Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • 1917

      I saw the movie 1917 last night, and it’s stayed with me well into the morning. No spoilers here, just appreciation for an exceptional cinema experience. It’s the kind of movie I go to the movies to see; visually stunning, technical filmmaking with powerful acting that weaves between poignant scenes and heart-racing violence. Not the gratuitous, glamorized violence I’ve grown to hate in Hollywood nowadays (see the trailer for The Gentlemen for formula: turn your gun hand to 45 degrees and make a face), but the violent reality of a drawn-out war and the simplicity of two men on a mission in impossible conditions.  It’s the kind of movie you feel privileged to see in a theater, with the seats vibrating with every bang and boom and the full immersion the big screen offers, but without the testosterone-enhanced machismo of the Xbox/CGI movies.

      If this is the new golden age of television with HBO, Netflix and Amazon cranking out brilliant series, then where does that leave the classic craft of intelligent movies?  Blockbusters rule the movies because they make money.  I’ve had this debate with my aspiring screenwriter daughter and yes, I know, superhero films are an art form of their own.  That’s fine if you’re into them (and I know millions are into them).  Star Wars sequels and car chase movies pull in the dollars, but where do those of us that prefer to consume a different kind of entertainment experience go?  I appreciate the occasional visit to a cinema to see a truly great movie, but feel reluctant to part with my money to see CGI with a soundtrack.  So having a film like 1917 is a real treat – it satisfies both audiences.  I hope it’s the highest grossing movie of the year, because more films like it would get produced.

      I write all of this knowing the irony:  I choose to keep the television off most of the time and wouldn’t be heartbroken to cut the cord altogether.  I don’t play video games (computer chess is decidedly not a video game).  I’d rather take a walk in the woods or on the beach than go see an Avengers movie.  No, I’m most certainly not the target audience.  Which should make it all the more impactful when a movie draws me in this way.  If you can get me to go and rave about a movie, you should have a real winner on your hands.  Hero’s journey without the overtly formula plot twists. Dignity, courage and determination in a two hour journey through the horror of WWI: The Great War, the war to end all wars…. yet didn’t. Go see 1917 in a great movie theater, you won’t regret it.

    • Coffeehouse Self

      The commute started early this morning, with an early meeting conspiring with noise in my head about getting on the other side of the rush hour traffic that would surely build with every minute. Nothing stresses my commuter self more than being late for an appointment with miles of traffic ahead of me. I don’t like commuter self all that much, and avoid his company when I can.

      Traffic going into Boston is a wonder, but not wonderful; starting much earlier than you’d think possible, lingers past when you’d expect it to end, then reverses direction almost immediately to wreak havoc on your soul when you head home. You either skate your lane, distract yourself with music and podcasts or you let it get to you. I’ve gotten better at letting it go, but it’s a weakness in my character and I feel commuter self creep back into the car more than I’d like. So I play the active avoidance game when I can, and podcast the heck out of the worst of it. I once turned down a great job with a big promotion and raise because I didn’t want to crush my soul with the two hour 40 mile commute. I don’t regret the decision.

      This morning I time-travelled to Boston, found a café and sit writing this blog while others are stop-and-going on the highways I just left. Coffeehouse music is playing, counteracting the effect of the caffeine and the adrenaline of hundreds of cars and trucks I spent the last hour with. My coffee sits steaming on a distressed wood table and The Lumineers and Jason Mraz are playing just loud enough that I can barely hear the diesel engines and honking horns out there. The regulars talk amongst themselves but the place is still full of empty. There was no logical reason to leave as early as I did, with 90 minutes of time to spare. But I like the company of coffeehouse self more than commuter self, and that was enough for me.

    • The Bed and the Beasts

      I woke in the darkness, groggy but otherwise aware.  I self-assessed the situation.  My knees were pointed out into the abyss, cool in the early morning air.  My cold shoulder was exposed in the breeze, throbbing and reminding me of the tendinitis suffered from burpees gone bad.  I was contorted into an odd shape, but otherwise intact.  I felt a warm body pressed against my lower back and another pressed against my calf.  Alert now and  bearings re-set, I recognized the larger body pressed against my back as the big cat, the pressure on the calf was coming from the smaller cat.  I knew at once that they’d tried again to plunge me into the abyss in the night.  Once again the plot was foiled when they ran out of time.

      Those movies where the little child hides under the covers as the monster comes out of the closet?  That scene was clearly written by someone with pets, for the rapidly disappearing covers were all that saved me from these ungrateful beasts who slowly, deliberately pushed me closer and closer to the edge; to the abyss.  I know this to be true, for each night I go to bed with plenty of room, cozy under the covers.  Reading quickly devolves to sleep, and I drift off to pleasant dreams, alone in the bed.  Sometime later in the night, maybe five minutes, maybe four hours – I really don’t know, my bride slips into bed and attempts to sleep her restless sleep.  Eventually the beasts creep onto the bed and begin their mischief, working in unison to pull the covers away from me.  The pushing starts soon after.  You’ve heard of the three dog night?  I have the two cat night.  They parachute in like ninjas in the dark, working into the small space between my bride and me.  The dynamics of “cozy” change soon after to “cramped”, but I stubbornly sleep through it, waking to the full reality of the conspiracy in the early morning hours.

      As a road warrior, I know the feel of a strange hotel bed in some random city.  I used to wake often in the unfamiliar surroundings, trying to get my bearings when everything felt different.  But now I find myself sleeping blissfully, waking refreshed in roughly the place I began my sleep in, without a fan blowing on me and nowhere near the edge.  It seems that a night of sleep without nocturnal beasts playing dangerous games is possible.  Just not in the comfort of my own bed.  Here, in winter, the ninja games become a nightly reality.  And when I finally get up, they move right into the warmth I leave behind.  Such is the world I’ve built around me…  Should’ve gone with the King-sized bed.

    • Better Decisions

      “In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing.” – Annie Duke, Thinking In Bets

      As we enter the first full work week of the New Year, I’m focused on this concept of Second Order Thinking and working to apply it better in my life.  In short, asking what will be the consequences of doing this versus that in the first order, the second order and the third order?  If I eat this donut because it looks delicious (first order), then I’ll add more empty calories and gain weight (second order), which will make me more stressed out in the future when my pants are getting too snug (third order).  Second and third order thinking is a way of fast-forwarding into the future as you decide on whether or not to do something in the present.  It gets you out of the self-centered immediate gratification of now and looking at the ultimate satisfaction of then.  Ray Dalio describes it as the lower-level you winning out over the higher-level you.  I haven’t been consistent with this in my lifetime, particularly when it comes to snacking.  I’d say it’s time to look up from the proverbial candy dish and think beyond the moment.

      “Decide what to be and go be it.” – The Avett Brothers, Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise

      I didn’t believe I’d like the book Thinking In Bets.  I’m not a poker player and have no desire to immerse myself in the world of poker. They wear sunglasses indoors and pull their hats down low to cover expressions on their faces.  I mean, who wants to hang out with people doing that?  But this isn’t a book about poker, it’s a book about decision-making.  And making better decisions is something I’ve been working on in myself for some time.  It started with this idea of Second Order Thinking, where you weigh the consequences of your decision now and into the future.  I’ve made plenty of decisions in my lifetime that made sense in the immediacy of the moment that turned out to be bad decisions down the road.  And a few that I thought weren’t great early on that turned out to be brilliant (and lucky) decisions with hindsight.

      We’re the average of the five people we hang around with the most, as Jim Rohn would put it.  Applied to what I’m reading, I’m currently hanging around with stoics, poets and experts in creating and sustaining better habits.  And now I’ve invited decision-making experts to the party.  I’m okay with that mix, and will enhance it over time.  But reading about something isn’t doing something.  That’s a trap that you realize as you read book after book without applying the knowledge you pick up from all that reading.  No, the rubber meets the road when you take action.  Applied knowledge, repeated daily, leads to exponential improvement over time.  I’ve seen that working in all things over the course of my life.  The focus now is to improve the decision-making process so I spend that time on better, more productive activity.  Dance a bit more in the higher-level self.  Now is as good a time as any to get to it.

    • Attention to Detail

      The funny thing about the first few days of a New Year is that I catch myself looking forward quite often.  There’s nothing wrong with looking forward, just as there’s nothing wrong with looking back towards where you’ve been, as long as you’re grounded in the present.  One of the things I love about Mary Oliver poems is her focus on the things in daily life that you might miss if you’re not paying attention.  Shell fragments on the beach become a story in a poem that makes me think of a walk on the beach in a different way.  The poet, teaching us how to see:

      “I go down to the edge of the sea.
      How everything shines in the morning light!
      The cusp of the whelk,
      the broken cupboard of the clam,
      the opened, blue mussels,
      moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
      and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
      dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the
       moisture gone.
      It’s like a schoolhouse
      of little words,
      thousands of words.
      First you figure out what each one means by itself,
      the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
      full of moonlight.

      Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.”
      – Mary Oliver, Breakage

      The other day while leaving Cape Cod I was so caught up in getting things packed up to get to work that I missed an opportunity to go to the dump.  Now don’t get me wrong, going to the dump in and of itself is not my favorite activity.  But going to the dump with my favorite Navy pilot, well, that’s a different story.  But I was so focused on checking boxes and getting tasks done that I let him go off to bring the trash to the transfer station on his own, missing the chance to spend 30 minutes talking about nothing and everything.  Moments like that are available if you pay attention, and slip away when you don’t.  I’ll regret the lost opportunity, and have already forgotten what was so important for me to get done that I passed it up.

      We’re all a work in progress, sometimes things just fall into place and we’re focused on the things that matter most, and sometimes we’re looking the wrong way when the magic moment happens.  All we can do is keep chipping away at it, one small bit at a time.  I know I’m a much better human than I was ten years ago, and better still than I was twenty years ago.  Incremental progress isn’t as stunning as immediate transformation, but the Ebenezer Scrooge kind of overnight transformation isn’t the way most change happens.

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” – James Clear

      So I keep taking action, one step forward and sometimes two steps back.  But in general I see incremental improvement.  Learn from the mistakes, change our action next time if lucky enough to be offered a similar opportunity in the future.  Do those things now that matter most.  That starts with getting out of your own head and paying attention.  Begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

    • Playing Nice With the Vital Organs

      You are what you eat.  Simple, right?  It is until you see the assortment of treats laid out during the holidays.  Or the rows of donuts calling your name when you buy a coffee.  Saying no to empty calories is challenging, saying yes to healthy calories shouldn’t be.  I think the easiest way to remove empty calories from the diet is to remove the temptation in the first place.  Saying no at the market makes the rest of the week less torturous at home.

      I’ve mentioned before my concern about brain health, with people in my life struggling with dementia that was hammered home during the holidays.  So doubling down on brain food makes a lot of sense.  But it’s not just for the long term, eating the right foods now also enhances your mood and overall fitness.  I’d call that a triple play worth betting on.

      A search on food that is good for your brain health nets you many results, but the following are common across most lists:

      Broccoli, walnuts. dark chocolate, blueberries, turmeric, pumpkin seeds, avocado, beets, sage, tomato, green tea, eggs, coconut oil

      A similar search on food that enhances your mood offers the following results:

      Salmon, eggs, dark chocolate, almonds, avocados, bananas, lentils, blueberries, green leafy vegetables, coffee, green tea, oysters, quinoa, cottage cheese, broccoli, grapes, bell peppers

      So the takeaway is that I’ve been eating most of these foods already (maybe that’s why I’m usually in a good mood?), but doubling down on the ones that appear on both lists is logical.  But wait!  There’s more!  Another bonus; most of the same foods appear on the list of heart healthy foods too.  Knowing how much Omega-3 and phytonutrients, magnesium, fiber and assorted vitamins to add to your diet is cumbersome for me.  I only have so much room at the mindfulness inn to invite guests like that on a daily basis.  But eating grilled salmon instead of steak?  Easy.  Coffee and dark chocolate?  Are you kidding me?  I think I’ve got that one covered.  Just about the only one that I’m not consuming regularly is turmeric, and that can be solved with adding it to a smoothy or a cup of tea in the morning.

      The flip side is also important.  What will you say no to more often?  And the obvious answers are red meat, fried food, beer, cheese, sugar and bread…  Damn.  Nothing I don’t know already, but a couple of those are regulars on my dietary stage.  Cheese and crackers and a handful of M & M’s have been dancing in my stomach since Halloween.  Which directly correlates to the scale flatlining since I’ve increased my daily exercise.  The accepted trick is to make these things an occasional treat.  Having a cheat day when you can eat all  of the junk you’ve been saying no too, but also some of the delicious foods you love that don’t play nice with the vital organs, is important.  If nothing else it keeps you sane.  And what’s the point of having good brain health if your diet makes you crazy?

    • Get To It

      Standing out on the jetty thirty feet out in Buzzards Bay earlier this morning looking for that familiar glimmer of sunrise, I realized that the show was going to be too far into the trees over land. It seems Earth’s obliquity, or axial tilt, is so far along that the sunrise is 30 degrees past where I’m used to seeing it. According to timeanddate.com, we’re at 23.43668° or 23°26’12.0″ today. Numbers really, until you see how far over the sunrise is or how short the days are. And let’s face it, the days are short in the Northern Hemisphere on January 1.

      All of this axial tilt stuff aside, it’s a new day, a new year, and a new decade. What will we make of it? Improvement seems to be the objective. Better choices in how we spend our time. What we eat, how much we move, where we go and what we produce. In short, who we become. That makes this morning like every other morning in the question that comes to mind, the question Mary Oliver asked so eloquently:

      “Tell me, what is it you plan to do

      With your one wild and precious life?”

      We think of New Year’s Day as a beginning, but it’s really a continuation of our journey. A bit like that crest on the trail where you pause for a rest and some water, to take a look around and a glance at the map to see where you are and where you’re going next. So where are you? Where are you going next? There’s no telling the future, really, but we can get back up and start climbing again. And that’s my plan. To get back at it working on the person I want to become, one step at a time on this journey; this one wild and precious life. So let’s get to it.

    • Favorites From a Year of Reading

      This might go down as my favorite year of reading.  I made it a goal to read more the last two years, and the momentum from 2018 definitely carried over into 2019.  Reading inspired my travel to new places and offered side trips of meaning in places I’ve been many times before.  It kicked me in the backside with work, writing, exercise and diet, and it inspired me to be a better version of myself than I previously had been.  I’m still a work in progress, but aren’t we all?  In all I read 23 books cover-to-cover in 2019, and dabbled in chapters of a few more.  Here are my ten favorite books this year:

      Atomic Habits by James Clear was by far the most impactful book on self-improvement that I’ve read in many years.  Strongly recommend this if you’re looking to make meaningful changes in your life.  I’m going to re-read it again in January to get a jump-start on 2020.  Habits that are now part of my identity include reading, writing, walking and drinking water.  Habits that went by the wayside include daily burpees and drinking less.  2020 (every day really) offers a chance to reset on habits, with new possibilities with learning language(s) and a few notable work goals.

      The Gift by Hafiz is a stunningly beautiful collection of poems.  Why it took me until 2019 to find Hafiz I don’t know…  but I’m glad I got here.

      Dream Work by Mary Oliver is another collection of brilliant poetry that it took me way too long in life to discover.  Maybe Oliver’s passing this year put a spotlight on her work, or maybe the student was finally ready.  Either way I’m glad I’ve immersed myself in the world of Mary Oliver.

      To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia by Jedidiah Jenkins is a travel book on the one hand, and a journey of self-discovery one the other as Jenkins wrestles with his religious upbringing and his sexual identity during an epic biking trip across North and South America.  The book reinforces my belief that most people are good while acknowledging some good fortune along the way.  As a bonus, Jenkins pointed me towards one Hafiz poem, Tim Ferriss pointed me towards another, and soon I was reading The Gift (above).

      Awareness by Anthony De Mello is not the kind of book I ever would have picked up, as it feels self-helpy and overly religious at first glance.  And it does have a healthy dose of both things, but this books is an incredible call to action for the self, and backed up with tremendous insight into human nature.  Another book I wish I’d read years ago that I’m glad I got to in 2019.

      How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman is a book I’ve had on the shelf for years that I finally got to in 2019.  Perhaps inspired by my then upcoming trip to Scotland, I burned through the book quickly, learning a lot about the Scottish people who made a massive impact on the world we live in today.  It also prompted me to add a few places to my trip that I might not otherwise have gone to.

      The Map Thief by Michael Blanding poured gasoline on my burning fascination with old maps, and fired me up in another way; as someone who is passionate about historical artifacts like maps and old books, and also in a career based on securing people and assets from criminals like Forbes Smiley, this book was highly relevant for me.

      The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America by Walter R. Borneman offered me more insight into the place I live than any history book in a long time.  The Northeast corner of North America is where most of this fighting took place, and I took the opportunity to visit many historically important sites in my travels that were inspired by this book.

      Benedict Arnold’s Navy: The Ragtag Fleet That Lost the Battle of Lake Champlain But Won the American Revolution by James L. Nelson is a look at the complex individual that is Benedict Arnold.  And it goes well beyond the Battle of Lake Champlain, with a detailed account of Arnold’s epic raid of Quebec through the wilderness of Maine.  The retreat from Quebec opened up the St Lawrence River to the British, which put Lake Champlain and Lake George in their sites as the critical water route to the Hudson River. Arnold’s fleet delayed the British just long enough to set up the victory at Saratoga (where Arnold played a critical role as well).  I followed this book by reading Valiant Ambition by Nathanial Philbrick, another excellent book with even more detail on complicated life of Benedict Arnold.  Benedict Arnold’s Navy inspired that read, so it gets the nod here in the top ten.

      The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday is, as the title indicates, meant to be read daily, one quick dose of stoic medicine at a time.  After immersing myself in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in 2018, I felt that The Daily Stoic would be a great way to add a little daily stoicism to my life.  And it became part of my morning routine, where I’d read this before other books.  I’ll continue this habit by re-reading The Daily Stoic one day at a time in 2020 and on into the future.

      So there you go, my top ten favorite reads in 2019.  I’m a better person for having read them all, and look forward to revisiting several of them again and again in the years to come.  I’m a better writer for having read them all (still a work in progress).  And there’s a big stack of exciting books to tackle waiting patiently beside them.  So here’s to some great reading in the year ahead!

    • A Decade Of Music

      The last ten years have flown by (as decades tend to do), and looking back on the music that made the biggest impact on me from 2010 to 2019 is certainly challenging.  If there was a theme to the last decade for me, it was travel to faraway places.  And  when you travel you need a great soundtrack.  Here are ten songs that made my decade of long drives, flights and walks a lot better:

      Dawes – When My Time Comes
      Wilco – You And I
      Head And The Heart – Down in the Valley
      Jason Mraz – 93 Million Miles
      The Avett Brothers – No Hard Feelings
      Bruce Springsteen – Land of Hope and Dreams
      U2 – The Little Things That Give You Away
      Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
      Lord Huron – Ends of the Earth
      Muse – Madness

      A nod to The Lumineers, Michael Kiwanuka, Adele, Half.Alive, Twenty One Pilots, Cold War Kids, Portugal, the Man, The Zac Brown Band, Ray Lamontagne and Blind Pilot.  In a different mood I might have chosen a song by any of you.  But that’s music for you.

    • Defer or Dance?

      “Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” – Seneca

      The other night I was walking alone on the street.  Except I wasn’t alone at all.  Two great horned owls were calling out to each other high in the pine trees, moving silently in a dance of their own around the neighborhood, far apart at first, then closer together, then  off to another stand of trees, and finally further away.  I’d look to the dark sky for a silhouette but never see them.  Just the “who who… who, who” of two owls whispering sweet nothings to each other before moving off to the honeymoon suite.

      Yesterday I watched the moon dance with Venus as they set in the early evening.  I was car shopping for my daughter at the time, and opted to stay put while my wife and daughter drove the car we’d ultimately buy one last time to be sure about it before we signed the papers.  Having already made up my mind I stared at the dancers in the sky instead.  I pointed Venus and the waxing crescent moon out to the car salesman, who looked, mumbled something no doubt meant to be acknowledgment and walked back inside, clearly not as impressed with the sky dance as I was.

      This morning I was texting with a friend of mine currently moored in St. Kitts, looking at mega yachts with toys strewn all about them as the one percent play in the same harbor that he and his wife are swimming in this morning.  I follow them with interest from island-to-island as they bounce around the Caribbean.  We have an open invitation to join them at any time, and believe me, I’ve looked into it.  But the timing is all wrong and I’ll have to defer a swim in paradise this winter in favor of steady employment and family.  Life is full of tradeoffs after all.

      Another friend was hiking this weekend, collecting peaks on her quest to knock off a series of summits she hears the call to visit.  She’s hiking almost every free moment to achieve her goals, sometimes with her husband, sometimes with friends, and sometimes solo.  I understand the call, as the Appalachian Trail calls me in a similar way, but I’m deferring that goal knowing I may never do it.  We have choices in life, and I’ve chosen the one more traveled by, and that has made all the difference.  I know I could defer forever and die with regrets, but I’d regret walking off the path I’m on too.  Life is funny that way.

      If each day is a separate life as Seneca says, then every day we wake up we have a choice about what we’ll do with this life we’ve been given.  Today I won’t be swimming with turtles in St. Kitts, I won’t be hiking the Appalachian Trail, I won’t be gazing at the Northern Lights in Iceland or Labrador, and I won’t be hiking to Machu Picchu. So what of today – this separate life? A walk in the woods sounded like a good compromise and I explored local conservation land full of dog walkers and families, and blazed a bit of open land where my footprints in crusty snow were the first.  Perhaps not as grand as other paths, but I have a great family and my health and owls calling out in the night, and that’s not so bad either.  As we end the year, it’s a good time to reflect and be grateful for what you have, with an eye towards the future.  And maybe that’s enough for today.