Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • Letter to an Outraged Friend

      My friend, I hope you know I think the world of you. It may seem sometimes that we barely know each other, but those moments are balanced by deep familiarity. We detect patterns and learn each other’s behavior over time. We know what that certain look means, even when we don’t ever mention it by name. Some things are better left unsaid between us.

      But now I feel something needs to be said about outrage. We’ve all been indulging in it lately. I mean, it’s so very easy to be outraged now. The entire planet seems to be addicted to it. And like sugar, we begin to crave it even when we know it’s not good for us. Once we’ve developed a taste for outrage, we look for more things to be outraged by.

      Others, seeing our outrage, go out of their way to do more outrageous things to savor our reaction. There’s nothing like the feeling of owning the room, and the fastest way to that mic drop moment is to double down on the truly outrageous. The real power always lies with the quiet one pulling the strings. All those tech bro billionaires built their fortunes on our outrage. Brilliant scheme for them, not so good for us.

      Yet we don’t have to consume it. We can choose to consume something insightful, rather than to be incited by someone else’s outrageousness. Remember the old expression? Cooler heads prevail. To borrow another expression from a dark chapter in human history: keep calm and carry on. There’s simply no other way for us to move forward than with informed awareness and intent. If we’re all spun up, we can’t do a damned thing but feed the outrage. And that’s exactly what they want of us.

      When someone is outraged to the boiling point, they seek release of that pressure. And so they pour all their accumulated outrage all over the first good listener they come across. Friend, I’m that listener, and I’m tired of being coated in the filth of outrage. It’s not a good look, and really, I just bought this shirt. And since we’re being honest, that outrage doesn’t look all that attractive on you either. Try some cooler colors.

      The world needs so much more than yet another voice in the chorus of the outraged. So throw all that poison aside and focus on what is in our control: How we react to the world around us. We may choose to do something productive with that emotional energy. Donate, volunteer, write a poem, bake a lasagna and feed a hungry neighbor starved for calories and a bit of positive attention. We can do better, you and I. Our future together demands it.

    • Run to Simplicity

      “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      Do you wonder why the most beautiful people in this world seem so placid and steady? There’s an inner calm like a still pond; clear and deep and surrounded by hushed beauty. Isn’t that something to aspire to in our own lives? Not for the shallow goal of being beautiful, but of living beautifully? Our lives must be more than a puddle in a rut, waiting for a truck to thump into us and drag our essence down the road. Get off that damned road.

      “There is nothing that the busy man is less busy with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.” — Seneca

      The thing is, we’re all so very busy and distracted by life. It’s hard to go deep on anything when we barely have a moment to understand things at a surface level. But surfaces dry up quickly when the drought comes. We’re taught to stick to the surface—to hack our way through the hard stuff, seeking shortcuts and a way out of anything that holds us back from the next. That applies equally well in our education, our work, and our relationships with others. Is it any wonder why so many are unsettled and distracted? There’s no substance to them because they keep running away from it.

      To skate through life without ever lingering long enough to truly know the world and our place in it is the path of mediocrity accepted by the masses. Choose to be the exception—for there lies extraordinary. To truly master anything in life, especially the living of life itself, requires immersion and stillness. We must learn to turn off the spigot and develop a thirst for deeper waters.

      “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” — Bruce Lee

      I believe I keep this blog going to force myself deeper. The times when I want to simply shut it down and miss a day are when I’m running shallow—spread thin and beginning to dry up emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I remind myself to run deeper, to eliminate distractions and to find stillness. Sure enough, the inclination fades away and I begin to write with clarity once again. Like a shallow stream building into a flowing river that steadily moves to the sea, building momentum in a deeper channel carved out of persistence.

    • Don’t Imagine They’ll All Come True

      You’ve got your passion, you’ve got your pride
      but don’t you know that only fools are satisfied?
      Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true
      When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?
      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      Blame it on the maddening state of the world, or for reaching an age where paths diverge in a person’s life, but I’ve been struggling with uncertainty lately. Make a decision, change my mind and cancel plans, then abruptly pivot back to the original plan again… or not. Really, it’s all a confused mess. And that’s no way to go through one’s days.

      To never be fully satisfied with the plan, and to thus always feeling compelled to modify it, is a blessing and a curse. Forever seeking Kaizen (constant and never-ending improvement) is a path to personal excellence, or to a restless life never fully realized because there’s always going to be something to work on. What works for Toyota ought to work for us, right? But we aren’t corporations, we’re humans. We can’t simply systematize ourselves and expect we’ll arrive at perfection. We must dig deeper and understand where the restlessness is rooted in.

      The answer typically lies in the question: what do we want out of life? That is our direction. Coming to understand it, we may set out in that direction today without trying to change course over and over again. Good habits and a healthy routine automate some important behaviors in our lives like exercise and flossing and writing, serving as gyroscopic stabilizers so we don’t get seasick from rocking back and forth too much with our behavior.

      Some people go to a Vienna coffeehouse simply to enjoy a torte or Buchteln. Some go to lasso a muse. Both can be right. To borrow a lyric from another Billy Joel song, do what’s good for you, or you’re no good for anybody. And to rock abruptly back to Vienna, don’t imagine all your dreams will come true, just focus on the one’s that do.

    • The Path

      Routine sets the tone of our days, which in turn sets the tone of our lives. Routine can be our savior or our executioner, our best friend or our worst enemy. We inevitably feel that we’re either wrapped or trapped in in our routine. Just what path are we on anyway? Our routine leads to a life of optimization or frustration. and so we must step in and design a routine that carries us to a place we want to go to.

      We must listen to the question that stirs within: what is the purpose of this path we’ve chosen for ourselves? When we have a why that is compelling, with a routine that is designed to optimize our purpose, we move through life with a higher level of energy and passion. People that tell you to follow your passion aren’t wrong, they’re just missing a step. Following your purpose leads you to passion. Passion is directionless and can lead us astray. When we get our direction from purpose, passion naturally builds within us.

      What drives us to a rewarding and meaningful life? It’s not the steering wheel, even if we can’t imagine getting anywhere without it. It’s not the engine, necessary as a good engine may be. These are our what and how, and surely necessary to move anywhere at all in this world—but to move where? We must develop a strong navigation system. When we know where we are going, the what and how to get us there are exponentially more useful and efficient.

      And suddenly everything begins to click. Like a fine-tuned vehicle, our routine carries us towards our purpose. And the wow (passion!) begins to stir within and exude outward. When we develop a high level of passion and purpose, we create positive momentum. Everything great in our lives builds from purpose backed by propulsion (action: our engine) and creative adaptability (steering and the set of our sails). This is the path to personal excellence.

    • Nothing Is Different, but Everything’s Changed

      I figure that once upon a time, I was an ocean
      But now I’m a mountain range
      Something unstoppable set into motion
      Nothing is different, but everything’s changed
      — Paul Simon, Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean

      We know everything has changed, it was always going to be so. Technology brought us here, to this place where people are so spun up and separated by what the voices on their screens are telling them. The media we choose to consume drives and divides us.

      Yes, everything has changed, and it cannot be ignored. It’s always been this way, it always will be so. Change happens, like a rogue wave washing over an island of tranquility, washing away all that was comfortable and familiar for us. The stories change, but humans have always been this way. It was hopeful to believe we’d all changed, but all we were doing was looking in a different direction while the people angry with the change we embraced gathered strength. We live on a pendulum of action and reaction, swinging one way to the next. Knowing this, we must hold on tight and work for what is right.

      And still, we also must continue to focus on things that bring growth to our own dreams. To keep climbing towards personal excellence, even when the world doesn’t feel all that excellent at the moment. We were born at this time and place, and really, it’s been a lucky break for many of us. But not all of us. So we ought to count our blessings as we rise to meet each day, and not be ungrateful for the gifts we’ve received. Use them as tools to build. Use them to climb higher. Not all change is in our control, but some change surely is.

    • Cracking the Shell

      “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” — C.S. Lewis

      We all live our ordinary, decent lives, comfortable in our shell. But bless you Clive Staples Lewis for the reminder that we aren’t going to fly anywhere wrapped in comfort and routine. Take a crack out of it and see what opens up.

      There will always be great reasons to put our dreams on hold and focus on keeping the shell intact. The shell has kept us alive, protected us and feels just right most of the time. Sure, we want to grow, and someday we even want to fly, but there’s a time for everything, right?

      Our lives at present may feel a bit upside down, and playing it safe seems the logical thing to do. After all, bad economic policies and reckless idiots are making everything unstable. Prudence seems the right course of action. But prudence isn’t action—prudence is a shell.

      Meanwhile, our runway grows shorter. Tempus fugit: time flies. But will we, in our time? Start now to crack the shell. Or forget about ever flying. The world has plenty of bad eggs already.

    • Inhabited by Heroes

      “On whatever side I look off I am reminded of the mean and narrow-minded men whom I have lately met there. What can be uglier than a country occupied by grovelling, coarse, and low-lived men? No scenery will redeem it. What can be more beautiful than any scenery inhabited by heroes? Any landscape would be glorious to me, if I were assured that its sky was arched over a single hero.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      There’s always been two sides to America. Those who build on the foundation of freedom and liberty for all and those who would tear it all down and watch it burn. The thing is, we all believe we’re on the side of freedom and liberty—it’s all in how those words are interpreted. And so we all believe our cause is just and dig in for a fight. We aren’t fighting a Civil War in the traditional sense, but a manufactured war stirred up by profiteers and agents of destruction. The country has always had an abundance of grovelling, coarse, and low-lived men (and women!) on both sides who serve themselves first and foremost. Thoreau wrote this entry in 1851, and he would recognize the characters today as descendants in spirit of those he encountered.

      The real heroes strive for consensus and unification. Inclusiveness isn’t woke, it’s a shared vision that those “unalienable Rights” of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness apply to all of us. This is a dream that extends from sea to shining sea, and yes, across borders—autocrats and oligarchs, racists and “bro culture” be damned.

      These are dark days, and they will grow darker still. We all look around looking for heroes to unite us once again. Look in the mirror, friend. The strength of this country has always resided in our core, where reasonable people with common hopes and dreams reside. And here is where the heroes of the moral core must rise up and seize control of reason and dignity once again. We can’t simply wait it out hoping for better days.

    • All of It

      “Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.” — Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

      To expect answers is to assume that there’s order in the universe. That’s a wide lens that comes in handy when the world embraces chaos and throws order on the bonfires. To discuss the matter with the agents of chaos is futile. They only want heated debates, mic drop dismissals and wild conspiracy theories. There is no peace or consensus in their world, only outrage. Nor is there peace amongst those outraged by those being outrageous. Shared resolve, possibly, but there is no stillness when the pot is constantly being stirred.

      And so we must find quiet resolve in the company of timeless ideas and principles. Nature and the classics, poetry and song, and the rituals of routine that quiet the mind and clarify our purpose. We’ll be the better for having walked away from the loud talkers. When they run out of reasonable people to debate they’ll simply turn on each other. To find stillness, steer clear of all of it. The quiet resolve that develops within will be more essential than ever soon enough.

    • Our Many Short Races

      “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” — Walter Elliot

      Fortitudine vincimus (by endurance we conquer) — the family motto of Sir Ernest Shackleton

      When we look back on our lives thus far, we often gloss over the small, daily challenges that we had to overcome just to get through the day and only remember the good times we had. Sure, we remember the big setbacks and the losses (it’s hard to ever forget a gut punch). But each small challenge conquered honed and shaped who we are. The race was won, at least that day’s race, and we moved on to the next.

      My favorite rowing workout is an interval workout of 10×500 meters. It’s an intense burst of energy applied to a relatively short distance, and then a brief rest period before doing it all over again. I’m still covering 5000 meters, but there’s no time to settle in to a lower standard of performance or to get bored. Work, rest, work again until the work is done.

      So why not apply this process to our creative work? Write quickly, take a minute or two minute walk away from the work and then jump right back into it again. It adds up to more work, but often better work too. There’s no time for distraction, no time for anything but producing our best in that short burst of time before we earn another break.

      Every day is a series of challenges that must be overcome for us to earn the knowledge, skills or nerve to move on to the next. We climb ever higher, we get pushed back, adjust and push forward again. It’s not a long slog into infinity, it’s simply today’s short race. When we focus on the short race we’re currently working through, we think less about the short break someone else may be posting pictures about on social media, or the work someone we admire just published that feels out of reach for our current ability. We’re in a different race, after all, and our task is simply to finish this micro burst with focus and intensity.

      Zoom back out, and we see seismic shifts happening politically, economically, culturally… and it feels like this race may be too overwhelming for us to be in. But we’re in it just the same. We forget that that larger game at play isn’t our weight to bear alone. Don’t let the bastards grind you down (that’s what they want us to feel—ground down and powerless). Focus on the race we’re running and chase personal excellence in the things we alone are doing with our time. Life may indeed be a marathon and not a sprint, but all races are completed one stride at a time.

    • What Carries the Day

      I went on a lunch date with my bride Saturday. We didn’t talk politics, we talked about new dinner plates and the house and things like that. Sometimes the present is both beautiful and awful, and the only thing that determines which wins the moment is what we choose to focus on.

      There are plenty of reasons to feel down about the state of the world. There are plenty of reasons to feel joyful. As reasonable people, it’s possible to feel both at the same time. But we ought to be asking ourselves, which carry the day? A poem by Charles Bukowski, formatted in that Charles Bukowski way, comes to mind:

      some people
      grind away
      making their
      unhappiness
      the ultimate
      factor
      of their
      existence
      until
      finally
      they are
      just
      automatically
      unhappy,
      their
      suspicious
      upset
      snarling
      selves
      gringing

      on
      and
      at
      and
      for
      and
      through

      their only
      relief
      being

      to meet
      another
      unhappy
      person

      or
      to
      create
      one.
      — Charles Bukowski, downers

      When we get so distracted by the state of things, we sometimes forget to do the joyful things that make living an event worthy of our time. We can create a wake of misery behind us, or we can leave a ripple of joy. We should ask, just how do we want to be remembered? But let’s get right to the heart of the matter: just how do we want to move through this one go at life?