Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • To Squander the Day

      We are reconciled, I think,
      to too much.
      Better to be a bird, like this one-
      An ornament of the eternal.
      As he came down once, to the nest of the grass,
      “Squander the day, but save the soul,”
      I heard him say.
      – Mary Oliver, The Lark

      We become especially adept at committing ourselves to activities with the least return on our time invested. What is an unproductive meeting but an agreement between two parties to squander time? As if we had the time to spend.

      This challenge by Mary Oliver, declaring that we reconcile to too much in our days, pokes deeply at that inner doubt we might have about how we’re spending our time. That (now) she’s challenging us from the grave amplifies the message. Jealously guard your time for that which is most important. Squander the day, if you must, but save your soul!

      We take stock of our calendars and see a growing trend back to the office, back to travel and meetings and getting things done. Some excites us, and some is a reconciliation to the mission at hand. This is the life of a professional, we do what we must to get where we want to be in our careers.

      But what if we saved our soul instead?

    • Born Before Apollo

      I surf the wave of time with a group of Gen X people born before Apollo landed on the moon. That might make me old, or still young, depending on the reader. But age labels are nothing but stories people tell themselves. In my mind I’m still a kid in pajamas and no helmet on, riding my bike barefoot as fast as possible down the steepest hills available to me. I celebrate the recklessness of my youth and smile at the scars as they remind me of the highlights. Another tetanus booster shot? No problem.

      The Beatles and The Rolling Stones might have been Baby Boomers, but we had a steady diet of each, swept into the diverse wave of music that crashed over us from birth until college. Rock to singer-songwriter to disco to reggae to punk. We swam in it all. No, they weren’t our generation, but they were our soundtrack and we made them our own. Until Nirvana and Pearl Jam kicked them aside and declared that it was our time to break through.

      Consumerism, good god the consumerism! Plastic and white bread and designed obsolescence, all positioned to feed the worst junk to the masses in a recurring revenue scheme to keep the shareholders happy. All this junk loaded onto shelves at Kmart and Toys R Us and a hundred other stores that lived and died with their consumers. And who pays for it but the environment and our bodies? The C-suite that grew ultra-rich in this trickle down economics scam will casually gesture to the crew to move their yachts to a better view.

      We saw, and we still see, that it’s all bullshit. All the positioning and titles and tail wagging the dog political maneuvering? BS. It’s all stories and power-brokering and wealth accumulation, and you either play their game or you move aside on their climb to the gates of hell. Hell must be somewhere at the top because that’s where some of the worst in humanity are ascending to. And boy do they spoil the view.

      Apollo was the space mission that fueled our dreams. To launch into space and land humans on the moon! It seemed anything was possible, and that we’d all be space rangers. And then Atari and Star Wars came out, grabbed all that pent-up space fascination and channeled it towards fantasy. Bigger movies, more immersive video games, faster and stronger computers. Yeah, more consumerism. See what they did there?

      The thing is, I’m not jaded, none of us born in Gen X can be. We’ve seen all the stories and positioning all our lives. We were born skeptical of the generations around us. And why wouldn’t we be? Collectively we’re all messing things up, aren’t we? And we all see it, even if some choose to immerse themselves in the distraction of Squid Game or the latest superhero franchise movie. Fantasy soothes the sharpest doubts and fears.

      Of course, we already knew that. Cue Captain Kirk for a real space flight, brought to you by a billionaire working to hold your attention from the toxic workplace accusations his employees are screaming about. Yeah, that’ll hold their attention for a few minutes. But doesn’t it feel like we’ve seen this one before?

    • The Duck With the Broken Beak

      If there’s a perk to travel, it’s the opportunity to encounter things you would never see in your daily existence. When you pause from your frenzied attempt at getting things done long enough to observe what’s hiding in plain sight around you. On this particular trip, it began with a glimpse of a duck swimming in the pool at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando.

      It seems this duck that was hit by a car at some point, resulting in a broken beak and an inclination to live a more comfortable life. The story goes that she had a family with some scoundrel mallard and returned with her ducklings in tow. When she became an empty nester she dropped the old mallard for another mate and now spends her days swimming in the hotel pool and walking amongst the guests looking for handouts.

      At some point in her evening she flies away to spend the night elsewhere, but returns in the warmth of the day to take up her role as ducky ambassador for another day. The hotel employees are familiar with her routine and don’t blink an eye when she walks around looking for stray bits to eat. The novelty is still with the guests, as we encounter this unusual pool duck in our own time. She seems to relish every encounter, and poses for pictures as she’s no doubt done a thousand times before.

      The broken beak is her unique feature, and no doubt caused her great discomfort when she had her accident. But she wears her scars proudly, showing the world that this duck is a survivor. Humans could learn a thing or two from her. Wear your scars proudly, treat everyone with respect and don’t put up with characters who don’t measure up to your standards.

      These encounters are where the joy of travel resides. We move through our time and this world, chancing on these moments with a life force here and there that makes us stop in wonder. I’ll continue my journey, likely never back in this place again. But I’ll remember this scarred, friendly ambassador, poolside with her court.

    • Modern Travel

      “Modern traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.” – John Ruskin

      I smiled to myself when I thought of this quote, by a man who died in 1900, as I folded myself into a coach seat in a plane full of business travelers and tourists alike. The more things change the more they stay the same. John Ruskin was likely shipping himself by train or steamer in his latter years, by stagecoach or tall ship in his younger years. And we delight in the same observation: travel can be uncomfortable and tedious. But it can also be adventurous.

      When you travel for work on a weekend you tend to let your guard down a bit and dress a little more casually, while keeping in mind the logistics of packing light. It wasn’t lost on me (or Ruskin well before me) that packing a bag and yourself is very much the same as packing a box for shipment. Weight and size matter a lot in both situations, and you must be creative and make sacrifices.

      This business of traveling can be more comfortable, more luxurious, and a lot less stressful if you just throw enough money at it. We all prioritize what we spend money on a bit differently, and some would use theirs to upgrade to first class or take a private flight. I wish them well, even as I dismiss the very idea of ever spending that kind of money for something as basic as travel. If money is a story we all agree to tell ourselves, my story doesn’t include frivolous spending on shipping myself to places.

      Still, I heard from a friend who recently took his company’s private jet from Boston to Toronto for a brief meeting and then back again. In the time most of us would take to get to the airport and suffer through the indignities the airlines and your fellow passengers put you through he was there and back with casual, strategic conversation the entire way. Maybe there’s a place for this kind of modern travel after all.

      I think the answer, for the rest of us, is to stop treating ourselves like parcels and slow down the process of getting from point A to point B. Take a sleeper train across the country, meander across the most interesting terrain in an RV or van, sail from here to there in the company of fascinating people. Any of these is less efficient but far more enjoyable than most modern travel. For it’s fair to ask; we aren’t FedEx packages, are we?

    • To Meet, to Love, to Share

      “We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

      We dance together in this moment of temporary, synchronized existence. This precious moment, brought to you by serendipity and chance. Who are we to squander it?

      While walking about looking for that famous fellow at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (NY) I chanced upon the grave of a man who died at the age of 57 in 1909. His gravestone was most unusual in that he’d had a clock, his father’s clock, placed on the face of the stone. And made a point of informing the world of this fact with the words “My father’s clock placed here at my request” just below it. And I thought, what a strange combination of time and eternity, all marching together in one plot.

      I wonder at the story of our friend Cochrane, and why that particular clock was so profoundly important to him that it be placed on his gravestone in such a way. But mostly, for me, it serves to remind me of the contrast between time, all important in this world of humanity today, and eternity, the true standard bearer of the universe. What is a clock but a story we’ve all agreed to follow?

      The older I get, and I’m not all that far from where Cochrane was when he ran out of steam, the more I think about swirling and dancing in that pool of eternity. But why wait? Why not use this precious time to dance right here? In this infinitesimal parenthesis in eternity we owe it to the universe to meet, to love and to share, while there’s still… time.

    • You Only Need to Know

      “Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” – Washington Irving

      Washington Irving was right on the mark with this observation. Imagine if he’d lived to see people staring at their phones all day? There are so many distractions today, and never enough rising above them. So it seems anyway.

      But there are plenty of people living with purpose. People who are driven to succeed in the path they’ve chosen for themselves. The trick is to find that purpose and focus on it like your very life depended on it. For in so many ways, it does.

      You know it’s up to you, anything you can do
      And if you find a new way
      Well, you can do it today
      Well, you can make it all true
      And you can make it undo
      You see, ah-ah-ah, it’s easy, ah-ah-ah
      You only need to know
      – Cat Stevens, If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

      You only need to know what you want to do, your purpose, and then, well, you can do it today. At least begin to do it today. And isn’t that the tricky part? To stop telling yourself stories about what you are and go write a new story. Rise above the wishes and distractions and misfortunes that life stirs in our little pot and see just how far you can take this purpose of yours.

      Injecting clever quotes and catchy tunes into your day is one thing, but finding purpose and following it are another. The point here is that there’s so much noise in our lives that we never really listen to hear what our calling is. If you aren’t listening, you aren’t focused. And you miss the purpose as life noisily passes you by.

      Listen. Focus. Find a new way (yes, you can do it today).

    • Taking Our Measure

      “The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.”

      “When you go to heaven, Ann, you will be frightfully conscious of your wings for the first year or so. When you meet your relatives there, and they persist in treating you as if you were still a mortal, you will not be able to bear them. You will try to get into a circle which has never known you except as an angel.” – Jack Tanner in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman

      These two quotes from Shaw’s fascinating play Man and Superman resonate with anyone who has tried to shed the preconceptions that those who knew us “then” have about what we’re capable of “now”. We all grow, yet there’s a lag time for those who might measure our fit based on the person we used to be. This is one reason people job hop or move far from home. If you leave your old identity behind, you free yourself to be whatever you want to be in the place where you land.

      Of course, one person we never leave behind is ourselves. If we aren’t aligned with a belief in our future potential we’ll never reach it. What is left of us then but incremental improvement? That’s not a leap forward at all, but a slow shuffle across our brief time.

      When we grow we no longer fit into that old character we used to be. We must adjust our own expectations of what is possible, take a deep breath and leap towards our greater potential. And if necessary find a circle that believes in our present potential instead of clinging to our limited past.

    • Work and Love

      “The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

      Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day of rest for many (not all), and an opportunity to reflect on this thing called work. If you’re doing work you love, then Gibran’s words will resonate. If you’re doing work that grinds your soul to dust, you might think his words are ridiculous. But to live a fulfilling life, shouldn’t that which we labor in be loved?

      Piecing words together isn’t hard labor, but any writer knows that it’s work. Paradoxically, if writing every day is work, it must reverberate with love to be enjoyable for the reader. The jury is still out on this writer.

      In my working life I’ve done everything from sweeping up broken glass to managing salespeople in a Fortune 500 company. I took as much care removing every sliver of glass from the ground as I did managing the emotional response to a quarterly review. Work is love made visible, otherwise it’s self-immolation.

      So on this rare day of rest in our hustling culture, what do we celebrate? A break from the grind or a moment to recharge before leaping back into the joy of a meaningful career? Especially now, somewhere between a pandemic and normal, work should be celebrated for where it brings us in our lives, and for what we may give back to others.

      What can we be great at? Shouldn’t we put our heart and soul into that which transcends work? To rise above the daily grind to joyful, purposeful labor seems the only path to a full life.

    • Soggy Bottom Sunrise

      It was early,
      which has always been my hour
      to begin looking
      at the world
      – Mary Oliver, It Was Early

      No doubt I missed the stunning pink sky on display when I hauled the kayak down to the surf line. No doubt I might have found a better picture had I just gotten up and out there sooner. But why dwell on might-have-beens? Make the most of what’s in front of you.

      There’s a lesson there for the bigger things swirling around you. Things bigger than sandy feet and a soggy bottom as you walk back into the world after greeting the new day as best you could. The world keeps doing its thing whether you show up or not. But isn’t it nice when you do show up?

    • Tides and Time

      “Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.” – Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

      We get so caught up in schedules and appointments and such, when all that really matters is conversation and honoring commitments and that most intangible thing of all: progress. Are we progressing in the direction we pointed ourselves in or not? What do you do with the answer to that question?

      Like many, I’m fascinated with people that step off the calendar and follow their own path. The through-hikers and ocean cruisers and the off-the-gridders who opt out of the stories we tell ourselves about time. The older I get the more I recognize the story of time isn’t always in sync with my own natural rhythm.

      So do you reconcile this in your life? Do you favor deadlines and schedules that dictate so much of our short stack of trips around the sun? Or do you prioritize living by your own rhythm? I should think the closer you are to the latter the more fulfilling your life might be.