Alexandersmap

    Category: Philosophy

    • Where We Have to Be

      “Your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” — Jen Alvares

      Do hard things. It’s the only way to grow beyond the comfortable place we find ourselves in now. Sure, but why move on from comfortable places? For the same reason that we get out of a cozy bed in the morning—because as nice as comfort feels in the moment, it isn’t bringing us to where we have to be.

      And there it is: where we have to be. Something beyond where we presently are is calling, and we must go to it. Every hero’s journey, every odyssey, every bold leap, lies beyond this comfortable place we’ve grown to love.

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

      Comfort has its own momentum. We get swept up in our routine, find ourselves doing the same things over and over again, habitual and familiar: “I’ll have the usual.” “Already have it poured, friend.”

      The thing is, doing hard things also develops its own momentum. Exchanging comfort for harder is a daily negotiation with identity. We are where we are, lovely as it is, but we wish to do and be more than this, and that, friend, is hard.

      Everything we truly want in life has a cost. Comfort has a cost, and so does hard. Decide what to be and go be it. There’s no momentum in stasis: we must get up and get going, now, if we are ever going to get to that loftier place.

    • Our Box of Stories

      I spent a few minutes scanning the Substack of a clever hipster with far more subscribers than I have on that platform and really all of my platforms combined. She stated that blogging is long dead, and Substack was getting there itself. And I smiled to myself, knowing just how uncool I’ve become for still calling it a blog. Why not simply call it writing? Or a daily newsletter? Or the complicated ramblings of a self-absorbed passenger on this ship of fools we call now? It’s all just the great conversation, in whatever way we dare to put it out there. The rest is positioning ourselves as close to relevance as we can get, if we choose to. Some of us forgo influence for deeper, calmer waters. It all matters, and none of it matters, all at once. We do the best we can where we are, with what we have.

      Our box of stories is that which surrounds us, holding us in place so we don’t stray too far into reckless places. My story is telling me to be responsible today and go to work after writing this [whatever we want to call it] and doing a few chores around the homestead so it’s still in one piece when I eventually return. There’s more to the story than that, but why bog down your story by going long with mine? Let’s keep it real, and really concise.

      The thing is, we know we ought to re-write our stories now and then, just to change the box we find ourselves trapped in. We’re all running out of time to experience all that lies outside our box. That’s the underlying story, no matter how we write it. We don’t have to ruin all our stories, but we ought to stretch the box beyond the limits those stories have given us. Today is as good a day to try something new as any. What are we currently writing? Make it fresh and a little bolder than the box can contain.

    • Solid and Perfected

      “I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to an extreme old age.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      Some people hit the ground running. They learn and adapt quickly, show promise and then exceed expectations with every step. They make those lists of rising stars and show exactly why they got there. I appreciate the relentless drive they show each day to reach for excellence.

      That wasn’t my path. Forget about being the smartest person in the room, I hadn’t earned a ticket to enter it in the first place. So began a quest to fill in gaps through formal and self-education. Forever a work in progress, we grow closer to our potential through consistent action.

      We are where we are, most of us arriving here through a series of events largely out of our control, the very occasional good choice made at the right time, and a healthy dose of dumb luck. We may not have been labeled a rising star or have the pedigree of the elite, but we’ve all hit the lottery anyway, didn’t we? Arriving here, largely intact despite some poor choices along the way. Lucky us.

      This moment in our life is always and forever our beginning. From here we rise to meet our future. To become more resilient, stronger and wiser is a choice. So is the choice to coast into (or remain in) something easier. Beginning again today, with the skills, knowledge and fitness level that yesterday’s choices earned us, we get to choose based on who we wish to become. Our growth depends on our being rooted in aspirations higher than our current position: To grow into someone solid and perfected.

    • Applied Exuberance

      “He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.” — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

      “Exuberance is Beauty.” — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

      I write for creative expression (no shocker there), and also for the realization of a desire to write. To honor Mr. Harding’s proclamation in front of the entire class that I would be a writer one day while reacting to a bit of prose about balloons I’d handed in for an assignment in class. I don’t remember the names of most of my teachers in my K-12 education, but I will always remember Mr. Harding. Years have flown by since that slightly embarrassing, highly thrilling moment. I believe Mr. Harding would be pleased with my development as a human, but he’d likely wonder when I was going to finish the hero’s journey he set me out on that day long ago.

      Journeys happen at their own pace. I’m a late bloomer and an early riser. That means I always feel two steps behind and eager to get a good start to the day to try to catch up to where I perceive the rest of the world already is. Looking around, I know this is largely an illusion, but it’s a useful story to tell myself anyway. I’m farther along in my development than I otherwise would be. Still, there’s so much more to do.

      There’s a trendy movement on social media called “5 to 9 before 9 to 5“ that must be popular for me to have heard about it at all (so intently do I follow trends on social media). It’s simply a clever phrase for what many of us have been doing for years: lean into meaningful productivity early in the day, before the world wakes up and drags us into its agenda. Create, exercise, read, meditate, pray… whatever wins the early hours helps us win the day. The early bird gets the worm. Nothing new here, just great marketing of a great concept I happen to subscribe to. Tempus fugit. Carpe diem.

      The thing is, our days get away from us pretty quickly. The modern world wants us outraged, medicated, subscribed to multiple streaming services and dutifully paying our taxes. We must wrestle back our time if we wish to accomplish anything we truly desire. If we dare to strive for personal excellence (Arete), we must act, and carve out time for ourselves to do it. Exuberance, like excellence, isn’t reached by going through the motions. So we must apply ourselves to the task. Hurry now: for our time is flying by.

    • That Fierce Embrace

      It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
      or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel
      abandoned.
      If you know despair or can see it in others.
      I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world
      with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
      with firm eyes saying this is where I stand. I want to know
      if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living
      falling toward the centre of your longing. I want to know
      if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequences of love
      and the bitter
      unwanted passion of your sure defeat. I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
      the gods speak of God.

      — David Whyte, Self Portrait

      To be ourself in a world that expects acceptance, or at the very least acquiescence, is audacious. Mothers, wanting the very best for their babies, might call it reckless. Best to fall in line, get a proper degree, leading to a proper job, offering a proper life. ‘Tis proper, we’re trained to believe, to focus on the score. Grades and status and titles and the right zip code.

      The score is memento mori. The score is tempus fugit. If we are to melt into that fierce heat of living, we must go against the grain more often than our tribe may be comfortable with. They only want the best for us. We know this, and we must learn to be bold anyway. A lifetime is far too short for all that we want for ourselves, let alone all that our tribe expects of us.

      The real question, the one we’ve avoided all along in this tribal dance, is why won’t we simply embrace it?

    • Step Out

      Now I’m thinkin’ about her everyday
      On my mind, atypical way
      Are you a life force?
      — Caamp, By and By

      It must be the cold air in the dark hours. September offers more dark hours, and thus more cold air, than the preceding months. When we walk out into colder air, we feel we’re walking out into something. We learn to brace for it. We come to love it.

      As we pull on an extra layer and step out from the walls that surround us into the infinite truth, what comes to mind? For me, the music on my mind is seasonal. Just as I have my summer soundtrack, I have a soundtrack for autumn. It’s like welcoming an old friend back. Here we are again. So much has changed but we still have this.

      Are you a life force? In these angry, divisive and violent times, just what do we stand for? What walls currently surround us, holding us back from something infinitely larger than who we are? Step out and find the truth.

    • A Shared Experience

      “The Scripture rule, “Unto him that hath shall be given,” is true of composition. The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      Give and it shall be given. A bit of Luke for the casual Bible reader. The more we give of ourselves, the more flows through us. Generosity is an infinite game, derived out of an abundance mentality. Over and over again, we learn that we get what we give (You’ve got the music in you).

      A friend invited me back to Substack with a gift subscription. I appreciate the generosity, but I’m in a place where I favor analog over digital consumption, and am thus keeping most digital content at arms length. Is it ironic that I blog daily, thus creating the very digital content that I’m currently attempting to trim from my unrelentingly large information diet? Perhaps. But our hand is more complex and nuanced than the up card that is showing. This paragraph is not who I am, just who I was in the moment I wrote it. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

      When the words flow with abundance, all sorts of things come out. We either filter vigorously, knowing our spouse and mother and daughter will read it, or we simply accept the consequences of an open dialog and write what comes to us. But we become what we focus on, and this blog, scattered as it may seem at times, focuses on the fine art of becoming what’s next. Life is a shared experience, and what is a blog but the sharing of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen?

      Thought breeds thought. We are here to write our story, made rich by the vigorous application of full days. Do more, experience more, learn from it and see where it takes us next. Then share it with others. Life grows in abundance to the level with which we engage with the world.

    • Marking the Path of Being

      “All the bright precious things fade so fast, and they don’t come back.” — from F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

      I love a rainy day with nothing much to do. I find there haven’t been all that many of either rainy days or days without much to do this summer, so savoring the sensation feels right. Let tomorrow bring the crush; today is for too precious to concede to busy.

      The tricky thing about being busy is that we lose the capacity to savor when we’re trying desperately not to drown. There’s no floating with stillness when the waves are choppy and filled with sharks and other drowning people. An angry sea is no place to be. We must seek stillness in our lives if we are to find awareness and peace.

      When we get busy things tend to slip away with time. We focus on the important and urgent instead of the essential few. If it’s important we ought to focus on it, right? I mean, it’s important. And if it’s urgent we don’t have time to debate, we just do. This mindset makes us feel productive, but it forever kicks the essential down the curb.

      “How many pages will be left empty because your process was dampened by doubt and deliberation?” — Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

      We must develop and nurture our non-negotiables in life. Mine include time to exercise, read, sleep, and yes: to write. If I get enough of these four, then even the stormiest day feels manageable. Writing every day coaxes the busy mind into awareness. To dabble in the essential for an hour, or a few hours, before the angry sea attempts to wash over us is a gift we give to ourselves. What do we make of this accumulation of blog posts and pages written? Will it take us anywhere in the end? It’s taken us this far already, friend.

      A lifetime is an empty and hollow thing indeed if we don’t fill each day with something more than we began it with. What is accumulated is a growing awareness and the willingness to experience and do the things that may come to us if we would only be open to them. These words are simply marking the path of being. How many pages may we fill in a lifetime of deliberate being? There is a hint of an answer revealed here and now.

    • Plot Twists

      “There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.” — André Gide, Autumn Leaves

      What is possible is often nothing more than what we believe to be possible. Where we believe the world is going. Where we believe our limits lie. What are beliefs but stories we tell ourselves?

      Beliefs ought to be questioned. Challenged. If only to see what’s on the other side of that belief. I believe our story depends on a plot twist or two to be compelling. But some people aren’t fans of plot twists in their lives. They favor a predictable story—all neatly lined up in sequential order. That’s nice, I suppose, but not what I believe.

      What some people call bad luck I call a plot twist. We ought to sit with the situation and ask ourselves a few questions: Why is this happening? What can we learn from it? Where is this leading us? How can we re-write our story to be more compelling? The hero’s journey demands that we transcend the challenges thrown at us and rise to a greater place.

      Life is nothing but one plot twist after another. What are we to do but learn and grow? Write, review, revise and make the next draft even better. Possibility is simply a better plot twist, realized through persistence and creativity.

    • Our Beautiful Choice

      “A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.” — Carl Rogers, On Becoming A Person

      I walk by a single tree that is clearly more distressed than it’s neighboring trees. The foliage has already begun to change to gold and faint orange. The drought most likely, I think to myself on one pass beside the tree. There are many loops past this tree, and thus many chances to observe things like the rate of change in the foliage relative to the trees around it. Each pass marks the incremental change in both the tree and me. I may have a little more agency, but every reunion with the tree reminds me that I’m really just moving in circles most of the time. We are kindred spirits, alive in the same moment, transformed by environment and place.

      “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for its not the same river and he’s not the same man.” ” — Heraclitus

      All these changes have brought us here. Collectively. I’ve turned away from the news of the world—politics and sports and celebrity gossip mean nothing to me now. To focus on what is within my control and nothing more is liberating in and of itself. We are explorers, charting a path through an upside down world. When we find the ground beneath us isn’t solid, as on a beach with the surf constantly pulling the sand from beneath our feet, we too must adapt and adjust our stance. And eventually find our way to solid ground once again.

      Life is change. And it’s never been nor ever will be fair. Environment and place are largely out of our control, but how we move through this world is our beautiful choice to make. We may get caught up in the swirl and concede the sinking or choose a path to something more tangible from which to base our growth upon. Decide what to be and go be it. Our potentialities are always ahead of us, awaiting our move in that direction.