Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • Not to Be Defeated

      “The thing about life is that you must survive. Life is going to be difficult, and dreadful things will happen. What you do is move along, get on with it, and be tough. Not in the sense of being mean to others, but being tough with yourself and making a deadly effort not to be defeated.” ― Katharine Hepburn

      On the face of it, not to be defeated doesn’t feel like a bold act. It feels fatalistic. Shouldn’t the goal be to win? Perhaps in sports this is true. Perhaps even in business or a spelling bee or war. But look closer at each and we learn that the one who wins often is the one who made the fewest mistakes.

      To win feels like we’ve conquered our adversary. But that adversary is temporary. The true adversary of our lifetime is indifference, apathy and nihilism. Those who succumb lose their life force—that which fuels the fire within. The bullies of the world would drain our life force. Just look around and it’s easy to see how they draw us towards the cliff.

      Look back on the characters in history who rose to meet their moment and we may feel compelled to measure up in our own time. Are these times challenging, upsetting, and disheartening? You bet. Is life unfair? It always has been so. This is our time to toughen up! Grow a spine and rise up to meet the moment, like all those characters we admire did in their time. They’ve shown the way if we’ll only look and see it for ourselves.

      “Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves—or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      We all know people in our lives with no agency, no direction, no purpose. We may even feel that way ourselves in our lowest moments. To be fully alive and vital is a daily choice of rising to meet our days head-on. Especially these days, we may feel. But these are the ones we’ve been given. They may feel darker and more frustrating to navigate, but they’re miracles just the same.

      When we dream of greatness in our lives, we must necessarily turn our focus to today, for it’s where greatness is made. We defer our greatness at our peril, for there is no tomorrow. Instead of being drawn to the cliff, build a wall between the nihilists and destroyers. Then turn around and begin climbing to meet the moment.

    • Golden and Eternal

      There is no need to say another word
      It will be golden and eternal just like that
      Something good will come of all things yet
      Simple golden eternity blessing all
      These roads don’t move;
      You’re the one that moves.
      — Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar, These Roads Don’t Move

      “Just a golden wash of goodness has spread over all and over all my body and mind — Simple golden eternity blessing all — Something good will come out of all things yet — And it will be golden and eternal just like that — There’s no need to say another word.” — Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

      When I realize that the song These Roads Don’t Move is already sixteen years old, I shake me head in wonder at how fast it all flies by. So much has happened in that time, and continues to at a relentless pace. Is it any wonder that we grow more philosophical and spiritual as we accumulate years behind us?

      When the world feels like it’s failing us, it helps to think in terms of eternity. The world is part of the universe and is thus timeless and indifferent to our hopes and dreams. We will one day join eternity again, once we stop wrestling with the friction of living in a concept of time. This too shall pass… and it will all slip into eternity.

      Returning to great music from our past, or returning to passages from books we once revered, or a poem that still haunts us—these are the return of wonder to our lives from another chapter on the journey. Art captures eternity in the amber of the moment, to borrow Kurt Vonnegut’s magical line, and we carry that moment through our time. Art is eternal, if fragile. We’re the ones that move. We realize the changes in touchstone moments like revisiting the past and understanding just how far we’ve come.

    • I Cannot Miss My Way

      The earth is all before me. With a heart
      Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
      I look about; and should the chosen guide
      Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
      I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!
      ― William Wordsworth, The Prelude

      I aspire to be what Ayn Rand described as “a man with an immense capacity for the enjoyment of existence.” I’m long past apologizing for this aspiration, and I’ve learned not to tolerate those who would suggest that I grow up and be as miserable as the person suggesting it. We cannot have it all, but we must not miss our way in this lifetime, for it is nothing but fleeting.

      We scurry through our days with so much accumulated responsibility. We must ask ourselves, is this my burden to carry? When the day is done, how much of it will be given to the work that whispers to us in the quiet moments? What verse are we writing today that is ours alone to write?

      We must rise above the melancholy of the masses and find our own way through the fog. Too many choose a purposeless existence. Too many settle for a life of subservience to the dreams of others. Look around! We may be poets, should we be so bold. We must not be afraid of our own liberty.

    • Reasonable Times

      “No man can predict the time when others will choose to return to reason.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      We find ourselves in unreasonable times. We know this because reason and logic are shouted down and marginalized by lusty zealots with a thirst for power, and their behavior is celebrated by their followers and enablers. When enough reasonable, logical people are shouted down, the rest learn to keep their mouths shut. That’s no way to climb the mountain of progress, it’s a spiral into chaos.

      Whether the world shifts towards order or towards chaos is largely out of our control, all we can control is how we react to the forces around us. We may choose to be reasonable (to thoughtfully use reason) ourselves. To seek first to understand and then to act in a way consistent with our climb to personal excellence (arete). There’s nothing excellent in shouting down someone we disagree with, nor is there excellence in bowing to the will of a bully or in putting our head in the sand and wishing it would all go away.

      It’s said that the universe favors chaos over order. That doesn’t mean that we should accept riots in the streets, but rather, that change is inevitable. Our own stability lies in toeing the line between chaos and order and learning how to improve our balance. This too shall pass—it always does eventually. If we put ourselves in a position to meet change prepared, antifragile and resilient, we may actually thrive on the changes. So maybe these times seem unreasonable, and really, who am I to argue? But we have agency, we have reason, and we may endeavor to hold the line that favors order in our own lives.

    • For Now

      “Eternal means timeless—no time. The human mind cannot understand that. The human mind can understand time and can deny time. What is timeless is beyond our comprehension. Yet the mystics tell us that eternity is right now. How’s that for good news? It is right now.” — Anthony de Mello, Awareness

      I’ve wrestled with time all of my adult life. I must be on time for the things I’ve scheduled, and on time for me is always early. I’m married to someone with a different idea of time, and the two of us have managed to peacefully coexist for a few decades despite the chasm this represents in my mind. Time matters a great deal in our world, but not in the universe. We can read that statement and know the truth of it while also dismissing it as irrelevant in our daily lives. Both can be true even as we operate in the absolutes of our beliefs.

      January felt like a longer month than its allotted thirty-one days. Blame it on winter and outrage if you’d like, but often it comes down to how present we are with the moment we occupy. When we feel swept up in events, time feels fleeting. We may feel we’re wasting it, or that it’s slipping through our hands. How much of this young year felt beyond our capacity to influence it?

      We know we have no time to waste time. We aren’t eternal ourselves, we merely exist, for now, in eternity. Having an expiration date means we must learn to appreciate the shelf life we’re given. To honor the eternity of this now by doing something with it. Time is ours now. Someday shockingly soon it will be someone else’s time. Eternity marches on indifferently just the same. So we must to do what calls for us—one now at a time.

    • Beliefs and Revelations

      February one is a countdown day in the United States (2/1) and a count up day in the rest of the world (1/2). Don’t even get me started on the metric system. We tend to do things our own way here in the United States, and most of us won’t pretend that we get it all right all the time. But being right about things was never the point, it’s about confidently charging through life, believing in the cause we’ve signed up for as our birthright. Many times the world is looking for someone to look around and say, “I’ve got this!”, but more often than not they’re just patient with us.

      We see how damaging belief without facts can be. But humans need belief in something to get through their lives. Otherwise they have to ponder questions larger than themselves. Better to simply believe without thinking too much about it. Life seems easier when we give our agency to someone else. It’s like never really growing up and having parental figures tell us what to do, where to go, who to like and not like. What to believe. It’s all just stories we’re told to agree with. And most of it is bullshit. But it does the job of controlling the mob.

      We all have people in our lives who believe things we know are made up stories. Hug the flag, point the finger at others, blame the weakest and tell some clever story that makes everyone believe we’re all in this together. It’s a great recipe for power and influence, and it all hinges on belief.

      We can roll our eyes and shake our head at these people in our lives, but we ought to take a moment to question our own beliefs and who’s telling us stories. What’s real and what’s BS? It’s always been a matter of which story feels more aligned with the story we tell ourselves, which is often based on the way we’ve always seen the world. Belief is very hard to shake free from.

      We often don’t realize our beliefs are being challenged until we feel irritation at something or someone that calls our beliefs into question. This is a journey we resist, sometimes violently, but on the other side of it is revelation. It turns out the world is more nuanced than we dared to believe in the shelter of our own stories. Beliefs are fine for keeping us in line, but revelation is what moves our world in new directions.

      Whatever we believe is likely an old, favorite recipe that we cook up in our minds each day. Do you remember the first time you tried an oyster? One moment we believe we’d never eat something like that, the next we experience a revelation of briny goodness. Maybe shellfish isn’t your thing, but we can all think of something that similarly shook up our pallet and our belief in what is good.

      Revelation is profoundly moving when we encounter it head-on. And we only reach it by being open to seeing the world clearly (while beliefs are closed, revelations only come to us when we are open to them). So maybe try to see things differently today. It turns out it doesn’t matter whether we say February 1 or 1 February, so long as we know which day it really is. Today is a good day to look at the stories we tell ourselves and look for some revelations we never knew we needed.

    • Seasonal Shifts

      “If we winter this one out, we can summer anywhere,” — Seamus Heaney

      “On the other side of endurance, joy waits.” — Joanna Nylund, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      I have friends currently afloat in pristine, turquoise waters. I have other friends unsatisfied with the snowpack in their own backyards who hike seemingly every waking moment above tree line to find paradise in fickle and extreme weather conditions. I could be doing either of those things myself right now, but instead I’m holding the center that we may all meet in the middle again one day.

      We do have agency with such things as winter. We may choose to stoke the fire and watch the storms pass by from the comfort of our favorite chair, book in hand and a hot beverage to warm us from the inside out. Or we can dress the part and venture out into the swirling snows and bitter wind, to taste for ourselves the bite of January. If we have the currency of health and the accessories of winter, there’s every reason to fully experience everything winter has to offer.

      The world feels colder and darker than it’s felt in some time. These shifts are seasonal, we tell ourselves. The pendulum will swing back one day to warmer and brighter. Our mission is to toe the line between chaos and order and make the most of our days, whatever the climate. This is stoicism. This is grit. This is Sisu. Whatever we wish to call it, it’s a mindset and quiet resolve to face the day and whatever it brings to us. To hold the line and winter out the worst that we may summer it up again one day.

    • The Rise of a Quiet Excitement

      “No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind—because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      “Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures.” — Henry David Thoreau

      How did it feel getting out of bed this morning? Does the day ahead stir the imagination or fill the mind with indifference? We all have bills to pay, we all have obligations that require our attention, but most of us simply let those things steer us where they will. We drift through our days, only feeling excitement for the things that pull us away from our work, like holidays and travel and what we’re doing on the weekend. What if every day offered the thrill of audacity and creative output?

      I know the writing is important to me because I rush right to it. On those mornings when I can’t get to it right away because of a flight or because I have early riser friends staying over, it eats at me until I immerse myself in the creative act. It’s not that those other things aren’t fun or interesting, it’s that I feel the writing brings me closer to a place I want to go.

      When you read that quote from Atlas Shrugged, does it feel like the way you met the day today, or does it read as merely words? We’re either turning excited energy into action or we’re going through the motions in our days, just to get through them. Remember the line from the movie Animal House? “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” It’s a funny line when we’re kids, but it cuts deeper when we wade through life a bit longer.

      What might we offer to the world that is uniquely ours to give? Does that fill us to bursting with excitement and energy? Then do more of that, whatever the cost. For most of us, it’s a side hustle or a hobby. For the truly blessed, it’s a lifestyle and a career path. Whatever we feel is telling us all we need to know, if we’ll only listen. But more than listening, we must act. This day is ours only this once.

    • Made New Again

      “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

      My bride and I went out to dinner with old friends over the weekend. We hadn’t seen the two couples we met with in some time so there was some catching up to do before we got down to what each is planning for the future. I fancy myself a good listener, and delighted in the company of some exceptional listeners who sought to hear what each party was saying and not simply waiting for a break to jump in with their own take on the world. I delight in a conversation with a person who seeks first to understand, and I do my best to be that person myself.

      Once you’ve raised children together, gone through the succession of jobs and pets and cars and appliances and hobbies that all had their day, we look around and see that the person who’s been there through all of it is still patiently waiting for us to finish stating an opinion they’ve heard us state a hundred times. It may occur to us in such moments that we’ve been every bit as complicated to live with as they have been for us. A long-term relationship is an investment, shared and nurtured equally.

      We put energy into today, that tomorrow we are stronger together. All those fatal flaws that every one of us bring to a relationship are discovered, wrested with and navigated beyond on a course to better. Each day is an encounter with a new version of the person we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with, who’s looking at the latest version of us and deciding what to do with that discovery. Together we grow into something similar, but entirely new.

      The magic is in the rediscovery of that old familiar spark, still burning under the layers of days together. Some days it’s easier to find that spark than other days, but it’s hiding there somewhere, waiting for the fuel and oxygen it needs. So many relationships peter out for neglect, smothered under layers of indifference. Each day is our chance to rekindle and reinvent, to remake and make new. Our future together depends on it.

    • Boldly now

      “When I took my first wobbly steps on ice skates aged four, my mother was standing on the sidelines cheering me on. The ice was cold, hard and not very even, and I didn’t like trying out new things. I wanted to leave. My mother smiled encouragingly, and as I shakily ventured out farther on the ice, I heard her shout “Rohkeasti vaan!” behind me. This Finnish expression can be roughly translated as “Boldly now!” and typifies our attitude to raising kids.” — Joanna Nyland, Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage

      This blog is a series of railroad ties laid one day to the next, carrying the writer and anyone who cares to follow along across the blank slate towards heightened awareness. Sometimes the journey reveals stunning vistas, sometimes it slogs through the dullest of plateaus seeking a breakthrough. The sum of our daily action is carrying us somewhere. The compass aims at better, but it comes down to what we’ve done with the days.

      The trick with anything we set out to do is to keep doing it until we reach our goal. To be bold is not itself a goal, but an aspiration of attitude to bring to this next step and the one after that. It’s the long, purposeful stride, not the timid baby step. Both move us along, but we’ve only got so many days. The bolder step carries us faster and farther, and builds momentum necessary for the occasional leap.

      When the days become routine and the weeks blend together into a level of sameness that leave us uninspired, let us remember to be bold. The Finnish phrase quoted above, “Rohkeasti vaan!”, isn’t likely to roll off my tongue, but the translation, “Boldly now!” has the power to inspire the laying of more track, on an ever-higher plane, towards those aspirational vistas. Baby steps may offer forward progress, but we must remember to boldly lengthen that stride and get after it, now.