Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • The Rules of the Game

      Pre-dawn magic time once again on Buzzards Bay. Up early today, but not earliest this time. My brother-in-law, who owns a hardware store, was busy on his laptop in the kitchen as I headed out for the light show. A barge drifted past delivering oil to Boston. Yes, even on this Labor Day many people are hard at work keeping the world moving forward. And as I watch the rest of the world wake up, I’m pondering a few quotes on this Labor Day in the United States. This may be thought a day of rest for the common man, and I surely am that, but instead I contemplate the game of work, and the challenges that lie ahead.

      “If you don’t build your dream someone will hire you to help build theirs.” – Tony Gaskins

      “You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” – David Foster Wallace, Infinit Jest

      “If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.” – Chinese Proverb

      “Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process.  The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents – will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      As I write, a crow lands atop a nearby tree, mocking me with its caw. The world owes us nothing, it lectured me, and it’s up to us to make something of ourselves. Pause, reflect, shift if you must, and move ahead. There’s only today after all.

    • Stories to Come

      “At first sight the field seemed flawless; floe country. Then I set out across it and started to see the signs. The snow was densely printed with the tracks of birds and animals – archives of the hundreds of journeys made since the snow had stopped… Most of the animal tracks on the course had been left by rabbits. If you’ve seen rabbit prints in the snow, you will know they resemble a Halloween ghost mask, or the face of Edward Munich’s screamer: the rear two feet are placed laterally to make elongated eyes, and between and behind them fall the forefeet in a slightly offset paired line, forming nose and oval mouth. Thousands of these faces peered at me from the snow.” – James Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

      I first read this passage from Macfarlane’s book seven years ago, and was stunned by the beauty of this opening story of walking out into a golf course after it snowed. Lately I’ve been looking back on a few books I’d loved before, ignoring for a spell the stack of books waiting for me to make their acquaintance. Life is short and there’s only so many pages to read in the daily march. But I wanted to revisit this magical golf course with Macfarlane, and see those faces in the snow once more. You know great writing when you read it, and for me, this was it.

      They say if you want to write better you should read more, and of course get out and see the world. I believe one hand washes the other, and writing prompts me to read and see more too. So goes the dance. I’ve been an avid reader, an eager traveler and an occasional writer. Writing every day has amplified my reading and travel alike. With a few trips planned, both business and pleasure, I’m looking forward to seeing how that travel flavors the writing.

      This morning the writing took place back inside in a chair facing back into the room, away from the world waking up behind me. By all rights I should spin the chair around and look outward, but the inward view has its merits too. I came inside as the coolness of the morning air mocked my choice of clothing. It’s August still, but the air says September. Our cat resumed her routine of sitting behind me, covering my back literally and figuratively, should the chipmunks and squirrels stage a late summer raid. She approves of my move indoors, appreciating the company. I think of days to come, and wonder what I’ll write about next. Like a stack of books waiting for you, there are so many stories to get to, and never quite enough time.

    • The In Between Time

      Once, while hiking the Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine, I woke up to the sound of splashing in the small pond our tent overlooked. Rising to observe, I watched a moose swim across the pond, climb out the other side, shake himself off and disappear over the hill on the opposite shore. I never saw that moose again, but see it clearly almost three decades later. I’ve chased mornings like that ever since.

      Re-discovering Vagabonding has offered new perspective on many of the quotes Rolf Potts sprinkled throughout the book.  Today I’m borrowing two from his collection.  First, the extraordinary Joseph Campbell, of “Follow your Bliss” and “Hero With a Thousand Faces” fame:

      “People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re really seeking is an experience of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

      There’s a lot of stoicism in that quote.  The experience of being alive.  I feel most alive on the edges of the day.  The early morning, when I’m often alone with the world, and after sunset, when the light show continues well past the sun disappearing.  The morning offers possibility, reflection on what came before and that rare moose sighting.  I’ve documented plenty of early morning observations on this blog less grand than that moose swimming, but exclamation points on a moment just the same.  The early morning is when you hear the call to follow your bliss.

      I smelled our dog Bodhi last week. He’s passed but still with us; in random wisps of hair found under the sofa, in the dog infrastructure – bowls, food bins and the like – built up to support our canine habit, and especially in the smell of that dog that comes out on a rainy day in the harness and collar hanging in the garage waiting for a final walk that will never come. He stays with us still, Carpet Fresh be damned.

      I also borrowed a bit of Annie Dillard wisdom from Rolf Potts:

      “This is our life, these are our seasons, and then we die. In the meantime, in between time, we can see.” – Annie Dillard

      The time after sunset is when the light show really begins.  If you’re lucky the sky offers you wispy clouds that reflect the fading light in brilliant hues from orange to purple.  When a moment, or a life, has passed, the lingering memory may offer brilliant reflection, staying with us well beyond their time, as the light dances above well after the sunset.  Moments like that moose return to me like the smell of Bodhi on his collar, whispering “I’m still with you”.

      I do think the edges of the day offer focus we may not have during the rest of the day.  Stillness brings awareness that might not be available during the frenzy of activity.  But whether we focus on them or not, each breath is a part of the sum of all of our breaths, and demand consideration. Here again, Annie Dillard reminds us:

      “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dillard

      So our days (and lives) begin with a call to follow our bliss, and end with memories and reflection.  It’s the in between time that is the bulk of our days, and savoring each moment, not just the Instagram moments, is essential. Writing, for me, offers the optics with which to focus on the everyday, and not just that occasional moose moment.

    • An Infinite Sea

      When I was 17 I was sure I’d found my vocation. I’d become a draftsman, and the drafting table was a place where time flew by in a blur. But even then the ripples of change were in the air, and CAD (Computer-Aided Design) was taking over. Pencils couldn’t keep up with programming, and I opted for college to find a wider channel.

      Each man has his own vocation.  The talent is the call.  There is one direction in which all space is open to him.  He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion.  He is like a ship in a river: he runs against obstructions on every side but one, on that side all obstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea.  This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarcerates itself to him.  He inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when it is done, but which no other man can do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

      Emerson witnessed the American Industrial Revolution happening all around him in Waltham, Lowell, Lawrence, Fitchburg and other mill towns. The pace of change was extraordinary for the time, and still inspires awe. Cities bursting upwards from ancient land, transformed forever from ancient forests to quiet farmland to bustling brick and steel blocks as far as the eye could see. Timeless rivers dammed and diverted into canals that fed in turn the turbines and the looms and the mill workers and most of all the mill owners and investors. Railways and highways built and expanded to move goods efficiently from place-to-place. Neighborhoods creeping ever outwards to house the workers. The transformation is ongoing in an ebb and flow of maddening hunger for more and more.

      Mixed into this crush of transformation was the pressure to keep up, leading to consumer debt and then student debt. Shackled to interest payments, how does a young person navigate the obstructions on all sides and find the channel that brings them to the endless sea? The system is set up to feed the beast, not the soul of the worker. The futility of this leads to anxiety, blame and rage. Look around in America today and you see it everywhere. The dream lives on, but obstacles clog the channel. That channel is there, if only we break free of the obstacles. Too many never do.

      “Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.” – Leonardo da Vinci

      I’m further down the river, but haven’t reached that infinite sea. The writing feels like a better channel, though it’s currently a hobby not a vocation. I’ve sprinkled long form writing into many career stops down the river, but one man’s channel is another’s obstacle. In business long form writing gets swept aside for quick sound bites of absolutely necessary information and then on to the next thing.

      Better to find a better audience, and technology allows for that to a degree, even as it eliminates other opportunities. The proverbial river has changed since Emerson’s America, narrower channel in some places, wider in spots, but dammed up in others. Opportunities to find your way to that infinite sea have never been more available, just stop bouncing from shore to shore trying to find the channel and the journey will be a lot easier. There’s no serenity out of the channel (where too many find themselves), and the sea awaits.

    • State Change

      Everything has changed. Well almost everything. New sounds; I’ve never heard that dog bark before. The rumble and back-up beeping of construction equipment is new too. Seems to be road work happening at the top of the hill. A young squirrel is working the oak tree in the neighbors’ yard and there’s a constant drip of acorns plummeting through the leaves and thumping onto the ground.  Seems early for the dropping acorns but the squirrel seems to know more than I do about the matter.

      Some birds remain, like the brown thrasher I spent all summer trying to figure out. But the bluebirds are gone, and with them the feeling of early summer. Some new birds sing but I can’t place them. Migrating from someplace to another destination, with a quick stop in my neighborhood. I don’t know birds like I know some other things. But the more I know about anything the less I seem to know about that very thing.  Such is the way of the world.  I’ve learned to respect the journey of self-education, and hate myself for falling into the trap of thinking I know everything about anything.  Worse still is acting so.  Better to be open to the world around you; a sponge not a bullhorn.  There are far too many bullhorns already.

      Autumn is in the air. I felt it on Buzzards Bay as the winds shifted. This is first day of school bus stop air, and we aren’t yet halfway through August. And here in New Hampshire with the cool, humid air and white noise background buzz of crickets singing their late summer song.  Getting outside away from media opens the senses and the mind alike.  But other changes are in the air. A quarter of the family flying to London soon state change kind of air.  Another quarter entering senior year in college kind of air.  And what are we doing in this big house with all this stuff kind of air.

      Gone for a week and everything is different.  It would have been different if I’d been here too, but the daily gradual change isn’t noticed the way it is when you step away for a bit. Everything changes constantly. And so do I. A little for the better in some ways, a little for the worse in others, but generally more growth than decline. We all know what the ultimate end game is, but that doesn’t mean you have to live like you’re dead already. I know too many people who live in virtual bubble wrap, watching the world pass them by. I want to shake them loose, and whatever cobwebs I’ve grown myself, and shout “Embrace the changes; there’s magic in the air if you’ll only feel it!”

      I have a drive to Connecticut to get to.  That drive brings me from New Hampshire through Massachusetts to Connecticut, then the reverse this evening for the drive back.  Four hour round trip drive time, and more like seven hours with meetings thrown in the mix.  I could probably stay overnight in Connecticut, but there are compelling reasons to get back home this week, and so I’ll do the round trip instead.  My state change is both literal and figurative today.  But I do enjoy the journey.