Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • That Fierce Embrace

      It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
      or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel
      abandoned.
      If you know despair or can see it in others.
      I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world
      with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
      with firm eyes saying this is where I stand. I want to know
      if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living
      falling toward the centre of your longing. I want to know
      if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequences of love
      and the bitter
      unwanted passion of your sure defeat. I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
      the gods speak of God.

      — David Whyte, Self Portrait

      To be ourself in a world that expects acceptance, or at the very least acquiescence, is audacious. Mothers, wanting the very best for their babies, might call it reckless. Best to fall in line, get a proper degree, leading to a proper job, offering a proper life. ‘Tis proper, we’re trained to believe, to focus on the score. Grades and status and titles and the right zip code.

      The score is memento mori. The score is tempus fugit. If we are to melt into that fierce heat of living, we must go against the grain more often than our tribe may be comfortable with. They only want the best for us. We know this, and we must learn to be bold anyway. A lifetime is far too short for all that we want for ourselves, let alone all that our tribe expects of us.

      The real question, the one we’ve avoided all along in this tribal dance, is why won’t we simply embrace it?

    • Step Out

      Now I’m thinkin’ about her everyday
      On my mind, atypical way
      Are you a life force?
      — Caamp, By and By

      It must be the cold air in the dark hours. September offers more dark hours, and thus more cold air, than the preceding months. When we walk out into colder air, we feel we’re walking out into something. We learn to brace for it. We come to love it.

      As we pull on an extra layer and step out from the walls that surround us into the infinite truth, what comes to mind? For me, the music on my mind is seasonal. Just as I have my summer soundtrack, I have a soundtrack for autumn. It’s like welcoming an old friend back. Here we are again. So much has changed but we still have this.

      Are you a life force? In these angry, divisive and violent times, just what do we stand for? What walls currently surround us, holding us back from something infinitely larger than who we are? Step out and find the truth.

    • A Shared Experience

      “The Scripture rule, “Unto him that hath shall be given,” is true of composition. The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      Give and it shall be given. A bit of Luke for the casual Bible reader. The more we give of ourselves, the more flows through us. Generosity is an infinite game, derived out of an abundance mentality. Over and over again, we learn that we get what we give (You’ve got the music in you).

      A friend invited me back to Substack with a gift subscription. I appreciate the generosity, but I’m in a place where I favor analog over digital consumption, and am thus keeping most digital content at arms length. Is it ironic that I blog daily, thus creating the very digital content that I’m currently attempting to trim from my unrelentingly large information diet? Perhaps. But our hand is more complex and nuanced than the up card that is showing. This paragraph is not who I am, just who I was in the moment I wrote it. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

      When the words flow with abundance, all sorts of things come out. We either filter vigorously, knowing our spouse and mother and daughter will read it, or we simply accept the consequences of an open dialog and write what comes to us. But we become what we focus on, and this blog, scattered as it may seem at times, focuses on the fine art of becoming what’s next. Life is a shared experience, and what is a blog but the sharing of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen?

      Thought breeds thought. We are here to write our story, made rich by the vigorous application of full days. Do more, experience more, learn from it and see where it takes us next. Then share it with others. Life grows in abundance to the level with which we engage with the world.

    • Marking the Path of Being

      “All the bright precious things fade so fast, and they don’t come back.” — from F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

      I love a rainy day with nothing much to do. I find there haven’t been all that many of either rainy days or days without much to do this summer, so savoring the sensation feels right. Let tomorrow bring the crush; today is for too precious to concede to busy.

      The tricky thing about being busy is that we lose the capacity to savor when we’re trying desperately not to drown. There’s no floating with stillness when the waves are choppy and filled with sharks and other drowning people. An angry sea is no place to be. We must seek stillness in our lives if we are to find awareness and peace.

      When we get busy things tend to slip away with time. We focus on the important and urgent instead of the essential few. If it’s important we ought to focus on it, right? I mean, it’s important. And if it’s urgent we don’t have time to debate, we just do. This mindset makes us feel productive, but it forever kicks the essential down the curb.

      “How many pages will be left empty because your process was dampened by doubt and deliberation?” — Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

      We must develop and nurture our non-negotiables in life. Mine include time to exercise, read, sleep, and yes: to write. If I get enough of these four, then even the stormiest day feels manageable. Writing every day coaxes the busy mind into awareness. To dabble in the essential for an hour, or a few hours, before the angry sea attempts to wash over us is a gift we give to ourselves. What do we make of this accumulation of blog posts and pages written? Will it take us anywhere in the end? It’s taken us this far already, friend.

      A lifetime is an empty and hollow thing indeed if we don’t fill each day with something more than we began it with. What is accumulated is a growing awareness and the willingness to experience and do the things that may come to us if we would only be open to them. These words are simply marking the path of being. How many pages may we fill in a lifetime of deliberate being? There is a hint of an answer revealed here and now.

    • Plot Twists

      “There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.” — André Gide, Autumn Leaves

      What is possible is often nothing more than what we believe to be possible. Where we believe the world is going. Where we believe our limits lie. What are beliefs but stories we tell ourselves?

      Beliefs ought to be questioned. Challenged. If only to see what’s on the other side of that belief. I believe our story depends on a plot twist or two to be compelling. But some people aren’t fans of plot twists in their lives. They favor a predictable story—all neatly lined up in sequential order. That’s nice, I suppose, but not what I believe.

      What some people call bad luck I call a plot twist. We ought to sit with the situation and ask ourselves a few questions: Why is this happening? What can we learn from it? Where is this leading us? How can we re-write our story to be more compelling? The hero’s journey demands that we transcend the challenges thrown at us and rise to a greater place.

      Life is nothing but one plot twist after another. What are we to do but learn and grow? Write, review, revise and make the next draft even better. Possibility is simply a better plot twist, realized through persistence and creativity.

    • Our Beautiful Choice

      “A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.” — Carl Rogers, On Becoming A Person

      I walk by a single tree that is clearly more distressed than it’s neighboring trees. The foliage has already begun to change to gold and faint orange. The drought most likely, I think to myself on one pass beside the tree. There are many loops past this tree, and thus many chances to observe things like the rate of change in the foliage relative to the trees around it. Each pass marks the incremental change in both the tree and me. I may have a little more agency, but every reunion with the tree reminds me that I’m really just moving in circles most of the time. We are kindred spirits, alive in the same moment, transformed by environment and place.

      “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for its not the same river and he’s not the same man.” ” — Heraclitus

      All these changes have brought us here. Collectively. I’ve turned away from the news of the world—politics and sports and celebrity gossip mean nothing to me now. To focus on what is within my control and nothing more is liberating in and of itself. We are explorers, charting a path through an upside down world. When we find the ground beneath us isn’t solid, as on a beach with the surf constantly pulling the sand from beneath our feet, we too must adapt and adjust our stance. And eventually find our way to solid ground once again.

      Life is change. And it’s never been nor ever will be fair. Environment and place are largely out of our control, but how we move through this world is our beautiful choice to make. We may get caught up in the swirl and concede the sinking or choose a path to something more tangible from which to base our growth upon. Decide what to be and go be it. Our potentialities are always ahead of us, awaiting our move in that direction.

    • Things We’ll Remember

      These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break
      These days you might feel a shaft of light
      Make its way across your face
      And when you do you’ll know how it was meant to be
      See the signs and know their meaning
      It’s true
      You’ll know how it was meant to be
      Hear the signs and know they’re speaking to you, to you
      — 10,000 Maniacs, These Are Days

      Life seems far bigger and more monumental in some phases than in others. This applies equally to joyous moments and to the occasionally devastating. We might move through months without much of note happening save the change of the seasons, and then everything seems to happen at once. Things we’ll remember for the rest of our lives happen in clusters, and then suddenly everything grows quiet again for a short time. Life is full of ebbs and flows, and sometimes the wind blows just enough to compress everything into a mad jumble. We ought to remember in such moments that we don’t get rainbows without a little rain.

      Awareness is seeing the signs all around us and embracing life as it comes to us. This may be a joyful exercise or cynical, but our experience is usually a direct reflection of what we are projecting to the universe. We all know people who light up a room when they walk into it, and people who similarly bring a room down. Which do we want to be?

    • True Before You

      I want to unfold.
      Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
      for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
      I want my conscience to be
      true before you;
      want to describe myself like a picture I observed
      for a long time, one close up,
      like a new word I learned and embraced,
      like the everday jug,
      like my mother’s face,
      like a ship that carried me along
      through the deadliest storm.
      — Rainer Maria Rilke, I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

      One need not be religious to reach for the divine. We may aspire for a level of consciousness and growth that prods us along on our journey through life, reaching ever-higher towards something more than this. Arete, or personal excellence, is a human aspiration for the divine, for which we know we’ll fall short. But reaching for it is the thing.

      We have this one shot at things. We’re told that if we do it right once is enough. It’s the doing it right part that’s the trick. What’s right for you may not be right for me. Life is a deadly storm with no survivors. To know this and still set the sails for a journey of a lifetime is audacious and liberating. Decide what to be and go be it.

      Truth is discovered through awareness and a ritual of keeping the blinders off. It’s cleaning the hazy film off the mirror and having a closer look. Truth is something that unfolds before us. We write it down, think it through, move towards something more visceral. Repeat. That’s where this writer has lingered lately (as if you had to be told). With every blank screen, with every word pondered and debated (Is this too much truth?) Just where are we taking this? How close to the truth do we dare to go anyway?

      If that sounds too serious and self-absorbed, well, believe me, I think so too. Blogging is simply the laying of breadcrumbs along this path of discovery. We’re on our way to find out. Have a laugh at the imperfections even as we strive for some measure of improvement. We’re all doing the best we can given the spoiler of how it all ends. That, friends, is the truth.

    • One Dance Left

      This whole damn world could fall apart
      You’ll be okay, follow your heart
      You’re in harm’s way, I’m right behind
      Now say you’re mine
      You’ve got the music in you
      Don’t let go
      You’ve got the music in you
      One dance left
      This world is gonna pull through
      Don’t give up
      You’ve got a reason to live
      Can’t forget
      We only get what we give
      — New Radicals, You Get What You Give

      You Get What You Give was released in 1998, which was surely a monumental year in my life. After this weekend, I’ll always think of the song differently, yet just the same. It neatly bookends a few chapters in this epic we’re collectively writing in our lives, and maybe you strongly associate it with a few moments in your own life too. Some songs seem to stir up emotion and magic in just the right way. Thank the DJ for spinning the playlist so breathtakingly right.

      And after the music stops, after the guests have all gone home, what then? Look around. There’s so much more to do. We can’t give it all up now, friend. For life is about momentum. It’s the Jim Collins analogy about pushing the flywheel: It wasn’t any one push, it was pushing every day that built all that we have in our lives. Momentum works for or against us. A little rest and recovery is necessary, but we must know when to rise back up to meet the next moment.

      And that moment? Here it comes, ready or not. Best to be prepared to meet it, don’t you think? After all, we only get what we give.

    • Be a Part

      Look around you, look up here
      Take time to make time, make time to be there
      Look around, be a part
      Feel for the winter, but don’t have a cold heart
      — Little River Band, Lady

      After a summer of vigorous discipline, immediately followed by a week of frenzied activity leading up to a major family event, bookended by even more significant events, I can feel that it’s just about time to look around and figure out where to set the compass next. Our cadence of living changes as we say yes to so many things. This is the price of a full, expansive life. We may welcome all that it brings while still recognizing the need to take a breather now and then.

      Living in the moment demands a level of awareness and participation higher than the average. We are here and present, and also in the act of being fully alive. Really, it can be quite exhausting. And fighting the desire to simply veg out for awhile is ever more challenging. We must take time to be there, but also to not be there now and then. Awareness includes knowing when to say enough is enough. Maybe the answer is, enough of those things, let’s try these other things instead. We know when we get there what is right for us right now.

      The U.S. Army had a slogan used to recruit more ambitious candidates: Be all you can be. I think it’s appropriate to adopt this slogan for our own standard of living, even for those of us who opt for the civilian life instead. Being is participatory. We have a shelf life for personal excellence (arete) and the clock is ticking. Breathe in, breathe out, and move on to the next great adventure. We have the opportunity to be a part of it. Seize it.