Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • The Nerve for Excellence

      “A New Yorker essay that fall noted that mathematicians do good work while they are young because as they age they suffer “the failure of the nerve for excellence.” The phrase struck me, and I wrote it down. Nerve had never been a problem; excellence sounded novel.” — Annie Dillard, Afterword of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

      Take that New Yorker example of mathematicians and apply it to rock stars. How many Paul McCartney or Elton John or Joni Mitchell songs written in their 40’s or later resonate as much as those written in their 20’s? They may be good or even great, but they aren’t classics. Excellence requires the nerve to go for it.

      As someone who is no longer in their twenties, I remember the audacity of youth as much as I appreciate the pursuit of safer routes as we age. After all, we’ve got bills to pay and mouths to feed and a 401(k) to nurture, right? So what does that mean for those of us who aren’t kids anymore? Should we hang it up after we hit 30? Of course not. But we have to stretch beyond our comfort zone if we want to achieve anything beyond the average.

      Sure, when we’re young we have less to lose, so it becomes comparatively easy to jump in to the deep end. But there are other ways to reach the deep end. We can methodically wade in one step at a time. Or to flip analogies, when everyone around us is slowing down to savor the view, we still have the choice to power up the hill.

      Nobody reaches mastery without tenacity and drive. Surely there’s a case for perseverance. For incrementally—relentlessly—applying accumulated knowledge towards our goal. Will that lifetime work become a masterpiece? Few ever do, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the nerve to try.

      Go deeper. Climb higher. See what we might make of our best work.

    • On Place and the Tilt of the Earth

      “I am summer, come to lure you away from your computer… come dance on my fresh grass, dig your toes into my beaches.” — Oriana Green

      Maybe it was appropriate that today, June 21, the Summer Solstice, I awoke at 4 AM—just in time to mark the exact minute (4:13 AM CST) of the tip of the planet back towards shorter days. But let’s worry about that tomorrow, for today is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. After bouncing from Vienna to Boston to Nashville, my body isn’t quite sure which time zone it currently resides in. Yet the mind is fully rested and ready to hit the day.

      By the time of the solstice it usually feels like summer has been with us awhile. This year feels different, like I’m running away from the season. Travel will do that. I spent a day at home assessing the neglected garden before flying off once again. Is that a tragedy or simply a new way of experiencing the season? The weeds seem to enjoy my absence, while the cats seem surprisingly annoyed when I packed a suitcase as soon as the laundry was done from the previous trip. Sorry felines, the world calls.

      Do you wonder why we heed the call at all? Isn’t summer a chance to slow down and relax for awhile? Tell that to a farmer. Europeans know how to take a proper holiday, Americans jump right into the next thing. Which is right? It depends on what you want your life to be.

      Ultimately summers, like life, are made by what we do with the time. Whether our longest day or our shortest matters little if we don’t make something of the moment. Experience begins with presence, the rest is just finding a place to land and the tilt of the earth.

    • Become a Holy Fire

      “And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, “When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

      Walking about the garden upon a return from two weeks in Europe, seeing the progress of some plants and the decline of others from neglect, it’s easy to become lost in self-forgetfulness. Minor tasks become meditative when we focus on the work. So it is with hiking in solitude, where every step matters and the mind is forced to quiet itself that you may land properly to take the next one.

      If the aim is to become more open to the spirit of the world around us, surely we must quiet the chatter in our own heads. Be still, learn to listen, observe and receive the energy that might otherwise bounce off our closed mind to find a more willing recipient. What do we lose in our closed-minded self-conversation but our chance to be one with the universe?

      The thing is, most of our self-talk is useless at best and detrimental to our progress at worst. Our Lizard Brain, as Seth Godin calls it, is our worst enemy, making us feel like we aren’t measuring up, that we should have done things differently, that we don’t deserve the moment we’re in now. It’s all crap, and not what we’d expect in a close friend. But who is closer to us than ourselves?

      This Hasidic concept of receptiveness is one way to push aside the self. If we are to become a holy fire today—and in our stack of days, we must tune our receiver and accept the positive fuel that stokes our furnace. We must throw aside the wet blanket of self and accept the world as it offers itself to us.

    • Mastery is a Beacon

      “Besides, isn’t it confoundedly easy to think you’re a great man if you aren’t burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?“ — Stefan Zweig, Chess Story

      My mind is still in Vienna as I write this—a city that’s had its fair share of high achievers walk her streets and contribute to humanity’s Great Conversation in their life’s work. Big names roamed those same streets, and you might feel a need to raise your game when you walk with that level of ghosts—I surely did. And shouldn’t we feel this compulsion to close the gap between the masters and where we currently reside?

      The world offers precious few brilliant shining stars. Most of us burn less brilliantly. And yet we burn just the same, and cast our own light on the darkness in the world. We may recognize that we aren’t quite at the level of a master in our field yet still have something to offer anyway. And knowing that there are more brilliant lights in human history, we may choose to stoke our fire—feed it with the fuel necessary to one day burn more brilliantly still.

      What provokes us towards greatness but comparison? We may never reach those levels, few do, but knowing there are heights we haven’t reached yet ought to inspire more. For mastery is a beacon.

    • Vividly Awake

      “Time to leave now, get out of this room, go somewhere, anywhere; sharpen this feeling of happiness and freedom, stretch your limbs, fill your eyes, be awake, wider awake, vividly awake in every sense and every pore.” — Stefan Zweig

      There were so many days during the pandemic when we told ourselves some version of Zweig’s quote. Now that the world is opening up again, we ought to stretch our limbs a bit and see what we’ve been missing while we were sheltering in place. The trick is that when we stir that vitality it’s impossible to revert back to the box we once existed in.

      Travel literally carries us to other places. Figuratively too, naturally, but always with an eye on our previous self and an underlying awareness of what comes next. We become aware of the changes we put ourselves through, as they say, even as we plot the next step.

      Joie de Vivre! We should embrace this freedom to experience the world and make the most our opportunity to squeeze joy out of the marrow of each day. For life is a gift, and so is our chance to fly. If we become what we repeatedly do, shouldn’t we choose to be vividly awake? And save the rest for eternity.

    • Courageously Memorable

      “All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.” — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      Taking the train between Salzburg and Vienna I’m reminded of Salzburg’s famous son, Mozart, who made this journey himself. Doing so launched his contribution to music and humanity to a level than it would have had he stayed home—a level of mastery very few attain in their lifetime. Sure, we know that taking this trip on its own doesn’t make us memorable, we’ve got to deliver the goods when we get there. Young Wolfgang delivered.

      Maybe that’s too much pressure for now. Maybe following in the footsteps of Mozart now might stir inspiration for later. We don’t accomplish great things without a rigorous apprenticeship and the courage to raise our hand when our time comes. Knowing when to raise our hand is as essential as knowing when to keep it down. Yet too many never get around to saying it’s our time. That shouldn’t be us.

      We sense when it is necessary for us to raise our game. We know when we can do more. The world may remain indifferent, but no matter. What matters is that we summon up the courage to rise up and do our very best to make our work memorable.

    • Beyond the Same Place

      “For I assure you, without travel, at least for people from the arts and sciences, one is a miserable creature!…A man of mediocre talents always remains mediocre, may he travel or not–but a man of superior talents, which I cannot deny myself to have without being blasphemous, becomes–bad, if he always stays in the same place.” — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      There are forces that work on you when you’re in the middle of travel. Time flexes, and the clock you’re familiar with slips off-kilter. Truthfully, it’s us that slips off-kilter, the clock remains indifferent. Travel forces adaptation and change. Those who stubbornly hold on to their routine aren’t rewarded with the benefit of transformation. Let the world wash over you and the old ways of thinking are swept away. You’re carried to new ideas and lifted to new places.

      In one evening of wine-fueled conversation I practiced German with Austrians, French with a well-travelled Frenchman and discussed the origins of Christian names with an Irish woman. Moments like that remain locked in your mind, even as it releases you from your previous way of looking at the world. We can never stay in the same place, we must reach beyond to grow.

      We’re all on a path of becoming something more than we might otherwise be. Travel done well is a shock to the system, allowing us to get past ourselves. It can’t help but make us better at our work, for it surely transforms us as people.

    • Go, Deeply

      “Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” — Richard P. Feynman

      Each day is an opportunity to discover—inching further along on our search for more insight into who we are. We may never find the true meaning of life, but why do we even dwell on such things? Meaning comes from action. We ought to live deliberately and stack the building blocks into whatever form suits us in our brief dance with the world.

      The world unfolds for us one moment at a time. What do we do with that experience? Shouldn’t we layer it into our identity, not in arrogant claims of global box-checking, but in accumulated bits of flavor and influence? What makes us interesting is our passionate interest in the complex dynamics playing out around us, be that human tendencies or the larger forces in the universe. Immersive travel, reading, listening and education are where we serve our apprenticeship in being citizens of the universe.

      So just when do we transcend apprenticeship? Can we ever, really? We reach closer to mastery when we venture more deeply into the act of living. Boldly layering experience and accumulated knowledge into a rich, meaningful life. And maybe that’s just enough.

    • Silencing Voices

      “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” — Vincent van Gogh

      When we figure out the truth in van Gogh’s words dictates exactly how creative we’ll be at any given stage of life. He didn’t achieve “success” until he’d left this world, for us the world spends little time worrying about our feelings on the matter. The truth is we have but precious little time to silence our own voices and chase dreams. Why wait?

      The problem we have is we see what the masters do in any field, and compare our work to that. We have difficulty reconciling our incremental step towards mastery with the brilliant work of others before us, without ever considering the stumbles they took on their path. The work evolves when the mind puts aside resistance and gets to it.

      We’ve already made our mark on the world, subtle as it might seem. Our splash ripples even as we contemplate our next dive into the unknown. Knowing this, why not stretch our limits a bit on this next one? Silence our doubters one small step at a time.

    • Widening Circles


      I live my life in widening circles
      that reach out across the world.
      I may not complete this last one
      but I will give myself to it.

      I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
      I’ve been circling for thousands of years
      and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
      a storm, or a great song?
      — Rainer Maria Rilke

      This act of giving ourselves to it—to experiencing life and being an active part in the dance, is what living is all about. You want meaning in your life? Give yourself to it. Don’t recede into the corner, for we aren’t meant to be wallflowers. Get out and mingle. Find those kindred spirits looking for a spark.

      Readers know I embrace solitude wholeheartedly for the conversation I might have with myself. I celebrate the offseason as much as anyone! Yet those closest to me observe that I actively engage with everyone around me. And why not? Aren’t we all fellow passengers on this cruise through the briefest of time? We ought to give ourselves to the mission and be fully alive in our moment together.

      Today is the beginning of another circle, reaching wider than the last, and carrying us to places previously unencountered. Give yourself to it! The world opens up for us through deliberate intent. Reach out and thrill in where it takes us.