Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • You’re Invited

      “He who avoids complaint invites happiness.” — Abu Bakr

      Like most people, I find it easy to find something to complain about, if I let myself. But where is it getting me? Generally to a less happy place than I might have been otherwise. The answer, always, is gratitude. Be impatient with those who choose to ignore the blessings at hand to focus on complaints. They do not see how lucky they have been.

      We are invited to be happy. Our life will largely be realized by the lens through which we view it. Complaining about circumstances only gives them weight, for we now carry them instead of letting them fall away. Give lift to gratitude and tamp down the complaints. Life is happier when we focus on our blessings.

    • The Price of Greatness

      “If you want to be different from everybody else you’ve got to pay the price.” — Anton Myrer

      Paying the price of greatness sounds like a catchy line. It’s easy to dismiss catchy, or to embrace the idea but not follow through on it. Actually paying the price is very difficult, or everybody would be great. Have a look around; the world is chock full of average. Great is evasive, it’s lip service to the concept that is commonplace.

      We ought to aspire to greatness in something. So much of what we do, try as we might, may reach good but not great. Nothing hits the ego harder than our best efforts resulting in something that is just okay. I know I will never be great at some things I truly love doing, but accept being good enough. Accepting good enough is a price paid for attempting to be great at something else.

      We may never reach greatness in anything, but we can reach a level of satisfaction with how far we’ve come. Alternatively, we can pay a steeper price, knowing average effort leads us to average results. The choice is ours, isn’t it? Just what price are we willing to pay?

    • You Are Young. Live!

      “Live all you can. It’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t matter what you do — but live. This place makes it all come over me. I see it now. I haven’t done so — and now I’m old. It’s too late. It has gone past me — I’ve lost it. You have time. You are young. Live!” — William Dean Howells

      I’m writing this on the opposite end of the day from the norm. The reason is a keen inclination to live today, despite the usual distractions that life throws at us. And oh, the distractions! But it’s now or never, when it comes to living. Tempus fugit.

      It doesn’t matter what we do, so long as we live. There are no do-overs, there are no second-chances, there are only regrets if we wait any longer. There is only now.

      As The Grass Roots put it, Sha-la, la-la-la-la, live for today. Sure, plan for tomorrow, but never defer that living part. We are young, or at least as young as we’ll ever be. So carpe flippin’ diem, already.

    • Wise Guy

      “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” — William James

      If I struggle with anything in life, it’s containing a streak of sarcasm that runs through me, seeking attention through expression. There is a big difference between being wise and being a wise guy. The former are revered, the latter get knocked off by rival gangsters. Just who do we want to be anyway?

      On the road to arete, one must shrug off the inclination to be clever all of the time. The trick, I think, is to stop thinking of things to say all of the time and learn to listen, observe and absorb what is being said and done around us, that we may be more informed. Personal excellence is a chosen path, achieved one good choice at a time. Choosing to be less clever and more attentive is a step closer to reaching our potential (should we dare).

      There’s nothing wrong with having something to say. That doesn’t mean we have to say something just to fill a gap in conversation. A pregnant pause usually births some insight we might have missed if the space had been filled with all sorts of clever nonsense. Mind the gap, as the Brits say. There’s usually something hiding there.

    • To Rise Above

      “Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” — Washington Irving

      It happened again just yesterday. A friend called to use me as a sounding board for a self-described obsession over a shocking trial happening in Massachusetts right now. I listened politely for a while as she failed to pick up on my signals that I was the wrong audience for shock gossip. Eventually I was saved by a call coming in to exit stage left.

      For the record, I’m the wrong audience for any shock gossip. Don’t tell me what the neighbors have done now, tell me what you are doing to rise above it all. Forgive me if I pull away from the misfortunes of the world. One may be aware and empathetic without swimming in a pool of misery and indignation. Call me boring, call me ill-informed, call me no fun at all if it helps, but don’t call me to gossip about the world.

      I won’t apologize for my focus on the productive use of my days. We may debate whether the output is worth the trade-off in precious time, but the point is to be useful doing something meaningful, not gossiping about the folly of mankind. Here is real empathy: We’re all just stumbling around in the dark, trying to find our way in this lifetime. Mistakes and misfortune happen to all of us. It’s what we do about it that will matter in the end. The conversation I want to have is on just how we’re each achieving liftoff in our own quest to soar.

    • Unencumbered

      “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      They say the best professional athletes have the shortest memories. Striking out in your last at bat doesn’t mean you’ll strike out in this one. It simply means you’ve seen this pitcher before and hopefully learned a thing or two in the encounter. And that philosophy carries the day in all things in life. Don’t let yesterday’s nonsense encumber us on as we rise to meet each bright, clear morning. Do what must be done with the clarity of hope and purpose.

      I’ve been carrying this post for twelve hours awaiting this next paragraph. There was a time when I would write a couple of crappy paragraphs just to round it out to something worthy of the post. But I’ve learned that throwing up a post with the primary aim of word count leads to some not very good blog posts. To encumber the reader with fluff words does a disservice to each of us. So let us leave on good terms. Until tomorrow then?

    • Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

      Across the evening sky,
      all the birds are leaving,
      But how can they know,
      it’s time for them to go?
      Before the winter fire,
      I will still be dreaming,
      I have no thought of time.
      For who knows,
      where the time goes?
      Who knows,
      where the time goes?
      — Sandy Denny, Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

      The other day I heard the honking of geese as I sat under the umbrella reading in the shade. I only heard and never saw the geese, but a sudden pop on the umbrella made me stop reading and look up. It turns out the umbrella saved me and the book from an unpleasant deposit a goose was making on its flyover.

      Yes, the geese are back. A sure sign of the summer season shifting towards later in the game. And have you noticed? Sunrise is later too. The summer harvest is abundant and relentless. Acorns are already bouncing off the pavement. Back to school sales are in full swing, and Halloween candy will be sold out if we dare wait until October to buy it.

      Ready or not, time moves on. Memories relentlessly pop up in social media feeds. WordPress prompts us to look back on our own posts from this date in previous years. Reminders are everywhere to look up from what is occupying our attention and have a look at where we are, where we’ve been, and what’s changed.

      And still, we have no thought of time until something jolts us into awareness. Beating a familiar drum, we ought to savor those summer tomatoes and corn, soak up the sun and time with one another. For who knows where the time goes? Tempus fugit. It flies right along like geese on a mid-August day.

    • Life and Poetry

      All the things to which I give myself
      grow rich and spend me.
      — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Poet

      We are what we focus on, for we are spending our lives in the process. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we are doling out our grains of sand. The time will never return again. Awareness of the value of time is our curse and our saving grace. The only answer for tempus fugit is carpe diem.

      I read poetry to encounter verse like that above. I write to try to arrive at something approaching the feeling I get when I read it. Perhaps you read it the same way, or wonder what the fuss is about. We all bring our own lens to life and poetry. For me, Rilke demonstrates that we are timeless and fragile all at once.

      I’m delighted by the perfect crust on a sourdough. The aroma of fresh herbal bread made on a hot day when I had no business using the oven but eagerly pay the toll for the way the house smells as the bread bakes. Candles are nice, baking bread is nirvana. Should we not pursue with vigor all that makes us feel alive?

      Sourdough is a two-day event. One makes the dough today to bake tomorrow. That in itself is an act of faith that we’ll be around tomorrow to enjoy the bread, but life’s greatest rewards aren’t immediately gratified. One must earn tomorrow today.

      That which delights us offers a higher return on the minutes spent. It’s not nihilistic to seek a higher return on our time, it’s our duty to our one precious life to maximize our value. To derive meaning from minutes spent vigorously. The spend will happen on its own. ’tis the vigor we bring that makes all the difference, now and in that uncertain future awaiting us.

    • Drawing New Circles

      “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another is drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”

      “The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion.”
      — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

      Reading Emerson is like having a conversation with an old mentor we haven’t seen in awhile. We’ve grown, formed new ideas and opinions, and began to believe the hype generating between our ears that we’ve got it all figured out. Then our mentor comes along and reminds us that we’ve only read part of the story. There are larger circles being drawn as we speak, and the longer we linger in this one, the more behind the curve we will be in this new reality unfolding before us.

      Life is indeed change. Life is indeed unfair. What of it? Unfair compared to what? Be the change you want to see in the world, and stop focusing on all that we cannot control. The profiteers, bigots and fools be damned. We must forever change in the face of constant change. I grow so weary of people trapped in the unfairness of the world, instead of stepping out into something far beyond the trap of that particular vicious circle of thought. Be bold with your one precious life!

      Pendulums swing all the time—what is the axis point from which it pivots? There lies the truth. “Everything looks permanent until its secret is known”, Emerson wrote in the essay quoted above. Find the secret if you dare. Not bullshit conspiracy theories, but the truth within, that limits growth beyond this circle.

      To be resilient, we must abandon who we were and become what we are meant to be. We must forever draw new circles, or be imprisoned by the circle we current reside in. Every end is a beginning. Circle that if it helps. And go seize what flees.

    • The Harmony of Life

      In my eyes, the garden is beaten down and tired right now. Between a trifecta of the heat and occasional torrential downpours and a family of rabbits that find living amongst delicious plants delightful (to the chagrin of my fence-leaping pup), it’s going through a lot right now. And just as we compare ourselves to our own peak days of fitness and learning and view anything lower than that standard poorly, I compare the garden to where it was a month ago or in its peak in past seasons. It’s a bit unfair of me, I think.

      This week we hosted our neighbors, who delighted in the garden. They saw the beauty that I’d been ignoring while scrutinizing what’s faded. And in seeing it, they reminded me to stop looking at what’s missing and look instead for what is here. We are as happy in life as what we focus on.

      The French have an expression that I’m trying my best to adopt in my own life: l’entente de la vie, which translates directly as the understanding of life, but deeper, means the harmony of life. In other words, living a balanced life with time and attention to actively savoring all the joys available to us. So it pairs well with joie de vivre.

      A big part of savoring is simply being present with what is bringing us joy in the moment. Sure, there will always be something nagging at us that isn’t perfect in our world, but whispering quietly to us in that chorus of misery is something beautiful awaiting our attention. Turn the senses towards that and watch life transform into something more delightful, more delicious, and more harmonious with the act of living. Magnifique!