Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • To Be, Well

      “Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do.
      Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.
      Sanity means tying it to your own actions.”
      —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      With respect to the folks who are spun up about the latest offensive thing happening in the world, the thing that matters most to our well-being is what we can control ourselves. And what we can control is our actions. So it follows that we must be bold in facing the day!

      Our choices may not seem like the thing that moves the world, but our choices move our world. We have the agency to choose how we react, and we have the agency to act. Reaction and action are change agents. We change and grow based on how well we leverage these agents in our lives.

      Our well-being is largely a lagging indicator of the choices we’ve made to this point. Make better choices and life improves. Make no decisions and we may expect that things will remain as they always have been, but this is folly. Everything changes and we must be decisive in steering our lives where we want it to go. Ignore the call to action and opportunity slips away. Fortune, after all, favors the bold.

      Our climb to personal excellence is full of choices. Each day we may choose to worry about what others think or feel about us. Every day we may think of nothing but ourselves, and one day wonder where everybody went. Or we can look around, see the changes that need to happen to build a life of excellence. We may choose each day to do what must be done to be, well. In the end, isn’t that the only logical choice?

    • Positive Momentum

      Rise up this morning,

      Smile with the rising sun
      — Bob Marley & The Wailers, Three Little Birds

      Attitude is everything, as the old expression goes. When we move through the world in a joyful state, we tend to attract more joyfulness into our orbit. When we walk around with a scowl on our face, complaining about the state of the world, the world retreats away from us, lest they catch some of that bitterness we’re coughing up.

      Every little thing may or may not be all right. We all have things going on that could be better, or will surely get worse. But we’ve also got plenty to be grateful for, plenty to celebrate, if we simply look hard enough. Begin with rising up in the morning, with the rising sun indicating our trip around it continues for at least one more day. Build on that with something more, and suddenly we’ve got some positive momentum. And sometimes, that’s enough.

    • For the Love of Winter

      “I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” — Andrew Wyeth

      I would be lying if I were to write that I love winter the most. It’s true that I do love winter, and snow, and the cold dark indifference of the long night. But to say I love winter most is to ignore the very best days of spring, when the daffodils are blooming and there is hope in the air. Or the warm comfort of summer days, with the meditative delight of deadheading the flowers and plucking cherry tomatoes from stem to mouth. To say nothing of autumn, in its kaleidoscope of color and the smell of leaves returning to earth. Like children, we may love each season in their own way.

      The trick is to love each day, no matter the season, for all that it brings to us. To pine for other seasons is to concede our agency over now. This is our time and place. We are right here and now because of the choices we’ve made in our life. So embrace the cold with another layer and venture out into the wild world of winter. Or simply grab a cup of steaming tea and a great book if you like. The days are what they are, and soon they’ll lead us to another season with something else to complain about or secretly love, whatever our inclination might be.

      When we approach today as if it’s a beautiful day to be alive, the day comes alive for us. Stack enough days together this way and we have a great season. And these seasons do blur together after enough of them. So celebrate this one, and maybe do something with it to remember it by. Winter is here, bitingly cold and alive. Take the day in hand in all its stark beauty and dance with it.

    • Every Passing Moment

      As wave is driven by wave
      And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
      So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
      Always, for ever and new. What was before
      Is left behind; what never was is now;
      And every passing moment is renewed.
      — Ovid, Metamorphoses      , Book XV

      We are forever transformed by what was. If we take this to be true, then it follows that what will be will be realized because of what we do now. Our lives are thus reinvented one day to the next, right to the end of our days. We may choose to do something with each precious moment to ensure tomorrow renews with promise, or concede our agency to fate and the whim of others.

      Each week passes by more quickly than the last. Seven days feel like three, four weeks feel like two. So what do the years feel like? Shockingly brief time capsules marking each stage of life before the next wave is upon us. Tempus fugit. Our awareness of this rapid flip through days naturally leaves us feeling like we’re forever behind, trying to grasp the moments as they fly past. To seize what flees, as Seneca put it.

      The answer isn’t to try to cram more into our moments, but to savor what we’re doing as it’s happening. Thich Nhat Hanh suggested approaching everything, even something as mundane as washing dishes, with mindfulness, that we may process our time more fully. This is it, such that it is. So what does it feel like? What are we making of it? Where will it take us from here?

      It’s easy to meditate in the garden or even while washing the dishes. It’s harder to sit in traffic and accept the minutes turning to hours. Each situation presents an opportunity to be fully aware, fully awake, fully alive. We are all works in progress, wave after wave, surfing through time. What is this moment teaching us about our place in it? What does it offer for the moments to come?

      Whenever I tell myself to stop writing this blog and use the time for other things, I’m struck by two thoughts. First, I’m a streak-based creature of habit, and I’m not inclined to break this streak just yet. But more to the point, writing is my particular way of processing each wave, for ever and new. I gently place this post in my timeline and face the next wave as it rises before me. The days and weeks and years fly by, marked thusly, for anyone inclined to follow along (I really wanted to use the word thusly in today’s blog, and there it is).

      This post will be longer than the norm. Maybe I just don’t want to say farewell to our moment together. But the next wave is rising, and we each must bring our attention to each passing moment as it renews before us. And here it is! So thank you for this time. We both know just how precious it is.

    • A Little Mystery Each Day

      “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.” ― Albert Einstein

      At this point in the blog, dear reader, you may have realized that I am a collector of quotes. I believe it’s because I’m curious about what other people have to say about this journey through life. We are all somewhere along our timeline from here to there. That ought to mean something now, and it tends to mean something different at each phase of the journey. The takeaway is that it means something.

      When we are curious we are prompted to seek out interesting. Imagination sparked, we do still more interesting things, which leads to an expansive life of ever more interesting. Like attracts like, and in this way we surround ourselves with people who want more out of life than to drown it out in an endless doom scroll with something to wash it all down. To find delight in this world is simply choosing awareness over distraction.

      Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, it saved the cat from a life of boredom and indifference. What mystery is there for discovery? What will we manifest today though our curiosity and inclination to discover? Our search for meaning begins with having a look around and moving towards interesting. It’s certainly beyond where we’ve been thus far.

    • Touched

      “The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.”
      — E.E. Cummings

      Have a look around this winter day. How do you feel about snow? Remember, in answering, what we mean to the snow.

      One’s relationship with snow often comes down to what one is prioritizing that particular day. When we focus only on the bleak reality of our day, snow tends to be nothing but a barrier. We want to get from here to there, but for the snow. We want to park there, but for the snow. Et cetera.

      Alternatively, we may find all the truth in the universe buried like treasure in snow. When we seek council with it, we hear whispers in its silence. When we get out in the world with it gliding or tromping or rolling in it, we find delight revealed in ordinary. When we grab a handful and sculpt it into something alive in our imagination, we are transformed together into artist and form. Temporary and beautiful in this dance with infinity, before one day being transformed again into something else.

      Do you see? Like life itself, snow is neutral and indifferent. It’s people who transform it with meaning. So again I ask, how do you feel about snow?

    • Life and Love and Wings

      i thank You God for most this amazing
      day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
      and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
      which is natural which is infinite which is yes

      (i who have died am alive again today,
      and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
      day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
      great happening illimitably earth)

      how should tasting touching hearing seeing
      breathing any—lifted from the no
      of all nothing—human merely being
      doubt unimaginable You?

      (now the ears of my ears awake and
      now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

      — E. E. Cummings, i thank You God for this amazing

      We dwell so often on our limitations; Limited time, limited capacity for learning new things or for being patient with the things in our life that overstay their welcome. We are bound by commitments, with reasons, with a lack of imagination for breaking free from all of that and living an expansive life. We are locked into routine and measure our days incrementally. How are we to grow when we are forever held captive by a lack of audace créatrice (creative audacity)?

      To be unbounded and unlimited is of course a fantasy. We all will die one day (memento mori). Infinite growth is not for mere mortals. And yet we may live a far more expansive life than we mortals usually attempt. We are no more and no less than what we do with our time.

      Why worry about all that today when we can simply do what must be done and defer hopes and dreams indefinitely? Because now is all we have. Growing into our possibility begins now. It always has and always will be so. But thinking in terms like “always” is its own trap. Because it lets us off the hook of immediacy. We must steer clear of such traps and simply think of now. For this is the birth day of life and of love and wings. So do begin.

    • Another Day Forgoing Mortal Nature

      Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
      There are four seasons in the mind of man:
      He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
      Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
      He has his Summer, when luxuriously
      Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves
      To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
      Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
      His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
      He furleth close; contented so to look
      On mists in idleness—to let fair things
      Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
      He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
      Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
      — John Keats, The Human Seasons

      I’ll admit that I don’t often revisit Keats poems, but when I do, it’s usually in the cold, dark winter months. This morning the dog food stored in the garage was frozen (frozen!), so I had to bring it in to thaw so the pup could have a bit of wet food mixed in with her dry. These are first world problems I admit, but on the last day of January 2026, let it be known that I fasted in sympathy with the dog until her food thawed out.

      Today is just another day forgoing mortal nature, but there are only so many days. We ought to live like we were dying, as that twangy formulaic song goes. To kick mortality down the curb with a better fitness routine and better choices about what we eat. To read and learn and sharpen the senses while sharpening is still possible. To go and do while going and doing are still in the cards for people in our particular season. Our routine determines the season we find ourselves in as much as the accumulation of years does. We mustn’t get old before our time.

      Consider that Keats poem again. The man was frisky! Delighting in lusty Spring and satiated Summer, acknowledging that in Autumn he was more inclined to let the fair things pass without some inappropriate gesture from the aging poet. It’s only in Winter that he calms down, recognizing that growing old and brittle is a trade-off for death’s final embrace. For all our human nature, it’s eternity that we will sleep with forevermore. We just don’t have to be in a hurry to get there.

    • Undoing Undone

      “As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left? Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.” — David Bowie

      “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” — Pablo Picasso

      We are all getting older. I’m within 90 days of a milestone birthday myself, which begs the question, what am I going to do when I finally grow up? But why do we have to grow up anyway? I’m quoting rock stars and artists, which hints at my general attitude about growing up in the first place.

      The better question is, what might we become next? Forget about growing up! Focus instead on what we are going to do! Just who are we growing into? Finish what we’ve started and know that we’ve done our best in reaching it. And then? On to the next of course.

      What are we okay with leaving undone when we leave this world one day? What leaves us restless with each trip around the sun for not having done it yet? The process of becoming is extraordinary indeed, but so to is arriving at each milestone having done what we promised ourselves we’d do. Each day we dance with productivity and focus, undoing our list of undone and becoming who we might become. The only certainty is that we aren’t here forever—so get to it already.

    • Keep Going

      “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. In all the confusions of today, with all our troubles . . . with politicians and people slinging the word fear around, all of us become discouraged . . . tempted to say this is the end, the finish. But life — it goes on. It always has. It always will. Don’t forget that.” ― Robert Frost

      The world can feel overwhelming at time. It has always been so. Some days feel especially cold, particularly mean-spirited, largely hopeless. But life goes on. Keep going with it, for as long as it takes. Just keep going.

      Better lies on the other side of challenge. We either sail through the storm to reach the safe harbor or we sink into the abyss. Often the outcome is tied to our choice. So keep going. That’s what we’re all doing in the worst of days and the best of them. We keep going and work for better. For life goes on.