Alexandersmap

    Category: Discovery

    • Making Magic

      “But all the magic I have known
      I’ve had to make myself.”
      — Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

      We all find our way in this world. The question is, our way to what? Some live a life of servitude framed in family expectations or social status. Some are brought up believing that nothing matters anyway, so why try? Some are so focused on transcending where they started that they are forever climbing, ignoring anything that doesn’t bring them ever-closer to the top. And some walk through life looking to capture the magic of the moment as they present themselves. We are what we focus on. Give me magic.

      Living a life where we are forever collecting moments of magic may seem a frivolous waste of time to the climbers. The non-believers will wonder what the point of it all is when life is nothing but despair and worry to them. We can only work to help them see what was dancing in front of them all along.

      Magic is spun out of art and words arranged just so. Hope and love and beauty are spun of magic. Generosity and purpose are woven of magical fibers. Magic is in the interaction between fellow travelers on life’s journey. Magic is manufactured out of parts and pieces and collaboration. Magic is getting out of the way to watch our children grow into exceptional humans. Magic is daring to notice. Magic is daring to do, despite all the naysayers who believe that magic is childish nonsense.

      As with anything in this brief moment of consciousness, magic offers a spark of insight and wonder to illuminate the darkness and show others what is hiding in plain sight. To make magic is to help others to see beyond the anger and fear and misery that a singular focus on non-magical things brings to the world. This blog post may be nothing but a jumble of words, heavily sprinkled with the one, or a catalyst for awareness. It’s not for me to say which it might be.

    • Purpose in the Flow

      Teachers told us the Romans built this place
      They built a wall and a temple
      And an edge of the empire garrison town
      They lived and they died
      They prayed to their gods
      But the stone gods did not make a sound
      And their empire crumbled till all that was left
      Were the stones the workmen found
      All this time
      The river flowed
      In the falling light
      Of a northern sun
      — Sting, All This Time

      Our empires will crumble one day: We learn to accept this even as we continue to gain momentum in the current of life, for this is our time and these are our days to do and be. To exist at all is a blessing worthy of a deliberate life. To move through our time deliberately is to honor the gift, even as we struggle to understand the meaning of it all.

      The river flows endlessly to the sea: At the point of their finally meeting is an estuary, with swirling whirlpools of confusion and the brackish mix of fresh and salt water exerting their will upon the other. The sea always wins in the end, but it never forgets that it is the river that gives it life. In return, it will give up it’s waters to begin the cycle again and again. So it is that life is a series of tolls paid for the privilege of being here, now. We ought to pay that toll with gratitude to our final breath.

      Progress hides in plain sight: We chip away at our goals—fitness, work, writing, books read, or maybe faraway ports of call, and with each small win we feel that sense of accomplishment for having made another step forward. Even the occasional stumble is okay, so long as we feel we’re moving in the right direction. We don’t really know where it all will take us, but collecting incremental wins feel like the right thing to stack up in a short dance with a vibrant health span. What else are we going to do with our time but grow and learn and find connection with other like-minded beings making their own way through the madness of life? Our purpose is found in the flow, not in the arrival.

    • Put It to Words

      “Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such” ― Henry Miller

      Some mornings I don’t do anything right away. Nothing but let the pup out, feed the h’angry cats, step outside and settle into silent appreciation for the day as it is. Busy will come soon enough. Productive sometimes joins busy to offer a leap forward. And that can be enough some days. Having done some things, we feel that familiar pull to do something even more still.

      The trick in all of this is observation. We must listen more than we speak (two ears, one mouth). And we must learn to see what is dancing right in front of us, for it is life in all its tragic, hilarious, glorious entirety. And Walt Whitman had it right all along: That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

      That verse doesn’t write itself. I have some avid hiker friends who would do well to blog. To put their thoughts and feelings to words that would outlive their adventures traversing the granite and schist. Writing pulls something out of us that pictures don’t, even as they tell their thousand words. For those thousand words are mined from within, and brought to the surface to be shared.

      A woman I once worked with took a creative writing class and now every social media post is a beautiful postcard to the world of her early morning walks around the north shore of Massachusetts. The only reason to ever go on social media is to see what someone is doing with their brief go at things in this world—why not post something beautiful? Whatever our choice of expression, we do well by sharing our very best observations with others, that they may see what in that moment was only ours.

      These days I’m inclined to soak up everything for all it offers, yet I keep choosing that dance of busy and productive. One can have both, if each moment is approached with intent. These days will soon be over like all the rest before. What have we got to say about our encounter with it? Put it to words, friend. And share it with a world looking for something beautiful previously hidden from them.

    • The Whisper

      “The key to efficiency is doing things right. The key to effectiveness is doing the right things.” — Peter Drucker

      I’ve made some changes this summer that have in turn changed how I spend my time. Things I did in an unfocused way have become very focused, while things I shouldn’t have focused on at all have been removed entirely from my day. When we make changes, it’s important to take stock of how we react to these changes. What do we want more of? What do we miss? Which habits are going to finally stick and which will we forever be trying to kick?

      The trick in Drucker’s quote is knowing enough to stop doing the wrong things. We haven’t got time for wrong things in this brief go at things. Knowing the difference between what is right for us and what isn’t thus becomes essential to an effective life. But what is right and what is wrong anyway?

      To borrow from The Tubes old song, what do you want from life? What are we being efficient at that doesn’t align with what we want? If we’re moving with purpose but we’re going in the wrong direction aren’t we just wasting time? Life requires constant assessment. To check the compass now and then to find our true north before taking another step. But knowing what our true north is in the first place requires a level of self-awareness that takes time to develop.

      So it is that we must tackle everything we do as if it’s the most important thing in the world for us in that moment. Painting a room? Aim for perfect lines. Writing a proposal? Look for words that inspire and eliminate what detracts from the real message until it flows like a clear mountain stream. Grilling dinner? Turn down the heat and focus on the perfect moment to flip that fillet. Perfection lies within us, waiting for us to focus on every opportunity to reveal it.

      Any task or odd job will speak to us, informing us that yes, this is the right path, or no, this won’t do for us. If we half-ass the work, we’ll never know the potential in it (let alone our own potential). The whisper comes to those who are focused on excellence in whatever they do. That doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it once we’ve determined it isn’t right for us, but having done it well, we may leave it behind with honor and a hint for where to go next on our journey.

    • Beyond the Bro’s

      “I don’t want you to wake up at sixty-five and realize, ‘I spend forty of my best years doing something that just funded my life.” ― Jon Acuff

      I sat through a company meeting where the leadership team discussed the benefits of this new-fangled Artificial Intelligence thing to serve as an editor for the basic writing skills of people writing proposals. It confirmed what I’d come to believe: I’m working for yet another bunch of bro’s trying to figure shit out as they go. Damn. So once again the next move is mine.

      We move through life with things on our mind. Each stage of our development tends to be focused on one thing or another. If we’re brought up a certain way, we tend to think of others first. If we’re brought up a different way, we take care of our own needs first. At some point, we look around and realize that the time we thought we had has flown by and we’d better get focused on whatever our own version of personal excellence is before that opportunity is gone forever.

      I started writing a blog to fill a gap in my life that wasn’t being filled working for bro’s trying to figure shit out as they went. Writing a blog to fill a gap isn’t unusual, but there are other reasons. Some folks blog for self-marketing or to create content for their business or maybe worst of all, to serve some awful scheme to have <gulp> influence. Goodness, that’s an illusion best shed quickly so that one may get down the real work in blogging—discovery.

      We write for the same reasons we travel and read and talk to strangers: to discover some truth that was previously hidden from us. And maybe to share it with others inclined to wait for us to catch up. We write to learn how to write better, and not simply to have some AI editor toss out a bland but acceptable proposal. To move through life with the aim of being bro-approved is a version of hell I don’t wish on anyone. We must get past that stage of life if we ever hope to transcend the same old shit. Try a little discovery on for size and see what’s possible beyond the bro’s.

    • Bold Curiosity

      “With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.” ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

      Restraint is a very adult thing to celebrate. We admire the restraint in others, for it indicates a level of maturity and sophistication with which a person might rise to roles of responsibility and importance. We must have control over our emotions if we are to do anything of significance in this world. Parents have restraint, and so do pilots and bankers and chess champions. Without restraint we might be reckless, and reckless people have a limited shelf life in any endeavor. One must learn to master ones own self before mastery in any other discipline is possible.

      But what of boldness? Without boldness we would never leap. Our visions would remain unfulfilled. Can you imagine the great explorers in history full of restraint but lacking boldness? Their ships would never leave the safe harbor! And so it is that we too much learn to leap beyond what we perceive as comfortable if we ever hope to gain ground beyond the level we’ve always been lingering on. With a measure of boldness properly applied we may surprise ourselves at how far we might go from where we started. Boldness isn’t recklessness—it’s applied audacity. It’s going for it and pushing through whatever resistance we encounter to break through somewhere only previously imagined.

      Between restraint and boldness there is a gap bridged by curiosity. When we are curious enough, we will ask questions that we might not have asked otherwise. We might cross the road just to see what’s on the other side. We might climb a mountain just because it’s there. And we might fill a passport with stamps simply to see what all the fuss is about on the other side of borders built to restrain less audacious people than the the boldly curious people we aspire to be.

      We must never concede our agency to timidity and restraint. A full life is built on a blend of discipline, audacity and wonder. We all have a ratio that feels right for us in the moment, and learn that it changes over time as we test our limitations. Each stage of life presents unique opportunities to explore our gaps. The trick is to be curious in each stage, that we may be bold when the opportunity becomes apparent. A life given only to restraint is not much of a life at all. We must explore that which we’re on the brink of discovering, for want of a bit of bold curiosity.

    • This is Our Dance

      At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
      Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
      But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
      Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
      There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
      I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
      — T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

      “Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity… there is only the dance.”
      — George Leonard, The Silent Pulse: A Search for the Perfect Rhythm that Exists in Each of Us

      Read enough and you begin to hear echoes in the work of one writer to the next. As with music, there are only so many notes to play with, and sometimes you hear the hint of one song whispering to you from another. So it is that Leonard’s quote reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s poem. Eliot and Leonard aren’t really writing about the same thing, and yet they each come back to the dance with phrasing that catches one’s attention. Whispers across time and place, where past and future are gathered, dancing in the wind.

      Our lives are stillness and motion, emptiness and rhythm, past and present with a dream of tomorrows. We write and observe and play with words and thoughts and ideas. Just as we live our lives as best we can given the circumstances, so we pull together everything we have in the moment and write what we can with what we have at our disposal. Sometimes we find magic, sometimes we simply live to fight another day. We’re changed either way.

      I write this, not from stillness, but in the midst of the dance. Like that hike through the wild mustard I wrote about yesterday, the path is uncertain and each step presents a new challenge. The only answer is to push on through, finding the path with each step. This is our dance.

      Do you see the path? It’s hiding right in front of us.

    • A Hike in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve

      I don’t hike enough. And I don’t see my daughter nearly enough, so a weekend in Los Angeles filled the gap between East Coast and West Coast. She found a gem of a hike in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve for our final day together before I flew home. And as usual, we found adventure.

      “The more than 5,600-acre Upper Las Virgenes Open Space Preserve in the Simi hills at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, is part of a critical ecological linkage and wildlife corridor between the Santa Monica Mountains and the ranges to the north. Hikers, runners, mountain bikers and equestrians enjoy miles of trails through rolling hills studded with valley oaks, sycamore-lined canyon bottoms, and vistas of unspoiled California landscapes.” — Upper Las Virgenes Open Space Preserve web site

      Our hike in May coincided with peak blooming of the wild mustard, painting the rolling hills in yellows and greens. That wild mustard is an invasive species and takes over the landscape. It also grows pretty tall, well over my head. On the main trails that’s a pleasant observation. On the single-track side trails, it becomes a gauntlet of greenery that almost fully obscures the trail. Those flower petals quickly cover you head to toe. Naturally, we chose these trails to close out 2/3rds of our 4 mile hike. Who doesn’t love an adventure?

      Neither of us would have hiked it solo, but with me parting the sea of mustard and my daughter keeping a close eye on All Trails, we found a strong pace for the trail. The only lingering concern was the distinct possibility of disturbing a rattlesnake partially obscured on the trail. So every step was a close survey of where I was about to step. And one step at a time we eventually completed the hike and savored a celebratory tap of our Garmin watches as we got back to the car.

      Our hike was admittedly unique. Anyone sticking to the main trail will have an easier time of it, and be able to fully savor the views. We also hit the trails while the wild mustard was at peak. Beautiful for sure, but also a contributor to the state of the single track trails. Know what you’re walking into and choose wisely. For us, it was another strong memory built on a bit of boldness.

    • A Day Among Days

      “Yesterday nobody dreamed of to-day; nobody dreams of tomorrow. Hence the weather is ever the news. What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      I caught up with a neighbor yesterday. It seems that he quit his job a year ago to write and I never realized it. He simply did his outdoor chores, came and went and never talked about what he did the rest of the time. Now he’s going back to a job and debating whether to publish his writing or to

      remain anonymous. I encouraged him to publish even as I failed to mention in our conversation that I’ve published something every day for years. Who’s the anonymous one?

      The same day a business associate encouraged me to apply for a VP position in his company. I didn’t say no, but I definitely didn’t say yes either. Am I a creative person if I chase titles? Does my work suffer if I don’t explore all of my options? A day writing is similar to a day climbing the corporate ladder: what we produce determines the value we perceive in the time spent. Just what defines personal excellence for us anyway? There’s your value.

      Each day greets us with questions like these. And honestly, aren’t they really about what to do with our brief time? Whether we rise to meet the moment or let the opportunity slip away comes down to a combination of mindset and routine. Thus, our attitude, habits and grit determine the day. Stack enough together and we build a life. As we greet each new day with the tools we have at our disposal, we ought to remember to see this one like a tree in the forest: a day among all our days, but unique just the same.

    • What We Do Not Know

      “We shall either find what we are seeking, or free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.” — Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine

      Some of us remain lifetime students, some feel they have it all figured out. It often depends on how insular a life we choose to live. The comfort zone of insularity is nothing but a weighted blanket, and no great leaps occur while we’re curled up underneath it. We must venture into the unknown and challenge our assumptions if we are to grow and become something more.

      Imagine the brittle hollowness of a life with all the answers? Being a lifetime student is a delightful journey of discovery. We may be curious and not act on it, getting so busy with other things as we do. And then one day something sparks our curiosity and we seek answers. Writing a blog surely kicked my curiosity into another gear. One question answered leads to another awaiting attention. Writing is a thrill when we are seeking to fill something within ourselves and share it with our fellow students.

      Renault used the quote above twice in her book. Once as something Socrates said, then as a direct quote from Plato. No surprise, really, for a student to be saying something the teacher has said before. We are all turning the same questions around in our minds. Is it any wonder that the insights of one generation should be embraced as their own by the next? We all think we’re so different from those who came before us, when all we are is a different draft of the same creative work.

      I have a stack of books resentful that yet another book should leap ahead of them, gathering dust as they are awaiting my interest to return to them. All those books on shelves represent the aspirations of who we once were, looking towards a brighter future of enlightenment. That potential still resides there on the shelf like buried treasure, should we return to it one day.

      We will all leave this world with unanswered questions. Like books on a shelf we never got to, even with the best of intentions. It was always meant to be this way—we just have to discover that fact at our own pace.