Alexandersmap

    Category: Stoicism

    • To Live is to Function

      “In this symposium my part is only to sit in silence. To express one’s feelings as the end draws near is too intimate a task. But one thought that comes to me as a listener-in. The riders in the race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to oneself that the work is done.

      But just as one says that, the answer comes: The race is over, but the work never is done while the power to work remains. The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest. It cannot be while you still live, but to live is to function. That is all there is. And so I end with a line from a Latin poet, who uttered the message more than fifteen-hundred years ago, Death, death, plucks my ear, and says, ‘Live. I am coming.’”
      – Oliver Wendell Holmes (from a radio broadcast when he turned 90)

      This image Holmes painted of cantering after the race is over, living but not quite in the race anymore, lingers. I’ve seen a few people who’s cantering ended sooner than we all wanted, but bless them, they were cantering to the end. Their work was done, and they functioned as best they could until they left us. And whispered a reminder that soon our own race will end, so best run it well.

      The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest.

      My own race took me around a snowy loop in the woods again yesterday, snowshoeing in deep snow, following cross-country ski tracks in a quiet patch of woods that doesn’t see a lot of action from the conservation land walking crowd. Just me and a trusty map, making my way alone in the woods, working up a sweat with a brisk pace as I broke trail next to the ski tracks. This, the morning after, I stepped out of bed gingerly to test the legs and found myself doing okay. Looking back on February so far, I’ve gotten out to snowshoe or hike most days. For I’m still very much in the race, after all, and far be it from me to start cantering now.

      To live is to function – to be out there in the world doing. A challenge to us all from Holmes, all those years ago. To be engaged with those around you, to be charging around the track of life all frothy and full of joyous exuberance at full gallop. Holmes was a Civil War veteran, wounded in battle, a Harvard-educated lawyer who rose up to the Supreme Court and the oldest serving member of that court. A living link between Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He lived in Mattapoisett and Beverly, Massachusetts and by all accounts lived a rich, full life during his own time in the race.

      Death, death, plucks my ear, and says, ‘Live. I am coming.’

      How do you read these words spoken by Oliver Wendell Holmes nearly a hundred years ago? As a reminder to get out and live while you’re still in the race? Or as a dark reminder that death is coming for us all? To me the only choice is the former. To have Holmes quote the stoics near the end of his own life, well into his cantering years, is a wake-up call for the generations lining up for the races after his own. Fast forward to today and now it’s our race. So how shall we run it?

    • Getting Our It Together

      “Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Some days, when generally tapped out and the mind empty of original thought, I return to stoicism for a reset. I’m generally amazed at how quickly a few pages with Marcus Aurelius or Seneca can make all the difference in a day. Like old friends who know you better than you know yourself.

      I’ve been pondering the heavy lift that this year represents. There’s a lot to do, for me certainly, but for the country and the world. Clearing the COVID hurdle without losing too many more souls to it. Cleaning up the mess left behind by 2020: Mask refusers and conspiracy theorists and venom drinkers and climate deniers and the hoarders of Wall Street profits and Main Street toilet paper. By God, we have work to do.

      I read a quote like the one above and I think that maybe, maybe we’ll get it right. Maybe I’ll get my own “it” together. For if enough of us think it possible, it just might be within our reach. But it all begins with you and me.

      Now do the necessary work.

    • From This Moment

      “How quietly I
      begin again

      from this moment
      looking at the
      clock, I start over

      So much time has
      passed, and is equaled
      by whatever
      split-second is present

      from this
      moment this moment
      is the first”
      – Wendell Berry, Be Still In Haste

      Two weeks into the New Year. About as distracting a beginning to a New Year as I can ever recall. We know where we’ve been, where we’ve come from. But what comes next? We change from moment to moment with the ticking of the clock, but what do we do with that change?

      Start over. Again.

      “Time does not exist. There is only a small and infinite present, and it is only in this present that our life occurs. Therefore, a person should concentrate all his spiritual force only on this present.” – Leo Tolstoy

      Sometimes it feels like we’re marching on a treadmill, especially during a lockdown, but you look back and see progress despite the illusion. A pile of actions that didn’t work. A few, sifted through the remains, that did. What do we make of it? All that has passed, has passed. This moment is the one that counts. This moment is the first.

      Keep trying. Again. And again.


    • Quality Time

      “What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.”
      – Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

      Re-read that Seneca quote and measure your use of alive time against what you have left in the cask. If this year offered plenty of cause to question our use of time or the unfairness in the world, it also gave us time to think and to pivot towards better uses of time than we might have before. But the irony is that we can’t waste time dwelling on it, we can only use it as a guiding light for what we do next.

      “Our current use of time is not rational. There is therefore no point in seeking marginal improvements in how we spend our time. We need to go back to the drawing board and overturn all our assumptions about time. There is no shortage of time. In fact, we are positively awash with it. We only make good use of 20 percent of our time. And for the most talented individuals, it is often tiny amounts of time that make all the difference.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      I got out and walked yesterday, pondering the narrow shoulders of the roads in my town and the number of cars driving on them in the busy stretches, and appreciating the quiet stretches with no cars where I could think. The takeaway was to remove the busy roads and walk in places where thinking is 80 percent of your walking time instead of simply surviving the experience. The time allocated to walking was always available to me this year, I just put it aside more often than I used it.

      I think back on the crazy year that was 2020, and wonder where the time went. Too much time on useless activities, chasing after opportunities that turned to vapor in the hard reality of the pandemic, and squandering time on social media, political debate, and watching entertainment of questionable quality. I spent more time with an iPhone in my hand than I should have, but tried to use that time reading the Kindle app, learning a bit of French and Portuguese, and taking pictures of the good moments.

      “The 80/20 Principle says that we should act less. Action drives out thought. It is because we have so much time that we squander it…. It is not shortage of time that should worry us, but the tendency for the majority of time to be spent in low-quality ways… If much greater work would benefit the most idle 20 percent of our people, much less work would benefit the hardest-working 20 percent; and such arbitrage would benefit society both ways. The quantity of work is much less important than its quality, and its quality depends on self-direction.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      During those moments of thinking time while walking I turned over the key points of Koch’s book in my head, thinking about the the quality of the time spent and how to spend it better. We don’t really know what’s left in the cask, but we know it’s not as full as it once was. The 80/20 Principle is both obvious and widely ignored by most people. But why be most people? When applied to our use of time, the pursuit of quality becomes… imperative.

    • Developing Oneself

      “If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” – John McPhee

      Now and then I re-read that quote to shake myself out of my own head. The implications of that McPhee sentence are profound enough on the merit of “marine limestone”, but wait; there’s more. There’s also the craft of forming a sentence so starkly beautiful, so elegant in its simplicity, that it inspires you to be a bit better at your own writing.

      “No one will ever write in just the way that you do, or in just the way that anyone else does. Because of this fact, there is no real competition between writers. What appears to be competition is actually nothing more than jealousy and gossip. Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing.”
      ― John McPhee, Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process

      I have this McPhee book, partially read, in my virtual stack of books to finish this year. I began reading it, was pulled towards some weighty books that demanded attention, and keep looking back at it wanting to finish what I’d started. Another case for reading one book at a time, as if it were required to build a case at all.

      Ryan Holiday writes about this time during the pandemic through a Stoic lens. He’s a prolific reader, and also a prolific writer. His mentor is another prolific writer in Robert Greene. What he said rings in my ears as this crazy year spirals towards an end:

      “I remembered a piece of advice I had gotten from the author Robert Greene many years earlier. He told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing.” – Ryan Holiday

      I note the challenge, and accept it. We’ve all wasted too many seconds in 2020, and the years that preceded it. Focused action, high agency, and discipline matter more than ever. You don’t get down the path if you keep detouring off to view every distraction along the way. To ship the work you must complete the work.

      Reading inspires action, but it also distracts. If you’re caught up in the greatness of the work of another you can get cavalier about your own work. Reading is alive time, but so is productive action towards a goal. There’s time enough for both in a day, should you use your day wisely, and with urgency. You develop yourself through the work. Embrace it.

    • Mid-Autumn Philosophy

      “I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death”
      ― Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

      The leaves on the white oaks stubbornly hold on, even as the rest of the leaves are weeks into their return to earth. Still a lot of green in those leaves, I see. And orange and red and yellow. The oaks don’t get the attention that the maple leaves get – how could they possibly compete? And yet they remain the more resilient reminder of the warmer months. So we begin the waiting game.

      Two weekends ago the yard was cleared of every leaf and acorn. We knew it was only round one. Sure enough we had snow and cold temperatures roll in, and the leaves started raining down off the red oaks. Snow and red oak leaves scattered everywhere as if Mother Nature had vomited over the yard. Not a good look at all, really.

      But soon the snow melted and the winds picked up and the red oak leaves became a gift to others down the street. Or maybe the next town over. The winds were pretty strong and leaves love to fly, so your guess is as good as mine. The wind giveth, the wind taketh away.

      The stack of wood sits waiting for frozen ground and a chain saw to get chopped up into stackable bits. I gave the chain saw away in 2019 to someone who needed it more. I still hear about that, but it’s a phone call away and it was never mine to begin with. I find owning things to be a stack of small burdens that ask for attention, and yet we stack them like firewood anyway. Stuff we must take care of, stuff we give away time to. Stuff that doesn’t matter all that much in the long run.

      And so we slide towards late Autumn, when the trees concede their final leaves, the ground is raked bare once again, and life returns to a naked slumber. The days are short and grow dark too soon. A reminder that life too is short, but didn’t we know that all along? Embrace the cold, short days. For there’s magic in them. And this too shall pass.

    • Going to Zero

      “You’re alive. You have one very short life. When your life ends, it goes to zero. To you its indistinguishable, from your perspective your death is indistinguishable from the end of the world. As far as you’re concerned the world has disappeared. Because when you came into existence the world appeared. When you go out of existence the world disappears. And that is so consequential that it makes the rest of your life inconsequential. And that is a form of freedom. And so you should enjoy yourself. You should not suffer in this life.” – Naval Ravikant, on The Tim Ferriss Show Episode #473

      There’s something very stoic about this Naval statement, in the recognition of Memento Mori. The stoics might have challenged him on the enjoy yourself/you should not suffer bit though. They would say that you should accept fate for whatever it brings you. Then again, they didn’t live in a democracy where all are created equal, but in an age of conquest and slavery and the unfair distribution of enjoying yourself and suffering in life (maybe we haven’t come as far as I initially thought). But ultimately I think he’s on point. Life is short, we all know that. So get on with enjoying it while you have it.

      “Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?”- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      On my own path to zero, I’m doing my best to live the Thoreau mantra to rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. And isn’t that the same thing, really? The question is, what do you subtract to add such adventure or freedom to your life? Relentless pursuit of status? What is status but the recognition of others for your accomplishments? There’s nothing wrong with accomplishments. There is something off about craving status for status’ sake. To be quietly satisfied with reaching your goal seems the most pure form of accomplishment. Accolades blow in the wind.

      Naval talks of reaching freedom through making enough money to not have to worry about anything. And there’s certainly freedom in that. But what is the cost of a walk in the woods watching the leaves rain down around you? What is the price of tracking the progress of Mars across the evening sky? The trick, I think, is to get to enough. For some that means being independently wealthy, for others, it means having enough to put food on the table with the time to burn those calories climbing personal mountains.

      “Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      There’s a reason that boats, recreational vehicles, bicycles and hiking gear are selling out this year. People are seeking that freedom and enjoyment. Trying to book a campsite in Acadia, hiking jammed trails in the White Mountains and navigating the bike-clogged rail trail are glaring reminders of just how many people are looking for their freedom to enjoy life in a year when climbing the corporate ladder seems suddenly less relevant than holding on to things that are more essential.

      Since we’re all marching to zero, finding that which is essential and then making the most of our time seems the only logical goal. Not living in a chaotic frenzied orgy of mad pleasure-seeking, but in the pursuit of that which is worthy and towards purpose. To use Ryan Holiday’s words from The Daily Stoic; “too many successful people are prisoners in jails of their own making”. So freedom to fully realize your life is attainable for all if we would only unlock our own cages.

    • Calm

      “Real power is not in momentary desires, but in complete calmness.” – Leo Tolstoy

      I have a bit of nervous energy as I write this. I’m traveling tomorrow for the first time in seven months and there’s a vibrating exhilaration deep inside knowing that I’m getting on a plane again, going to another state and driving around to places new to me. Mind you, its not like I’m flying to Antarctica for an extended climate change study, I’m going to Cleveland. I’ve been to Cleveland at least a half dozen times that I can recall and maybe a time or two beyond that. But it’s travel in a time of no travel, and this year that alone creates a buzz.

      I got the same vibration hiking solo up Mount Tecumseh earlier this summer. Not because it was a particularly challenging hike, but because I was hiking it alone late in the day. Just enough risk to raise the level of uncertainty, but calculated risk. Hiking alone at night inherently offers risk to the hiker. You just don’t have people walking by you to offer assistance. So you take extra care or alternatively, you charge ahead brazenly challenging fate.

      Calmness in the face of potential stressors is a superpower. In an age of talking heads stirring the pot of anxiety for advantage, of a pandemic ramping up for killing season, of a time when we teeter on the brink of a deeper recession or a depression and irreversible climate change should we get this wrong, in this time the calm prevail. We can take the bait and react, or swim calmly in the present storm.

      “Do not be concerned too much with what will happen. Everything that happens will be good and useful for you.” – Epictetus

      The posters used early on during the Blitz, “Keep Calm and Carry On” naturally come to mind. Those posters weren’t successful at the time as people viewed them as patronizing, but the expression has exploded in popularity in the last twenty years. Whether you view it as patronizing or nostalgic now, the expression does carry weight as a stoic reminder to keep your head about you. For in calmness we find clarity.

      During that time when the British were facing down Nazi aggression, Viktor Frankl was living a nightmare in a succession of Nazi prison camps, ending at Auschwitz before finally being freed at the end of the war. He observed that state of mind had a lot to do with who survived and who didn’t as much as the whim of fate. Some people were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but others just gave up in the face of hopelessness and horror. Some people survived simply because they had a purpose for living. Based on this experience, he wrote the extraordinary book Man’s Search for Meaning after the war.

      “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
      – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

      Today we live in a time when everything is hyper-scrutinized, everything is a perceived affront, everything is designed to invoke a spark of fear or outrage. But when we swim in our sea of calmness, we overcome the efforts of those who would inspire a follow or a like or another cycle of commercials before they tell you the rest of the story. A calm mind sees the truth in the world and in ourselves. It remains the best foundation for a life of purpose and happiness. Want to improve the state of world? Be calm. And yes; carry on.

    • The Endless Stream

      “Make a list of the activities that are non-dual in nature… Meditation, yoga, creating art, playing, reading for fun, writing, journaling, creating a business for fun. Not fooling yourself, paying attention to yourself. Not taking yourself too seriously. Examining your own thoughts for first principles. Doing activities for you and not the external world,” – Naval Ravikant, on The Tim Ferriss Show Episode #473

      I walked the endless stream again Thursday night. By endless stream I mean primarily the rail trail with its endless stream of bicycles rolling past in both directions. I had tried this for the third time since March to take a long walk on the rail trail, and found yet again that it wasn’t the charm but instead the third strike. Like going to a crowded beach you just don’t get any deep thinking done when people are moving past you in close proximity. Sprinkle in a pandemic and the maskless masses become distracting. It’s just not meant to be until the weather turns.

      I’ve used this go-to rail trail a few times in recent years to sort through various consequential life chess moves. Like Naval’s list above walking is non-dual, offering a bit of exercise and a chance to meditate while moving. Walking has always been the cork screw that opens the mind, but it sneaks up on you. I don’t generally have eureka moments but often experience slow dawns. I suppose I have a slow-twitch kind of brain that’s built for pondering, not the fast-twitch brain built for the rapid decisions that fighter pilots and gamers have to make. But I think the world needs deep thinking more than it needs gamers.

      And that’s the other endless stream we navigate: the endless thoughts that run through our head, all demanding attention. In other years I would take that thought and jot it down in the bullet journal and categorize it somewhere in the Getting Things Done way of emptying your head. In 2020 I categorize less than ever before. I don’t believe this is beneficial. But I ponder more.

      “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      As I walked distractedly on the rail trail, not coming to any revelations, I thought that it encompassed the madness of the last seven months perfectly. An endless stream of distractions coming at you, a jumble of things to sort out in your head, and an out-and-back journey that didn’t really bring you anywhere but back where you started. And yet I was better for having done it. If that analogy holds true then there’s hope for humanity and the earth for having lived through this particular trip around the sun. We’ve all learned a collective lesson about how we treat each other and the planet. We’ve all suffered through an endless stream of setbacks to return again to the beginning and a fresh, more hopeful starting point.. One can hope anyway.

    • Drink Up Before the Dregs

      “Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.” – Seneca

      “What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.”
      – Seneca, Letters From a Stoic

      We had our first frost of Autumn overnight. The fog rising from the ponds this morning betrays warmer days conceding to cooler nights. In New Hampshire the leaves will soon turn progressively to bright yellow, red and orange before turning brown and returning to the earth to fuel the next generation. Such is the cycle of life.

      Early mornings trigger my adventurous spirit. I have the most energy and a willingness to dare greatly. By 9:30 – 10 PM I’m generally running on fumes and ready to call it a night. While I’m not old just yet, I suppose I’m the opposite of youth in this respect. Certainly the opposite of the rest of my household. And if a day is a lifetime, I reach the dregs sooner than most. But I started so much earlier in the day savoring that first sip (metaphorically, of course). I honor the Thoreau quote on the home page whenever possible, seeking adventures, but mostly I rise early.

      Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic is a call to action written almost 2000 years ago and still ignored by the vast majority of people in their lifetimes ever since. Nothing is ours but time! Keep what is really yours, for you cannot begin too early. Savor this very moment, such that it is, and make of it what you can. That is the eternal challenge for each of us. To spend wisely this moment. And each day offers reminders to get to it already.