live amongst the foliage tend to avoid the popular places. Beauty can be found in the quiet places too. A single orange and red leaf drifting to rest just so is all I need. But oh, those vantage points are stunning too.

      My bride and I went to the sea to walk the pup in the low tide surf. That’s just about as low ground as you can get in New Hampshire, and we reached the highest of places watching the pup play in the foam, chase seagulls, and giving the horses a sideways glance. In the offseason the horses return to the beach, riders splashing into the waves as they trot the long stretch of firm sand out and back from the state park.

      We also return in the offseason, favoring the relative quiet it offers. Late in the afternoon on a warm October day, we found we had plenty of company but still nowhere near what it must have been earlier in the day. With the surf up and churning its relentless song, the sun casting brilliant warm light as it drops to the west, there is no foliage to wonder at. Walking along the surf line to witness what the low ground has to say, seeing the joy that a beach walk draws out of my two companions, I can tell you that there is magic just the same.

    • Still, Here

      Silence is the language of god,
      all else is poor translation.
      —Rumi

      It wasn’t all that long ago that it was exciting to see a satellite flying overhead. Now it feels like I can’t look up without seeing one. And it will get far busier up in the sky before too long. That’s just the way it is now, and whether we like it is beside the point. Modern progress chews up beautiful simplicity for breakfast.

      I say this knowing it’s autumn in New England. I’ll celebrate the season while dreading the coming of the leaf blowers. There will be no escaping the drone of these technological wonders as they descend on quiet cul-de-sacs en masse. Envie de t’évader?

      I’m not a purist. I use Waze and Google Maps frequently and listen to satellite radio far more than terrestrial radio. I too embrace the leaf blower like an old friend when the oak leaves blanket the lawn. I play music loudly. I delight in the energy of a crowded stadium. I am thus part of the problem, but I need stillness too. It’s simply harder to find in the familiar places.

      Maybe that’s why I’m getting up earlier than ever. On average I’m up an hour earlier than I used to get up. And I love the quiet time it offers. This blog wouldn’t exist without stillness and stubbornness. Imperfect as it is—as I am, it is my quiet offering to the universe that I’m still here, doing my thing, for at least this one more day. You want stillness? Listen to the applause after that statement.

      The world will keep getting louder and more complex. This requires a more deliberate layering of quiet from which we may hear ourselves think. I’m not convinced the world wants us thinking, but isn’t that a great reason to try? Let us quietly find our way to a more enlightened place.