Alexandersmap

    Category: Stoicism

    • Strategic, Interested Experiencing

      “When people stop believing in an afterlife, everything depends on making the most of this life. And when people start believing in progress—in the idea that history is headed toward an ever more perfect future—they feel far more acutely the pain of their own little lifespan, which condemns them to missing out on almost all of that future. And so they try to quell their anxieties by cramming their lives with experience.” — Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

      Burkeman’s statement isn’t something you just fly by without contemplation. I have people in my life who would be indignant about the very idea of there being no afterlife. You might say I’m more open to the concept. But no matter what your belief about what happens next, most would agree in the concept of the infinite unknown. It was here before we were conceived and began our march through borrowed time, and it will envelope us again sooner than we’re comfortable with thinking about. Really, it’s all around us, we’re just stubbornly alive beings bumping up against infinity every day until we rejoin it. Giddy-Up.

      We get busy in life, marching through our days and obligations. I was just thinking to myself that I’m a bit short on micro-adventures lately. Blame it on my day job running parallel to this blog. I have a few friends that question my sanity for trading so many of my four thousand weeks for a career. But life is more than chasing waterfalls and sunsets. You’ve got to make something of your time, don’t you? Or do you need to do something in your time? Can you do both? Can we really have it all?

      Burkeman recommends “strategic underachievement”, which is simply “nominating in advance whole areas of life in which you won’t expect excellence of yourself” to mitigate the underlying stress of living for both commitments and experience. Focus on what you want to excel in, and gently put the rest aside on the priority list—placing the not-so-important stuff into tomorrow is a gentle way of punting what doesn’t really matter in this brash act of living life on our own terms.

      “Tomorrow is for the lazy mind, the sluggish mind, the mind that is not interested” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

      The answer, I believe, is to focus on the things that make you feel most alive, things that put you right in the mix of a fulfilling, satisfying life. That might be a sunset in the tropics or washing the dishes with your favorite song playing louder than it should. Embracing the mundane and the remarkable as it comes, but prioritizing that which places you squarely where you might maximize these experiences. We ought to decide what we want to savor most, and what to let fall away.

      Let’s face it, passively waiting for life experiences to come your way leads to a whole lot of waiting. Strategic underachievement in one area of your life means you’ve got to proactively work to strategically overachieve in other areas. Be interested in this business of living! Get up off your passive expectations about living and go out and meet the things you most want to achieve, be and do in this short life. Not so much “cramming experience”, but rather, strategic, and interested, experiencing. Wherever we might be.

    • Be Yourself

      To be nobody but
      yourself in a world
      which is doing its best day and night to make you like
      everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
      which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
      ― e e cummings

      “Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”
      ― e e cummings

      Delighting in a blizzard, I forgo the endless news telling you what’s right in front of you and instead read poetry and sip espresso. Were the snow deeper I might slip on the snowshoes and fly. Give it time, I think, and it will catch up to where my dreams are. Who doesn’t become a child again when hunkered down in a snowstorm?

      There’s a spirit in a blizzard that calls me outside. Swirling snow globe bliss, shaken again and again until it spins madly about. The landscape is cloaked and the familiar appears foreign. I suppose it’s the adventure of being immersed in a storm that draws me outside, or maybe it’s the thought of doing what most people would tell me not to do. A blizzard is a rebellion against the norm. It turns our expectations upside down and does its own thing, and I find it reassuring and a bit thrilling.

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

      The ego is the enemy, the Stoics and Ryan Holiday would suggest, and this week my ego experienced a generous portion of highs and a healthy dose of lows. I put it all aside and focus on who I’d like to be instead. There’s no use living your life for the approval of others, for they only see the world through their own filter. You’ve got to be yourself, and find out who you are with every new experience, every new thrill and setback and odd twist of fate.

      The wind picks up, and billions of snowflakes surf the breeze to beach themselves where they may, transforming the landscape in their huddled masses. Packed in together in swirling madness, most land where the wind takes them. But the funny part of a blizzard is that where the snow lands isn’t always where it might stay. The wind can easily lift snow up again, to land in an entirely different place.

      The world is similarly mad. The masses land where they’re carried by the wind currents of place and expectation and obligation. Yet we might still surf the breeze and find our own landing place. Should we choose to get out there and fly.

    • To Be a Philosopher

      “You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals, and apply yourself either to things within or without you; that is, be either a philosopher, or one of the vulgar.” — Epictetus, The Enchiridion

      Do you ever wonder why the Stoics are more popular than ever? Why would Epictetus, who died in 135 A.D. be relevant today? Why would Marcus Aurelius, who died in 180 A.D. be so revered? Or Seneca, who died in 65 A.D.? I believe it comes down to a few key reasons: First and foremost, they wrote from a very human perspective that is still relatable no matter what millennium you’re passing your time in. Second; if it weren’t relevant it would have long ago been vanquished to the trash heap like the lesser work of millions before and after them. And finally, you might also say they gain a lot of momentum as the great men and women who followed them referred to them for wisdom and inspiration. And if it worked for them, why not us?

      On our journey from the vulgar, callow juvenile inside each of us to the refined, philosophical sage we may wish to become, we learn to cultivate discipline. Discipline draws us deeper into our true selves, structures our lives in such a way that we might accomplish a few things and bring us closer to becoming who we want to be. To stop looking from one shiny object to the next and focus on what means the most, now, and when we reach that stepping stone find the next.

      Will our own work become timeless, or vanquished with the lesser work of millions? We’re dealt an unfair hand trying to measure up with the greatest thinkers of the past. That’s not stoicism, that’s upward comparison. Comparing yourself to others leads to unfocused misery. It’s better to compare yourself with the person you used to be instead. Stoicism is a quest to become the best person you can be in your short time on earth. Ultimately everything we do shows the way for those who follow us. Just as those great Stoics did. If it’s transcendently great it might become timeless. But it’s not for us to decide such things.

      Our only purpose is to maximize our potential in the time we’re given. To cultivate our own ruling faculty and apply ourselves to becoming what we might. While we may.

    • Where Savoring Happens

      “He who is everywhere is nowhere.” – Seneca

      Simplify.

      Focus on fewer things. Focus on important things. Things of consequence.

      Quietly move away from the shallow pool of life into the deeper waters. Less splashing and shouting. You can’t dive deeply in shallow water. You must go deeper—away from the noise.

      Where life is richer. Conversations are more meaningful. Where recognition and realization take place. Where savoring happens.

      Give the mind a bit more elbow room and see where the world might take you when you aren’t constantly distracted by the noise of life.

      See what you may create. What you may come to understand. Where you may go. And who you may become.

      Here.

    • The Trick In the Compass

      “It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.” — Simone Weil

      The quote above is making the rounds on Twitter again, stirred up first by Maria Popova and recently by Tim Ferriss. When the student is ready the teacher will appear, it is said, and whatever brought the quote back to my attention, I was ready to receive it. Maybe you are too.

      The last time I consulted my compass, I was sitting in a parking lot in front of a sporting goods store, hearing the truth. He told me to stop writing about death so much, but accepted my answer that stoicism isn’t a preoccupation with death, it’s a reminder to live with urgency. It would be the last conversation we’d ever have, and I wonder at the exchange even now.

      The trick in the compass is that it doesn’t show true north, it shows magnetic north. The difference between the two is called the magnetic inclination. Magnetic north, simplified, changes with the molten core of the Earth. Its more fluid, if you will. We change in just such a way. Just like the compass, we must adjust our heading based on how far from true north our core has shifted our magnetic north. No wonder so many find themselves off course.

      Making ourselves clear to ourselves is a journey. It requires walking many miles, the consumption of vast amounts of poetry and prose, a good friend or mentor alongside, and certainly, a whole lot of writing. But mostly it requires stumbling over hard truths, picking yourself up and setting yourself back on the path.

    • Writing to Schubert

      How many hours
      do I sit here
      aching to do

      what I do not do
      when, suddenly,
      he throws a single note

      higher than the others
      so that I feel
      the green field of hope,

      and then, descending,
      all this world’s sorrow,
      so deadly, so beautiful.
      – Mary Oliver, Schubert

      Today is the anniversary of the death of Franz Schubert, who passed away at the shockingly young age of 31 on the 19th of November 1828. It’s shocking because of how much he accomplished in such a short span of time. Not so shocking when you consider the state of modern medicine at the time: he was treated with mercury to cure what was believed to be syphilis. I’m grateful for a lot of things in my life — being born at a time where medical treatment is a bit less hit or miss is right up there on my list. But having better treatment options guarantees nothing. We still must produce while we can.

      The inspiration with Schubert is in the mastery he had reached in his last few years. It’s something we can draw from in our own creative lives, as Mary Oliver clearly did, and I regret not leveraging his soundtrack more often myself. But then again it all comes to us at different times, doesn’t it? We all reach that point of creative inspiration when we wake up and finally see the truth. If Schubert offers any warning from his grave, it’s that we shouldn’t wait. Memento Mori.

      Schubert’s brief and brilliant life informs: we can do a lot in a relatively brief amount of time. And surely, there’s still time to do it today. But maybe not tomorrow. Carpe diem. Now get to work.

    • Into My Arms

      And I don’t believe in the existence of angels
      But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
      But if I did I would summon them together
      And ask them to watch over you
      To each burn a candle for you
      To make bright and clear your path
      And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
      And guide you into my arms
      – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Into My Arms

      Some songs you hear take time to enter your rotation as “favorites”, but others grab you the first time you hear them. Nick Cave’s Into My Arms is the latter kind of song for me. And it’s one of those songs you don’t exactly play at parties, so I have no idea how other people feel about it, but for me it’s on that playlist I play for myself. I know I’m not the only one, you just need to look at the number of views on YouTube for this song in the many performances he’s put out there over the years to see it hits a cord for a lot of people.

      I heard an interview with Bono recently where he mentioned that Nick Cave played this song at the memorial service for Michael Hutchence in a darkened room. Bono was so deeply moved by this that the song stays close to his heart to this day. Listen to the song and imagine that moment, and you might never think of it the same way again either. It’s changed how I think of it now, hearing Bono’s story. Elevating it to a new place than before. Maybe my sharing it will change how you think of it too.

      This is a love song, first and foremost, but you know it’s more than that. This is a song about questioning it all, these stories that we all tell ourselves. And maybe acknowledging that there’s something special in the universe to have put a kindred spirit in this world and pointed us towards each other at just the right moment. Serendipity? Or something more? To say you know the answer to that only means you’ve embraced one story over another. The only story I trust in the story of today, just you and me and this crazy world we live in for now.

      Just another song on my Memento Mori playlist, as I march through this one brief life. You might think that’s a morbid thing, remembering that we all must die. I think of it as a reminder to live with grace and love in these days of light. And to celebrate our time together while it’s here. To remember, really, that we all must love.

    • The Random Gift of Injury

      Stoicism is accepting whatever the world throws at you. Not to be bullied by the universe, but to accept fate and manage the moment. This, of course, is an oversimplification, but for our purposes we’ll run with this definition. There are bookshelves full of stoic philosophy at the ready should you wish to dive deeper.

      With this in mind, what were the odds that I’d bruise my right heel stepping on a small log tossed underfoot by a rogue wave I was running to avoid on a beach in Marin, California on the one morning I happened to be walking in that place in my lifetime? Not quite as random as hitting the birth lottery, but pretty damned remote. One step of thousands of steps, landing on the exact spot to create a bruise that’s irritated me for a couple of weeks now.

      Maybe irritate is the wrong word. Maybe fascinate is better, because of the randomness of that bruise. Semantics aside, it’s a classic test of stoicism, one I ought to embrace for the gift it is. A bit of pain in the heel is a small tradeoff for the celebration of random events that brought us together. And sure, it could have been a lot worse. Rogue waves aren’t to be trifled with.

      Accepting whatever is thrown at you doesn’t mean you don’t deal with the problem at hand. You don’t have to like getting hurt. To do so would be a clear signal of another problem in your life. A bit of motrin, some heel inserts, and other efforts to heal the heel are ongoing. Some long walks I’d planned have been postponed. To press on would aggravate the injury, extending it, and from a stoic point of view, it would mean not accepting this fate.

      Who am I to ignore this random gift?

    • Live It Properly

      “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”
      — Marcus Aurelius

      There’s something about an extended vacation that makes you hyper-aware of the world you return to. You gain new perspective on the world, you break free of the stories you’ve been telling yourself, the routines you’ve established, and you come back a different person than the one who left. At moments like this the quote above reverberates in my head. Take what’s left and live it properly.

      We have once vibrant people all around us falling by the wayside as their own time comes to an end, but we don’t embrace this truth enough in ourselves. Be it 50 years or 50 more minutes, shouldn’t we make the most of it? Or do we go right back to our previous life of falling in line and doing what’s expected of us? There’s only now, friends.

      What we once were was wonderful, or maybe it wasn’t all that great at all, but it’s gone now. Roll up your sleeves and get to work on who you are now. Who you’ll become, based on what you do next. It’s always been about this next step on the path. For what does “properly” mean to you anyway? Get to it already.

    • Have Your Day

      Time drops in decay,
      Like a candle burnt out,
      And the mountains and woods
      Have their day, have their day;
      What one in the rout
      Of the fire-born moods
      Has fallen away?
      – WB Yeats, The Moods

      The Moods, as I understand it, are the messengers from God (God, in turn, is fire). Whatever your beliefs, there’s truth in the core message: time slips away drop by drop, and we all must pass. Whether a poet or philosopher or the woods or even the mountains themselves, all must “have their day”.

      Let us turn to old friend Henry and consider the phrase differently:

      “The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it. Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry—determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream?” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      We get so caught up in life’s minor distractions that we lose track of the days slipping by. Shouldn’t we channel that inner fire and spend our lives in conceiving while we have this time? But wait! If even the mountains themselves eventually erode to sand, how can we be so bold as to expect a measure of immortality?

      This is why the concept of God and eternity hold so much meaning in our brief lives, we seek to understand the meaning of it all. Poets and philosophers and amateur bloggers each confront the brutal fact that we all must pass, and we don’t really have an answer for what lies beyond.

      So be it. But knowing that the track is indeed laid before us, shouldn’t we reach for our own measure of immortality, as fragile as it might be, and make a day of it? That, friends, seems to be the point all along. Have your day.