Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • Aware and Alive

      “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein

      Saying yes to more things is the opposite of a focused life. A focused life requires focus on one thing at the expense of all other things. That one thing may lead to mastery. Those many things may lead to diverse perspective and the ability to manage complexity, which in turn enables us to navigate a life full of its inevitable twists and turns. Which is a better way to live a full life?

      The answer is naturally ours to know. I believe it’s to work towards mastery in something, while striving to experience as much as possible each day. Awareness and an inclination to take the plunge into the next potential miracle are our ticket to the promise of the coming day.

      I’m no Jeremiah, saying a phrase like that. Miracles are ours to realize in how we live our lives each day. Our life may be modest or bold—each brings its own opportunity to encounter that which is beyond us. Are we aware of all that moves around us? It’s all a miracle, and so too are we. Our interaction with the world is ours alone, and never to be repeated in this dance with infinity.

      The question remains: What will we do with this miracle?

    • Fear (The Little Death)

      “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — Frank Herbert, Dune

      Fear seems to be popping up a lot in my world lately. Not because I’m afraid so much as the idea of it comes up all the time. We know that once we notice something we see it everywhere. Well, fear was noticed, and here we are.

      What are we afraid of anyway? Death? Memento mori. Whether we’re afraid or not, we will all die anyway. Failure? Life is one failure after another. But it’s also one success after another. Need an example? We all woke up today. Call it a win.

      The thing is, most fear that holds us back from doing something is a dream dying on the vine. String enough dead dreams together and we’ve wasted our lives. Ignore enough fears and maybe we reach summits we’d hardly dare to dream of they seemed so audacious.

      We’re wounded by fear
      Injured in doubt
      I can lose myself
      You I can’t live without
      — U2, Red Hill Mining Town

      What is so important to us that we feel the fear and do it anyway? What is worthy of our courage now? What are we waiting for? We know deep down that tomorrow is too late. Socrates told us that we must seize what flees. Tempus fugit: Time flies. And the opportunities of a lifetime fly with it.

    • Expanding Circles

      “Travel is a fantastic self-development tool, because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves. This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it’s not necessarily the best way to live.”
      ― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

      How comfortable are we, wrapped up in the stories we tell ourselves? Life either reinforces all that we hold to be true or it refutes it. We know that to get more physically fit we must break down our muscles through stress for them to grow. It’s the same with the mind. Diverse experience breaks down the stories we tell ourselves, that we may grow and learn to be something more than we were before. This all seems obvious, but it’s somehow controversial in certain circles.

      I’ve had a few conversations with people who don’t want to travel to places that they believe live by different stories than the ones they tell themselves. Herein lies the problem. We must first seek to understand, that we may be understood. We know already why we’re different. It’s our curated belief system—where we were born, the programming that sucked us in and has a hold on us, and that circle that we’re inclined to stay inside of for fear of what’s on the other side. Our life depends on escaping those circles that would imprison us in belief.

      The thing is, circles are useful too. They help define who we are and what we stand for. What is our identity? It’s right here in this circle of experience and learning, developed over a lifetime. We just can’t forget that we can grow the circle too. When we look at life as a series of discoveries that fill in the story of who we might be, we learn to be excited about the search for more experiences and challenges that test what we once believed, that we may fill in more of the circle and make it grow. What are we missing by staying within our current circle? Shouldn’t we go see for ourselves? A full life is expansive by nature.

    • Kingdoms Fall

      October and the trees are stripped bare
      Of all they wear
      What do I care?
      October and kingdoms rise
      And kingdoms fall
      But you go on
      And on
      — U2, October

      Inevitably, I encounter simmering rage when I listen long enough. That’s America now—rage in one form or another. It’s everywhere. Yes, common at the extremes on both sides, but creeping more and more into the middle. An even keel is hard to maintain in a tumultuous sea. We are in the midst of a storm brought on by profiteers and pirates. Bastards.

      If I sound distant from the rage myself, well, it’s a deliberate act to remove myself from the storm. Maybe there are no safe harbors in a storm like this, but we ought to find places of refuge to take stock of where we are, what we stand for, who we want to be and what we want to be remembered as one day when all of this is being cleaned up and analyzed by future generations. Those of us who reside in the middle keep this ship from capsizing. We choose whether the scales will be forever tipped.

      It’s October. Peak foliage days before it all falls away and all that we are left with are memories of what was and what might have been if we’d only paid more attention. Seasons come and go. All that will be left of us one day is what we choose to leave behind.

    • Cordwood Sacrifices

      Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
      I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

      In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
      Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

      Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
      And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

      It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
      I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.
      — William Ernest Henley, Invictus

      We see where our choices have brought us over time. Or rather, we see if we are aware of our agency. So many learn helplessness as their primary lesson, and not agency. Not mastery of themselves. Mastery of self is a lifetime course. We are all students to the very end. To believe we have already reached mastery is to miss the lesson entirely.

      Everyone knows the final stanza of Invictus, even if they don’t know the poet. Even if they cannot recite the lines exactly. This idea of being the master of our fate and captain of our soul latches on to us like burrs to cloth. We like to think it so, this level of agency.

      Mastery requires choice. Mostly, it’s all that we will say no to that we may say yes to some primary purpose. A yes to what should be a no may be just the thing we desire most after a long day of grinding away towards our primary goal, but that which leads us astray leads us to mediocrity.

      Too harsh? We know the truth of where we are when measured against where we might have been. Choices matter a great deal on our course to personal excellence. I hear the curses mumbled for bringing up arete again. What are we here for but to do our best towards something larger than ourselves? Something godlike in its audacity? We may aspire to greatness while remaining humble servants of this moment we were made for.

      To favor no is to be mentally tough. It’s to decide what our yes will be and get used to stacking no’s one after the other like cordwood sacrifices to our yes. Decide what to be and go be it. Arete is ours to define, and ours to navigate towards through our decisions today.

    • AI Chili

      I went through a drive-thru yesterday (you know you’re in America by the number of drive-thru’s you come across). I prefer not to frequent such places, but circumstances being what they were, I took advantage of it for what I hoped would be a quick bite between customer meetings. And my drive-thru host wasn’t human. It’s not my first rodeo with Artificial Intelligence (AI), or even audio AI (try getting a human on the phone at your bank or service provider nowadays), but surely the first time I’ve ordered a bowl of chili at a drive-thru with an audio AI host. Another small step for mankind, another great leap for humanity.

      We encounter the artificial every day now. We hardly think about it it’s so ubiquitous in our lives. Our politicians are artificial. Our music is increasingly artificial. This blog could be artificial if I wanted it to be. But I don’t want it to be, even if it will be scrubbed and duplicated by an artificial world even before I click publish. We must hold the line on genuine humanity in an increasingly artificial world. Isn’t it pretty to think so?

      The thing about AI that makes it so great is that it’s designed to make life easier for us. The thing about AI that makes it so awful is that it makes life easier for us. One challenge at a time, it’s robbing us of the challenges that make us grow. We don’t have to learn and remember things anymore. We don’t have to stumble through a language seeking to understand someone when a translation application can simply tell each of us what the other was saying.

      Technology is a tool that makes life easier for us, but we should still strive to do more difficult things, with technology as a tool to help us rise to a more enlightened place than we otherwise could reach. Maybe the person making minimum wage to staff that drive-thru could rise to some other role. That’s the promise of AI; that it takes away the menial while offering up exponential possibility for each of us.

      What’s it all about Alfie? Why are we here if not to be human? To learn and grow and be or not be that other thing? All of this technology is making the artificial increasingly more of our reality. Where will that stop? We’re living science fiction, but also wandering deep into a psychological thriller. A simple bowl of chili is surely only the beginning.

    • Moving Through Us

      “Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
      — Frank Herbert, Dune

      You know when you’re in the midst of greatness. You can see it with your own eyes, feel it in your nervous system. There are so few who reach that level, and fewer still who can stay there for any amount of time, that it’s memorable when it washes over a moment. Tom Brady had a long dance with greatness. So did Michael Phelps. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is currently in the midst of greatness in the 400 meter hurdles and dash. Greatness is myth-like because it’s just so far beyond merely being good.

      To be sardonic is to be cynical, highly skeptical, and maybe a little sarcastic. Tom Brady had the perfect foil in Bill Belichick. We all need someone that keeps our ego in check and knock us down a notch when we begin to believe the hype. The alternative is to get too big for one’s britches. How many rise to greatness only to stumble back down to average when they succumb to the myth?

      People love the hero’s journey, but they learn to hate the person who is on top for too long. Maybe that’s because they keep the next hero from rising all the way to the top. It’s the rare few who are loved for their greatness because they exude something beyond the norm. Usain Bolt ran with a brash joyfulness that thrilled even the most casual observer.

      We may aspire to greatness but still be humble. Like a writer or artist who view themselves as a vehicle for the muse to bring art to the world, each of us are similarly bringing something beyond ourselves to whatever it is that we do. We ought to do it exceptionally well, that we may earn the right to do it again tomorrow. And maybe even better. We just can’t get so full of ourselves that the greatness has no room to move through us.

    • A Win For the Day

      “The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future.” — Gifford Pinchot

      I was pondering a different quote than the one above, one by John Wooden, who said, “Make each day your masterpiece.” I think we’d all love to make a masterpiece, but find most days the end product is somewhere closer to good enough. Maybe that’s why there are so few masters in any field. That singularity of purpose is exceedingly rare.

      I believe Wooden meant to raise our personal standard. When we hold ourselves to a standard of excellence, we may not exceed that standard, but we may get far closer to it than we otherwise would have. String enough of those days together and we’re really on to something.

      The thing is, we know most of that talk is great for a motivational poster on the break room wall, but it doesn’t mean a thing unless we internalize it and make it our own. We either raise our standard or we opt for something less for ourselves. Whether that’s comfort or laziness or distraction, something pulls us down from reaching excellence most days. But maybe today we can see some incremental improvement and call that a win for the day.

      When I write about arete, or personal excellence, it’s not some fluffy self-motivational expression, it’s a reminder to try a little harder today. As adults, we must be responsible for our own development and do a little better at the things we do today, and then stretch even further tomorrow. And see where it takes us. It can’t help but be somewhere better than the place we started.

    • Worthy of Our Time

      “Beware the barrenness of a busy life” — Socrates

      The peril of productivity is that we get so busy doing things that we forget to look up and see all that’s passing right before our eyes. I’m not a fan of busy, but I love being productive with my time. And of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We can feel when our time is well spent and when it’s not.

      It helps to look ahead. What will we miss most when it’s gone forever? Conversations with people we love. The field that deer and turkey gather in on foggy mornings that will become a development in a growth-at-all-costs community. The quiet rituals in a role we are currently in but won’t be in forever. So much is here today and gone tomorrow. What is worth saving and what is worth letting go?

      The key to a full life is to look for the barrenness and to endeavor to fill it with meaning. What’s missing? What can we add to fill that void? Filling gaps is not busyness when it’s purposeful. And what is full of meaning already that we should endeavor to save for a future we all hope will be brighter? If barrenness is the antithesis of a full life, what is truly worthy of our time?

    • The We In Me

      “Who’s living in you? It’s pretty horrifying when you come to know that. You think you are free, but there probably isn’t a gesture, a thought, an emotion, an attitude, a belief in you that isn’t coming from someone else. Isn’t that horrible? And you don’t know it. Talk about a mechanical life that was stamped into you. You feel pretty strongly about certain things, and you think it is you who are feeling strongly about them, but are you really? It’s going to take a lot of awareness for you to understand that perhaps this thing you call “I” is simply a conglomeration of your past experiences, of your conditioning and programming.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness

      The we in me is a collection of characters from all parts of my past, whispering their opinions, goading me on, knocking me down. We’ll never get past them until we’re aware that they’re there. These characters live in the past—part of who we were, but also part of who we are. They don’t have to have a say in who we become.

      Some days this chorus of conditioning tells me to stop writing and do something else with the time. To stop being such a drag and have a drink. To grow outraged at the state of the world and watch some video mocking the other side. To be angry and distracted and spun up. Because misery loves company, and the worst character traits within us hate to be unheard.

      Habits help quiet the chorus within. When I’m swinging a kettle bell around or trying to maintain a split on a long row I don’t have the time to linger with doubt. I’m too busy taking action and voting for the type of person I wish to become, as James Clear put it. Habits create distance between what we were then and who we are becoming right now. We want to close some gaps while increasing other gaps. We want to be the person who does what they tell themselves that they’re going to do.

      Who do we trust the most in our lives? It’s the people who follow through on the promises they make. To build what Charlie Munger called “a seamless web of deserved trust“—those people we know to be reliable and dependable. Shouldn’t we feel this about ourselves first and foremost? If we want a network of strong and trusted allies, we must be one ourselves.

      When we fill our lives with increasingly stronger voices, we find that the weaker voices from our past get lost in the background, where they belong. This naturally builds upon itself, for as we grow stronger we attract more like-minded characters of strength and determination. We are the sum of all that has happened in our lives, all those voices from our past play their part. It’s up to us whether that is a bit part of a defining role in who we become.