Alexandersmap

    Category: Discovery

    • The Right Thing

      “The expedient thing and the right thing are seldom the same thing.”

      The quote above came from a fortune cookie, but I’ve seen it attributed to Charles Hendrickson Brower elsewhere too. Whatever, the source isn’t as essential as the insight. We often rush through things just to check the box, even as we know that the right things require more from us than to simply crank them out.

      This blog has been an odyssey for me. I’m considering its future, as the process of writing it every day obviously requires a level of commitment and thought energy I might apply to something else instead. There’s no doubt that writing, and finding something interesting enough to write about, has greatly improved my life along with the quality and efficiency of my writing. Instead of meandering around some topic, I’ve learned to dive right into it. And isn’t that a skillset that carries to every form of communication? We all ought to get to the point already.

      My point here is, writing isn’t some habit like brushing my teeth that just has to be checked off that I may sleep better at night. Writing—great writing anyway—feels right because we know intuitively that it’s touched something essential and vital within us. Who are we to slog along checking boxes? And so I’m unsure whether to simply quietly walk away from the blog to focus on more long-form writing or to double down on making it magical. The question I’m asking myself is, is this the right place for magic?

      Of course, I know the answer even as I type the question. We ought to put the very best of ourselves into every endeavor, for everything we create touches someone. Don’t we owe it to the reader to offer something worthy of their time? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to put our very best into everything that we know deep down matters a great deal to us? Writing is building a bridge between our previous self and whomever that future person will become. Similarly, the writer is building a bridge to a reader he may never see, who may not even exist for generations after the writer’s last day. Seen in that context, perhaps tearing down the bridge right in the middle isn’t for the best. Perhaps the answer is to build a bridge that endures.

    • A Sequence of Everything Wanted

      “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

      Slow down you’re doing fine
      You can’t be everything you want to be before your time
      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      In a dizzying turn of events, last night capped a sequence of things wanted for some time delightfully happening one after the other, from Rome to Athens to Sicily to Florence to… New Hampshire. Life is sometimes simply great timing, realized. To visit the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel and the Acropolis and Mount Etna, to see Michelangelo’s La Pietà and David to bookend an epic trip and then return home to find the elusive Aurora Borealis dancing in my own backyard hours later is a sequence I’ll be processing for some time, thank you. This isn’t meant to be a brag about how lucky the last couple of weeks have been, rather a realization that patiently working towards something combined with a bit of good luck goes a long way in a lifetime. Amor fati.

      The thing is, I wear my impatience on my sleeve (and blog about it more often than I ought to). Some of us simply want to get right to everything as quickly as possible, knowing that time flies and we aren’t getting any younger. Sure, tempus fugit, but slow down—you’re doing fine… Vienna waits for you. Simply plot the steps, do the work, follow through and hope fortune smiles on you.

      Hope is a tricky word, and that’s where impatience comes in. Perhaps the better word is trust. We must trust the process when we build our systems. Work, marriage, fitness level, artistic contribution, social interactions, and yes, bucket list items are all lifestyle choices built on faith that doing this will lead to that. When it doesn’t arrive promptly we restless types get a bit impatient, so a reminder of all that’s come to pass helps now and then. Gratitude goes a long way.

      Life lessons are all around us, if we simply stop rushing about so much and focus on the journey. The biggest lesson is that the journey continues, and each milestone is simply a marker for where we’ve been and what we’ve seen and who we were at the time. What’s next matters too, doesn’t it? Our past is our foundation for the growth to come. We shall get there some day. For haven’t we thus far?

      Aurora Borealis, New Hampshire 10 May 2024
      Aurora Borealis, New Hampshire 10 May 2024
      Aurora Borealis, New Hampshire 10 May 2024
      Michelangelo’s La Madonna della Pietà
      Michelangelo’s David

    • Sensory Miracles

      “Slow down and taste and smell and hear, and let your senses come alive. If you want a royal road to mysticism, sit down quietly and listen to all the sounds around you. You do not focus on any one sound; you try to hear them all. Oh, you’ll see the miracles that happen to you when your senses come unclogged.” — Anthony de Mello, Awareness

      I had the opportunity to walk around Mykonos as a guide for a blind man. His wife was eager to shop with mine, so we set them free to go be. We went for a nice walk through the miracles of sensory experience that are the streets of Mykonos. Doing this on my own surely would have been joyful (if you can’t find joy in Mykonos you are truly lost), but my joy was amplified by awareness of things I take for granted—things like variations in terrain, people walking towards me, and the many curbs, shelves and flowering vines protruding from buildings that make Mykonos such a beautiful place to wander about.

      The first thing you notice as a guide is pace. Everything slows down as you guide another person with their hand on your shoulder and your focus expands beyond yourself to what is coming up that may trip them up or bump at them from above. Once pace is established, next comes heightened awareness, that you may describe all that surrounds you both in ways that are hopefully interesting to your blind counterpart. Flowering vines, the grout between paving stones underfoot, the white painted stucco and narrow streets providing naturally cool places to move about, and the miniature cars and trucks navigating those tight streets, often prompting a retreat to doorways and up steps.

      The thing is, I will always remember Mykonos differently for having guided him through its streets in this way for a couple of hours. Having been the one seeing a place both for the first time and in this way for the first time, I can’t help but have a stronger affinity for Mykonos through that experience than if I’d simply wandered about on my own. Perhaps my senses finally unclogged as I was taught to see for the first time. We should all be blessed with such an opportunity.

    • The Places We Will Be From

      Closing time, you don’t have to go home
      But you can’t stay here
      — Semisonic, Closing Time

      There’s something comfortable about staying in place. Things feel more natural and familiar, after all, and this is where all our friends are. But life is change, and we too must embrace it. Even the farmer, seemingly always in the same place, changes with the seasons. Most of us aren’t farmers, but we ought to listen to the wind and watch the level of the sun and know our place in this world will not be what it once was. We must be change agents for progress to happen.

      Closing time, time for you to go out
      To the places you will be from

      It’s easy to think back about who we were then. It’s harder to imagine who we’ll be in the future, let alone to map the path from here to there very accurately. Surely, there will be unexpected twists and turns along the way. The future is not ours, any more than the past is us today. But we do have the present, such that it is, to do with it what we will. Someday this will be who we used to be too. So we ought to make it a great story.

      Closing time, every new beginning
      Comes from some other beginning’s end

      When one door closes, another is said to open. How many doors have closed already? No matter—not really. What matters is the door opening in front of us, and our willingness to step across the threshold to what’s next. Life is about reinvention, rebirth, renewal. It’s closing time on some older version of ourselves, isn’t it? We can’t stay here forever. But as with any great adventurer, we should develop a strong sense of what’s next.

    • Between the Mortal and the Enduring

      “When you are desiring things and fearing things, that’s mortality. The three temptations of the Buddha—desire, fear, and duty—are what hold you in the field of time. When you put the hermetic seal around yourself and, by discriminating between the mortal and the enduring, you find that still place within yourself that does not change, that’s when you’ve achieved nirvāṇa. That still point is the firmly burning flame that is not rippled by any wind.” — Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      We each wrestle with the three temptations that hold us in place. Surely, it would be irresponsible of us to simply march off deep into the woods amongst the trees, or atop a summit amongst the clouds, or if you like, to sail off into bliss amongst the rolling waves. And yet it is the desire to hold on to what we already have, or the fear of the unknown, or perhaps simply a sense of duty to others that hold us in place. There’s nothing wrong with staying in place, mind you, but we must remember the price: Tempus fugit.

      To see the world as it really is—to reach nirvana—is to see ourselves as we really are. We are skating the line between the mortal and the enduring, but our bodies are decidedly mortal. The fragility of this life is exactly why we wrestle so much with those three temptations in the first place. We might feel we’re running out of time, or fear we’re missing out on true fulfillment, as we plod along in our chosen role as child, spouse, parent, employee, teammate, friend, follower, mentor… whatever. The shackles are ours alone, aren’t they? Enlightenment was never role-dependent. We become who we will be in our time or we leave this world with untapped potential. It’s up to us to choose the next step.

      We know intuitively what endures. This lifetime is a quest for connection and enlightenment, that we may pick up, carry and then pass the torch to those who follow. Of course, the torch is a metaphor, it is the light we carry within ourselves and pass along. We may burn brightly when we shed the things that dampen our spirit.

      The thing is, we don’t have to chase after dreams, we simply have to reach towards awareness. We may still reach for that place within ourselves that does not change. We may still choose something enduring, even as we accept that we ourselves are mortal. Even as we feel the hold of our accumulated obligations, desires and fears, we should realize that we shouldn’t be chasing anything—we are simply becoming something.

    • To See What We See

      “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
      ― G.K. Chesterton

      I’m curious about the world, and so I wish to venture out into it to see what I might see. It’s the same reason I walk out into the backyard every morning, to see what the sky looks like, to see the progress of the garden, to feel the coolness of the breeze and realize the potential in the day. If I feel this way walking into the backyard, it follows that I’d be equally curious about any other place I might go to, don’t you think? So it is that simply traveling to check boxes is not nearly enough.

      We know the old expression; to live an interesting life, we must be interested. To be curious about the universe spinning around us is the opposite of being self-centered. Looking outward inquisitively draws the universe into our orbit, enriching us all as the walls between fall away. We rise to meet the moment in such interactions, and become something far more than an empty soul.

      In this moment, I’m standing lightly atop a stepping stone, having landed from back-to-back trips and gathering myself to launch into the next trip. By the time I’ve done the laundry I’ll be packing up once again. These are days you’ll remember, I tell myself, even as I look around at this place I’ve landed in (home) with a fresh set of eyes. Every day should offer something to remember, if we remain open to seeing what unfolds before us.

      The best way to savor anything is to realize that it’s all going to fall away one day. We may never pass this way again. So make the most of it when we’re in that moment. That goes for travel as much as parenting or gardening or eating a great meal. There is only now, and this. So what do we see?

    • A Visit to the Getty Center’s Gardens

      “Always changing, never twice the same,” — Robert Irwin

      A day at the Getty must include a visit to the extensive collections exhibited in the museum buildings. Included in the collection are famous works like Vincent van Gogh’s “Irises” and Rembrandt’s self-portrait “Rembrandt Laughing“, along with significant works by Cézanne, Monet, Claudel and many more. One needs a full day at the Getty to see everything, and even then you feel compelled to return again as soon as possible.

      The gardens at the Getty Center are equally impressive and a must-see destination of their own. Robert Irwin’s Central Garden is a marvel in any season, and as with any magnificent garden, he practically demands that you see it in every season. In all honesty, I’d been wanting to see the museum for some time, but it was the gardens that really called to me. They don’t disappoint.

      Robert Irwin’s Central Garden is the star, with a stunning water feature, iron rod tree sculptures with bougainvillea rising through them, and an ever-changing flower-lined meandering path that leads you down to a central pond. It’s simply a must-see. Not to be undone, the Cactus Garden reaches out towards Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean in a dramatic balcony seen from different levels. Other gardens fill the Getty as well: sculpture gardens, fountains and large rock gardens make wandering outside the museum as desirable as your time spent indoors.

      For me personally, it was time with my daughter in a magical place. She shares my love of art and the artistic process, and is pursuing her own dream to have a creative, expressive career. To share the Getty experience with her made the moment. For we too are always changing and never the same twice. And isn’t that also quite beautiful?

    • A Visit to Red Rock Canyon

      The region I live in was experiencing a total eclipse on April 8th. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada with an opportunity to see a partial eclipse. I might have been chagrined by this at another time in my life, but now? Amor fati friends. I watched the eclipse I had before me and made the most of the place and time I had available and visited Red Rock Canyon.

      Red Rock Canyon more than lives up to its name, but red is just one of the many colors in this desert environment. Calico might have been a better choice, and one section of the scenic drive does have that name. It’s a stunning departure from the ugliest parts of humanity you might find elsewhere in the city.

      The scenic drive is a one-way, 13 mile loop winding through the canyon. The one-way nature of it is a blessing as drivers are distracted enough already by the scenery without having to worry about cars coming at them head-on. But it does mean you should take the time to stop at every point of interest for there’s no going back.

      A drive is nice, but I was here to hike. There is a nice network of trails throughout the area, but we spent the bulk of our time at Calico Hills scrambling and hiking amongst the massive sandstone formations. It was similar to Joshua Tree National Park in many ways, without the scale of that place, but more than making up for it with convenient proximity to Las Vegas.

      The region is very popular with rock climbers and we watched dozens of them climbing the cliffs on our hike. Like gambling, rock climbing is not my game, but I can appreciate the skills of those who pursue it. Hiking and scrambling are enough for me, and in a place this beautiful this close to the Vegas Strip, I found the experience both exhilarating and immensely enjoyable.

    • To Shed, and Grow

      “We must be willing to get rid of
      the life we’ve planned, so as to have
      the life that is waiting for us.

      The old skin has to be shed
      before the new one can come.

      If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
      When we hang onto any form,
      we are in danger of putrefaction.

      Hell is life drying up.”
      ― Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      Walking on the beach last week, I picked up two shells. One was tiny and in perfect shape, the other larger and more surf-beaten. Shell identification is not my game, but I like learning new games.. Based on a helpful shell identifier web site I found, we’ll call the small one a Threeline Mudsnail, the other a Shark Eye. I regret not holding on to the Shark Eye if only for the name… but I digress.

      We know that Hermit Crabs swap out old shells for new as they grow. We know that snakes do something similar with their skin thus making Campbell’s analogy resonate so well. Potted plants grow pot-bound and begin to fade if we don’t repot them into something bigger. So what of us? Why do we try to hold on to so much of our past instead of growing into the next version of ourselves? When we create a life for ourselves, parts of that life are going to fall away from us. People come and go. Favorite restaurants close. Developments are built in woods that used to speak to us. Everything changes and so too must we.

      Lately, a few friends have left the company I work for in favor of greater opportunity for themselves. In each case I cheer them on to do great things with their lives, even as I feel the loss of their contribution to the place where I still work. We must grow or risk drying up in the old shell we’ve built around ourselves. Like my kids growing into adulthood and moving to other places, these work friends will still be in my life, just not every day. It’s not a goodbye, it’s until we meet again.

      The trick, I believe, is to stop feeling so comfortable with the character we once were and begin feeling comfortable with the idea of a new identity. When we decide who we want to be and begin the process of becoming that person, we are shedding our old skin. We often wonder after we’ve left it why we held on so very long to something we were so ready to leave behind.

    • To Give Light

      “What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow-man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born.
      Who knows what other planets we will be visiting and what new wonders there will unfold? We certainly live more than once. Do we ever die—that is the question. In any case, thank God we are alive and of the stars—into all eternity. Amen!” — Henry Miller

      The thing about stars that may interest only me is that they give light to the eternal darkness of the universe for however long they exist. They aren’t relying on other stars for their energy—perhaps a little gravitation pull now and then, perhaps a bit of orbital spin, but their energy is all their own. Stars shine light into the vacuum of space with no expectation that anyone will receive it someday. That’s of no concern to the star—all their energy is put into giving light while they dance in their orbit to infinity and beyond.

      And here we are, stardust ourselves, receiving that light and mixing it with our own. We too are here to shine; we mustn’t ever worry where our own light goes, just that we give it freely to the universe in our time. The question is never whether to give light, but what our light should be. Perhaps, as Miller suggests, the answer is simply to enjoy this life eternal in our time and solve more problems than we create. Maybe it’s enough for us to put positive energy into the universe that illuminates others in their darkness, that they too might shine.

      Sometimes I wonder if I’m spinning in the right orbit or perhaps even burning out. There are days when I don’t want to do much of anything but find when I stop focusing on the void and begin the process something worthwhile eventually arrives to greet me. Something like the little note to himself Miller wrote in 1918 find their way to me and now to you, to serve as a reminder: Who are we to keep the light to ourselves?