Alexandersmap

    Category: reading

    • Do Not Waste Your Time in Driblets

      “Follow, my dear boy, an honorable calling, which shall engross your time and give you position and fame, and besides enable you to benefit your fellow man. Do not waste your time in driblets.” — Charles Sumner

      As you might have noticed, the blog posts are back with more frequency again. I like to be productive with my time, and subscribe to the use it or lose it theory of active living. The it in that expression may be my mind as much as my writing skills. When I write I’m an active seeker. When I don’t write I seek less. The answer seems to be to keep writing. But always with the caveat to seek more that is interesting. Now and then that actually translates to the blog. Fingers crossed.

      Some of that time not writing was used for reading more. We are what we consume, and I’m consuming far more lately than my average. A leftover book (from which I plucked the quote above) from a recent flurry of Paris-related reading is David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. The theme of the book is the quest for more beyond the ordinary. Aspiring for more, exceptional people in history sought out Paris in particular to find what they were missing.

      The thing is, I’d just finished McCullough’s excellent book, The Wright Brothers, and wasn’t looking to jump into another of his books so soon. I read a couple of chapters of another book with a promising title but quickly grew dissatisfied with my choice. I’d read three great books in a row, and wasn’t going to settle for something that bored me to tears. When you’ve tasted the possibility of greatness, why waste time on driblets? Dive vigorously into the full menu!

      Those Wright Brothers were a fine example in not wasting time. Intelligent, highly-focused, industrious and open to calculated risks, they changed the world. We all know of Kitty Hawk, but that first powered flight was but a first step. They had to then go show the world what they’d built, and how to use it. A significant part of their story happened in France. If you’re looking for inspiration to move beyond settling for the driblets in your own life, reading The Wright Brothers offers a glimpse into how to get it done.

      To do more with the opportunity at hand is the thing. We each have the same amount of time today to work with. Just what are we doing with the hours? Might we choose a more savory bite off of the menu? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to sprinkle a little zip on top? Today leads to tomorrow, after all. Be bold today, that we may look back in wonder at all we’ve done. We must never forget that its the doing that leads to the done.

    • A Ritual of Now

      If you’ll forgive the brag, the garden is looking good this year. A bit of good luck was (and is always) involved, with rain happening while traveling to mitigate the impact of irregular watering in my absence, followed by a well-timed return to tend to things when the heat rose. Whether luck or accumulated experience planting things that are happy in the microclimate I place them in, the garden is thriving. The outcome of our lives is a combination of luck and the steady influence of consistent action. We can debate the ratio, or simply accept what is and what will be.

      If you’re reading this, you’re bucking the trend in the United States to read less. I find myself writing a little less to read a little more. We give our time to what we want in the moment. I’d like to finish more books this year, even if it’s at the expense of a few more blog posts. We tend to become what we measure. Life is too short to do everything we want to do in our time. I’d like to devoir a few more books each year than my present pace.

      I’ve always been a contrarian, a maverick, a rebel. If only in my own mind. The truth is I generally follow the rules and chafe at those who don’t. That explains my overall dismay at the state of things in the country and the exuberance of those who celebrate the downward spiral. But I’m not here to preach and complain. Like you, friend, I’m here to make strides forward.

      I walk toward
      the kitchen
      door as if walking
      toward the
      door of a recognized
      heaven

      and see the
      simplicity
      of shelves and
      the blue dishes
      and the
      vaporing
      steam rising
      from the kettle
      that called me in.

      Not just this
      aromatic cup
      from which to drink
      but the flavor
      of a life made whole
      and lovely
      through the
      imagination
      seeking its way.
      — David Whyte, At Home

      The long, hot days of July are upon us. We ought to dance with each day while it remains our partner. Soon it will be but a summer fling with time gone by. We are here, now, living as we do. In the quest to become what’s next, we shouldn’t lose sight of what is. The way from here is worth contemplating, but never lose sight of the ritual of now. To celebrate and savor all of this is our bold act of presence. So be bold, and savor this day.

    • That Better Character

      “In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.” ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

      Most people remember the latter half of this quote, but I love the entire paragraph. Perhaps because it’s a reminder that we’re all deeply-layered characters, with good bits and not-so-good. Life is a journey of discovering each layer and being proud or chagrined by what we find. In the end, how we’re remembered is for what we show the world of ourselves.

      Memento mori. So show up. Be that better character in the time that we have left. Not to be remembered differently, but to be more engaged and interested in all that we encounter, top to bottom. This is our life, such that it is. So what of it will we double down on? Set the course accordingly.

    • Collecting Evidence

      “I don’t know what that means. To truly live.’
      Kongo paused again, his eyes wandering to the walls of the cave, to the blackness at the far end.
      ‘To find work that you love, and work harder than other men. To learn the languages of the earth, and love the sounds of the words and the things they describe. To love food and music and drink. Fully love them. To love weather, and storms, and the smell of rain. To love heat. To love cold. To love sleep and dreams. To love the newness of each day.”
      ― Pete Hamill, Forever

      If you’ve never read Forever by Pete Hamill, consider it worthy of your time. I wander back to it now and then, when I think of Cormac and Thunder leaping towards their destiny in the New World. I have no business re-reading it now, with so many books awaiting my attention, and yet it found me again anyway.

      How do we live? The proof will unfold daily, in our choices. It’s in who we reach out to and how we react to our awareness of the world’s general indifference to us. We are here to master the self, not the universe. Personal excellence, that old friend Arete, will always be just over that next rise in the hill. Never fully realized. And yet we may live and grow and become something more profound than who we’ve started our day with.

      Indeed, this day is entirely new. And ours to perhaps fully embrace or maybe waste in our usual offhand way. “The proof will be in your living”, Kongo later says in that enchanting chapter of that magical novel that I keep returning to now and again. And indeed, life unfolds thusly. What will we look back on one day, thinking of today’s climb? May the newness of this day provoke us to collect evidence of a worthy ascent.

    • One Who Seeks

      “I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” ― Hermann Hesse, Demian

      There’s a scene in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam where the song What a Wonderful World is playing while scenes of horror unfold. I used to hate that scene, for taking a beautiful song and associating it with the ugliness of war. Now I understand that the world is always filled with ugliness, and yet it’s also beautiful and yes, wonderful. War is horror, and so sometimes is living. The dichotomy is both external and within us. We are drawn towards that which we seek. But it’s all there, isn’t it?

      As this is published, there are humans executing wars on other humans at the same time as other humans are exploring the void of space. It’s not much different than 50 years ago, is it? Vietnam and the Apollo missions and Civil Rights in the 70’s. Have a look at the headlines today and we see the same stories unfolding. Humans are complicated, and we never really change all that much.

      I may fancy myself a philosopher or a writer tapping away at my keyboard, but the rubber meets the road when we get out into the world and see the ugliness. Sometimes we ourselves are the ugliness. Sit in traffic long enough and you begin to resent the world. Sit in a meeting listening to others ramble about nonsense and we become nonsensical ourselves. In such times, the journey must turn inward. Just who do we want to be anyway?

      I may look around one day at 94 and realize that I’ve got everything figured out, but it’s folly to believe it so. To reach 94 would be an epic journey in and of itself. To reach old age with a sound mind, with the clarity of purpose burning within and a body capable of sustaining the drive, well, that would be a miracle. The odds are stacked against us humans. And yet people get there, and thrive well beyond that random number we call our age.

      Let’s see how it goes. I’d like to survive the madness we live in now, let alone try to skip to the end of the book to see how it ends. One page at a time is the proper way to immerse ourselves in a great book or a compelling life. It all goes fast enough already—tempus fugit—so do try to be here, now. All change begins within. The worst in us and the best in us are both awaiting which side we truly want to have emerge.

    • The Nature of a Sunbeam

      We speak of the sun’s light as “pouring down on us,” as “pouring over us” in all directions. Yet it’s never poured out. Because it doesn’t really pour; it extends. Its beams (aktai) get their name from their extension (ektainesthai).
      To see the nature of a sunbeam, look at light as it falls through a narrow opening into a dark room. It extends in a straight line, striking any solid object that stands in its way and blocks the space beyond it. There it remains—not vanishing, or falling away.
      That’s what the outpouring—the diffusion—of thought should be like: not emptied out, but extended. And not striking at obstacles with fury and violence, or falling away before them, but holding its ground and illuminating what receives it.
      What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.
      — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      The first day of April is often thought of as April Fool’s Day. That can be fun or tedious, depending on how one thinks about trickery and which side of the prank we find ourselves on. At the risk of being overly serious, I think I’ll sit this one out and reread a favorite book instead.

      It’s April, and that brings us to the birth month of Marcus Aurelius. Perhaps that means more to me than to you, and that’s okay. But consider the nature of the man through the work that extends through time to us. The man transmitted light.

      And what of us? What do we transmit in our daily lives? Are we like sunbeams, extending hope and beauty and love as far as we can reach, or are we blocking the light from entering altogether? We must be active illuminators, friends, if we are to leave any room we enter better for our having been there. The nature of a sunbeam is to extend into the darkest reaches to bring light to these places too. Consider that a mission if you like, just to see how bright we can make the world this day.

      Have a look at the night sky sometime. Do we focus on the dark void or the stars? We are inclined towards light, for this is where life is sustained. We may choose to be light transmitters ourselves, and thus sustain life in the most inhospitable times. Isn’t it nice to shine a light on others, instead of shadow? Unlike darkness, light reflects when it reaches a surface. And the life we save may indeed be our own.

    • This Vessel

      “Do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leads to life everlasting, and draw from the fountain that never runs dry.” ― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

      I needed a beautiful book for travel. As with people, beauty is not the outside sleeve, but rather that which is hidden within. Theo of Golden is such a book. The cover is rather ordinary. We must let it unfold page-by-page to get to know the character. This is a book for these angry times.

      We become what we consume, so why consume anger? Why not find a way to drink from a more beautiful stream? We may confront the world with eyes wide open, but also with a full heart and generous soul. Navigating towards a more beautiful life is a daily choice of accepting joyfulness as a natural state. Nurture this nature and watch it grow.

      If this all sounds rather naive, well, so be it. I’ve been there myself, angry and jaded by the state of the world and all that I cannot control. We confront it every day in everything from what the character in the White House just said to the person who just cut us off. These things are outside of us. What we carry within may be a cool stream of consciousness. A joyful life is a deliberate life, carried towards the sublime in this vessel we call our days. Just where is this one carrying us?

    • The Right Direction

      “A man’s rootage is more important than his leafage.” — Woodrow Wilson

      At some point in life that is hard to pinpoint, filling gaps became more important than reaching upward and outward. Is that a sign of wisdom, or a desire for it? Personally, there are still too many gaps to fill before I’d be considered wise. I should think being curious is enough at this stage of the game.

      Wisdom is not the same thing as being knowledgeable. I know many extremely intelligent people who have no common sense whatsoever. They’re charming and particularly useful on trivia night, but not people you’d seek counsel from if you needed advice on a career move or relationship. For that we seek those who have been there before and lived to tell the tale. And more, are willing to lend an ear or a shoulder as needed.

      How does wisdom develop? Not in leafage—forever blown about in the winds of change, fashion and trendiness. It takes roots to grow wisdom. Stillness of mind, steady in ritual, and deliberate with thought, reading and deeper conversation with those who have seen a few things themselves. The wise are continuously growing more deeply rooted and anchored in first principles.

      The thing is, the less one dwells on the leafage, the more one may look deeper within. This all leads us somewhere. We are all here to solve that greatest of questions, why are we here, in this place and time? It’s far less scary to stay above the surface on such things than it is to dig deeper. But isn’t that a shallow existence?

      So it is that this writer strives to go deeper still. That may make this blog more interesting or less so. But it remains a sincere quest for wisdom and insight. It’s no longer striving for success (whatever that is), it’s seeking deeper meaning. And that, friend, requires growth in the right direction.

    • Break It Down

      “If you repeated what you did today 365 more times, will you be where you want to be next year?” — Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

      This week I experienced something called Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM), which is a fancy way of saying a highly-trained physical therapist used a chunk of metal to scrape my leg to what felt like a bloody pulp. It turned out there was no blood, just the breaking up of scar tissue accumulated over many stubborn years of telling myself that my ankle would just get better on its own. This procedure helps undo what’s been done through micro-trauma to the scarred areas. It turns out those micro-traumas create a bit of state change in the recipient. Ouch. But also, revelation.

      It’s no secret that small habits, done consistently, change us over time. If the scar tissue in my leg reminded me of anything, its that those bad habits accumulate and develop into things we aren’t even aware of until something jolts us into awareness. For me it was a gimpy ankle. For others it’s far more serious. Like the alien spores in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, bad habits sneak into our lives and change our identity. Don’t let the bastards drag you down! Break down that scar tissue.

      “Looking ahead, focus on direction rather than destinations. Maintain the right direction and you’ll arrive at where you want to go.” — Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

      Dropping two quotes from Kevin Kelly today, but this little book is a gem. It reads like a series of bite-sized tweets, which makes it a natural read for people who stare at a screen more than they should. That’s another habit akin to an alien invasion, creating outrage and depression in people who we used to know. We’re collectively undergoing scarification, and we must find a way to scrape it away from our lives if we hope to hold on to the best of who we are and will become.

      Scar tissue hides within. Awareness of where we are is important, and so too is knowing where we’re going. What small habit, done daily, changes our course from a lesser version of us to a greater? The days will fly by either way, we might as well tune up the body, mind and soul in positive and productive ways. Decide what to be and go be it. Just accept the discomfort of change for what it is—the breaking down of the bad to make room for the good.

    • All That Is Not Us

      “No one thing shows the greatness and power of the human intellect or the loftiness and nobility of man more than his ability to know and to understand fully and feel strongly his own smallness. When, in considering the multiplicity of worlds, he feels himself to be an infinitesimal part of a globe which itself is a negligible part of one of the infinite number of systems that go to make up the world, and in considering this is astonished by his own smallness, and in feeling it deeply and regarding it intently, virtually blends into nothing, and it is as if he loses himself in the immensity of things, and finds himself as though lost in the incomprehensible vastness of existence, with this single act of thought he gives the greatest possible proof of the nobility and immense capability of his own mind, which, enclosed in such a small and negligible being, has nonetheless managed to know and understand things so superior to his own nature, and to embrace and contain this same intensity of existence and things in his thought.” — Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone di pensieri

      The encapsulation of the vastness of the universe within our minds indicates connection to something larger than ourselves. That awareness is spiritual in its own right, and one may build upon that with belief. Discovery is our path. Instead of telling ourselves stories we may seek a deeper understanding. We are connected to the universe, perhaps only in thought or recycled billion-year-old carbon, but perhaps in far greater ways that we haven’t yet grasped. Life is a span of figuring it all out, knowing we won’t reach the end with all the answers.

      This year I’m discovering Giacomo Leopardi. You might ask, what’s taken me so long? Or you might ask, who the heck is Giacomo Leopardi? Friedrich Nietzsche called Leopardi one of the four or five masters of prose in the century he was alive, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walter Savage Landor, Prosper Mérimée and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. That’s heady praise from a notable deep thinker, and a homework assignment for the avid readers amongst us. Surely if this blog continues for the foreseeable future there will be more quotes from each of these characters.

      The mind may shrink or grow depending our willingness to exercise it. We may simply believe what others tell us or go find out the answers ourselves. Awareness leads us to discovery, which draws us out into the vastness of all that is and ever will be. The universe is calling—it’s been trying to reach us our entire lives. It we aspire for anything in a lifetime, it ought to be to reach beyond ourselves to seek greater connection with all that is not us.