Alexandersmap

    Category: Stoicism

    • The Great Conversation

      I’m bouncing again, book-to-book, pulling this book off the shelf, scanning over that sentence on the Kindle app, and stacking the pile higher. It’s funny how one thing sparks another thing, it’s what Robert Maynard Hutchins called The Great Conversation, written work building on written work, theory built on theory, across time, but shrunken down to just the books in my personal library. Each offering a little something to keep the imagination abuzz. This morning’s great conversation started with a little stoicism:

      “What’s the meaning of life? Why was I born? Most of us struggle with these questions—sometimes when we’re young, sometimes not until we’re older. Rarely do we find much in the way of direction. But that’s simply because we miss the point. As Viktor Frankl points out in Man’s Search for Meaning , it is not our question to ask. Instead, it is we who are being asked the question. It’s our lives that are the answer.” – Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

      That led me right to the source, and I pulled Frankl’s classic off the shelf for additional perspective:

      “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning

      Outside I hear the telltale roar of hot air balloon burners. It breaks my focus and I walk outside barefoot to look for the familiar visitors, but all I hear is them announcing “we’re close”. Bare feet quickly turn cold on the pool deck and I move back inside. Shoes are one of our best inventions as a species, but we miss so much information about our environment that is telegraphed through our bare feet (today’s telegraph: put some shoes on you fool, that’s what they were invented for). I glance outside and spot the yellow top of smiley face balloon over the trees and, seeing its landing elsewhere, give a nod of welcome and get back inside to the great conversation. Life is calling, but I have a few things to mull over first.

      “Well, what are you? What is it about you that you have always known as yourself? What are you conscious of in yourself: your kidneys, your liver, your blood vessels? No. However far back you go in your memory it is always some external manifestation of yourself where you came across your identity: in the work of your hands, in your family, in other people. And now, listen carefully. You in others – this is what you are, this is what your consciousness has breathed, and lived on, and enjoyed throughout your life, your soul, your immortality – your life in others.” – Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

      I read that passage for the first time in 1989, the year I graduated from college, not in Doctor Zhivago, but as a quote from a book by Warren Bennis called On Becoming a Leader. This book, along with Frankl and more recently Holiday’s books, can be thought of as stepping stones in the stream of life, there for me when I needed a solid footing on my way across. And they’re also voices at the table, part of the great conversation happening still. There are hundreds of voices at that table: authors, poets, songwriters, coaches, family and friends. All voices in that great conversation, ripples across time, influencing me in ways subtle and profound. And you’re at the table too. Welcome.

    • Dancing Across Borders

      “Look at [life] like going to a really nice restaurant, you take it as a fact that the meal isn’t going to last forever. Never mind if that’s the way it should be, or whether you feel like you’re owed more meal, or you resent the fact that the meal isn’t eternal. It’s just the case that you have this one meal. So it would make sense, wouldn’t it, to try to suck the marrow out of it? To focus on the flavours? To not let yourself be distracted by irritation at the fact that there’s a woman at the next table wearing too much perfume?” – Lauren Tillinghast, quoted in Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

      I enjoyed this Burkeman book more than I expected I would. I’m not a “happiness” seeker, so I generally avoid books that claim to have all the answers for finding it. This book destroys some of the snake oil salespeople out there while reinforcing some philosophy I happen to embrace, including stoicism and Buddhism. But it’s his chapter on Memento mori and his thoughts on letting death seep back into your life that I found most profound. Readers of this blog know this theme well, but it isn’t a morbid fascination as much as a call to action. So dance today! There are no guarantees of tomorrow.

      I’m traveling a lot at the moment. Yesterday Massachusetts, today New York, next week London, then Scotland, and repeat. But start with now, and hope you’re blessed with tomorrow. And today has been very good indeed.

      Which brings me back to this Tillinghast quote. Life should be viewed as a great event, and we should live it as grandly as circumstances allow. Have the wine, savor the meal, indulge in some dessert, maybe have a cordial to cap the night. What a wonderful analogy to a lifetime. Always too brief, but a wonderful experience while you’re having it. So I’ll savor this lovely glass of Tuscan Blend and anticipate the meal I’ve ordered with a toast. Propino tibi! I drink to your health!

    • In the Moment

      “Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” – Marcus Aurelius

      There are times when I read a page in a book and realize as I reach the end that my mind didn’t make the journey with my eyes. My mind will race along with thoughts of urgency of my own design, distractions of this, that and the other thing. Am I not in a place to be reading these words at this time? Sometimes closing the book and addressing the pressing thoughts is the answer, but other times the answer is to take a deep breath, push aside the noise and refocus the mind. In an inner dialogue version of I’ll turn this car around right now! I tell myself I’m here for this page, and you might as well stick with this, mind of mine.

      I understand why my mind is racing. I have upcoming trips to New York, London and Scotland the next three weeks. Logistics, meeting preparation, and ensuring what I’ll leave behind doesn’t fall apart in my absence consumes me as I read about, of all things, stillness. They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear… in this case the teacher is patiently standing over my desk while the other students giggle and I jolt awake from a daydream.

      We live in a noisy, demanding world, and it feels like your brain is like the close-up shot of the crowd in a tennis match, following the ball this way, then that way, then “Ooohh!” followed by “Woah!” and so on. The next three weeks are pulsing in my thoughts, but I know I’m getting ahead of myself. There was a moment yesterday when I contemplated packing my bag for anticipated Isle of Skye November weather when I caught myself, thinking I’m going to need that bag for a business trip to Rochester, New York beginning tomorrow. Plan for the future, but please, focus on now!

      Which brings me back to… now. I’ve set aside reading Stillness Is The Key to write this blog post. The list of things to do between now and the end of November is expanding rapidly, if only in my mind. I follow the Getting Things Done approach and write it down to get it out of my head, and something else pops up and I write that down in turn. Such is the power of anticipation, but that teacher is standing over my desk again, and I look up slowly from my scattered mindscape to hear her remind me “There’s only now“. Be in the moment. Now: This Sunday in New Hampshire, surrounded by golden leaves lit by morning sun; leaves that will be piled on the ground when you return in three weeks. Make the most of this moment, won’t you? Tomorrow will be there waiting if you should get there.

    • On Foliage and the Passing of Time

      “Who made the world?
      Who made the swan, and the black bear?
      Who made the grasshopper?
      This grasshopper, I mean-
      the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
      the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
      who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
      who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
      Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
      Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
      I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
      I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
      into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
      how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
      which is what I have been doing all day.
      Tell me, what else should I have done?
      Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?”
      —Mary Oliver, ‘The Summer Day’

      Mary Oliver passed away in January this year, at the age of 83.  If I may say it, too soon.  With her passing, her question commands even more urgency than before:

      Tell me, what else should I have done?
      Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
      Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?”

      This afternoon I drove back from meetings in Boston, flipped open my laptop and diligently followed up on the list of items that demanded my time.  All save one, which required closing the laptop, stepping outside and finding foliage.  New Hampshire glows in orange, yellow and red in October, and I’ve spent entirely too much of the first eleven days of the month indoors or behind the wheel of my car.  So a walk down to a local pond on a gusty day felt more like living than crafting another email for somebody’s spam filter.

      Foliage stirs up memories of autumns past, and I try to push those aside.  Not because the memories aren’t mostly pleasant, but because there’s more than enough living now to occupy my limited brain cells.  And there’s only today; words we all know but seem to push aside for the distraction of the moment.  “What else should I have done?”  Indeed.  Take “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” and replace “life” with “day”.  For really, that’s all we have, isn’t it?  The foliage illuminates the cold black water of a small pond nearby, and soon those leaves will float down onto the water, drift along the surface for awhile and then slowly slip quietly under the surface to return to the earth.  The briefness of this life exemplified in a single leaf.  Had I not gone to witness the foliage would the opportunity have been there tomorrow?  Surely that’s a trick question.

    • Let the Clamor Be

      Wednesday afternoon I found myself in a customer’s Audi driving to lunch. His customer in turn was also in the car (my role being “vendor”). The 15 minutes spent in the car was spent listening to the driver’s pro-Trump diatribe on the impeachment investigation and his firm belief that anything he said would result in strong nods of agreement from the two passengers in his car. He didn’t notice that neither of us said anything. I don’t know the political views of the end user, but I do know mine. More importantly, neither of them know my political views. I happen to have strong views on this topic, but those views had no place in a business meeting. Aside from lack of professionalism, it’s unnecessary noise that distracts from purpose. Me jumping in on this topic would have created more rather than relieved tension.

      “Learn to stop trying to fix things, to stop being so preoccupied with trying to control one’s experience of the world, to give up trying to replace unpleasant thoughts and emotions with more pleasant ones, and to see that, through dropping the ‘pursuit of happiness’ a more profound peace will result.” – Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

      I’m not seeking “happiness” (that’s akin to playing Whac-A-Mole) but I do have a fair amount of restlessness I work through. So it’s interesting if only to me when two books arrive at the top of my stack of real and virtual books at the same time. Burkeman’s and Ryan Holiday’s latest, Stillness is the Key. Both tackle similar ground – with focus on the value of Stoicism in particular, but common themes in Buddhism and (in Holiday’s book), other world religions and philosophies.

      Burkeman throws out a nugget in his book that struck me as profound: “Let the Clamour be.”  In American English we’d spell that ‘clamor’.  But no matter, the point is made.  I’ve worked on that for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so.  What I don’t do is actively meditate.  I take my meditation in turning off the noise and doing yardwork, or gardening, washing dishes or simply taking a quiet walk.  Am I missing out on something significant by not meditating?  Probably, but I feel better about myself for getting something done while I’m in my mind.

      Which brings me to the acorns.  I’ve got 10’s of thousands of them sitting on my front lawn right now, just waiting for me to rake them up.  Just me, a rake, shovel and barrel, and endless acorns.  I can feel the stillness already.

    • Thin Walls

      Contemplating the snoring of the person in the room next to mine, I appreciate the consistently good hotels I usually stay in. Not expensive, mind you, but clean, friendly and generally built with thicker walls and floors. This one is old school independent, built economically – I’m guessing – in the 1980’s. The comforter I peeled off looked to be an original. The television, which shall remain dark, doesn’t owe them anything. Yeah, this place was new when Huey Lewis was cranking out hits.

      I’ve stayed in some dive hotels and motels before; from the run down to the truly gross. This isn’t one of those. The owners keep it clean, it just shows it’s age a bit. In this era of Airbnb and chain hotels it’s a throwback to another time. Yelp and other such online review sites has made it less of a mystery what you’re walking into, but I’ve found most people who write negative reviews need to be filtered out. Find the average and go with it. For me, if a room is clean, I received a warm welcome when checking in and the environment is safe you’re already at 3 1/2 stars.

      Ultimately we’re spoiled by the relative luxury we live in. Who am I to complain about the choice of bread in a free continental breakfast? I’m trying to cut down on carbs anyway. I’m well aware of how lucky I am to live here, at this time, with a great job and good health. Most of us have more than enough. I will eat today; that’s more than many can say. Thin walls just remind you that there’s other traveling souls out there, and I learned many years ago to always bring ear plugs.

      “Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been.” – Marcus Aurelius

    • Viewing Hedonism Through a Stoic Lens

      I was making coffee with the AeroPress this morning. I’ve quickly grown to love this coffee press for its ease of use, quick cleanup and the great cup of coffee it produces. It got me thinking about this concept of hedonic adaptation I’d been reading about, where we quickly become accustomed to new things that once excited us. Every iPhone owner has experienced this the day a new iPhone was introduced. The trick is to not to allow stuff to dictate your mood. Easier said than done, but there’s value in trying. Will I eventually take the AeroPress for granted? Probably, but Stoicism offers a path.

      “Regularly reminding yourself that you might lose any of the things you currently enjoy–indeed, that you will definitely lose them all, in the end, when death catches up with you–would reverse the adaptation effect.” – Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

      There you go: Memento mori. Stoicism taps me on the shoulder once again telling me not to worry about all that stuff, you’ll lose it all in the end anyway. Your happiness can’t be dependent on the newest shiny toy you buy. None of that stuff matters. Does that mean I can’t enjoy that AeroPress? Not at all, just don’t depend on an object for happiness. That’s a fools game, and expensive to boot.

      According to Wikipedia, “The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.”

      I’m watching Sunday football as I finish writing this, tolerating the endless stream of commercials promising me happiness if I buy this car or that, order pizza from that delivery place, or buy that latest iPhone with the cool-ass camera(s). All designed to trigger desire for what you don’t currently have. And all nonsense when you view it through a stoic lens.

    • It’s Just a Bird

      “Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here – and, by extension, what we are supposed to be writing.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

      Yesterday afternoon I re-read my blog post from the morning and noticed an ugly spelling error. Things like that used to horrify me, now I just laughed at my mistake and clicked on the edit button to make it go away forever. If every blog post had to be perfect I’d never get anything done. Which is why Lamott’s quote above resonates with me. I’d read Bird by Bird years ago and it didn’t stick. I didn’t write then, I just thought about writing.

      Lamott’s title is derived from a story about her brother and father, who basically told his son to just chip away at a project one part (birds, of course) at a time instead of being overwhelmed by the whole. It reminds me of something my daughter and I say to each other… “It’s just a bird”, or “no big deal”… at any rate the bird analogy stands. Take things one step at a time, chip away at things and don’t worry about making it perfect on the first draft (there’s no such thing anyway). Just do it as Nike would tell you.

      That chipping away at it concept applies to any project. Just stop thinking about applying it and do it already. Isn’t that the root of every motivational mantra ever written? And every kick-starter campaign? And every sales meeting? But knowing the trick and doing the trick aren’t the same thing, are they? Planning to do something feels like you’re doing something. But we know better.

      I’m reading six books at once right now, and for the life of me I don’t know why I picked up Bird by Bird to read again. But a little bird was calling me and here we are. And in reading it again it resonates as it hadn’t before.

      “When the student is ready the teacher will appear”

      There’s more to do. My day job calls and I know there’s more to say. There’s always more to say. Every great book I’ve ever read left me satisfied but wanting more. This clunky little blog is bouncing between history, gardening, birds, travel, music and a hundred other passing fancies. But the heart of it is the journey towards better writing. The ritual, practiced daily. Bird by bird.

    • Opting In

      “A man is worked upon by what he works on.” – Frederick Douglass

      I’m not a photographer by profession, but I fill Instagram with pictures.

      I’m not an author by profession, but this will be my 416th blog post.

      I’m not a horticulturist. but I’ve spent hundreds of hours painting vibrant portraits with amended soil and pruning shears.

      And so on…

      We aren’t what we want to be, we’re what we do. Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena comes to mind. There are too many cavalier critics in the world. Too many armchair quarterbacks. Get out there and do something already! Opt in and act. Memento mori; remember we all must die, so do something meaningful while you’re here!

      “People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life… people who are passive create a mental landscape that is rather barren. Because of their limited experiences and action, all kinds of connections in the brain die off from lack of use. Pushing against the passive trend of these times, you must work to see how far you can extend control of your circumstances and create the kind of mind you desire.” – Robert Greene, Mastery

      The more you do, the more you become. And the more interesting you become. Being interesting is a byproduct of being interested. Being interesting to others of course isn’t the objective, but being interesting with others should be. Engagement offers enlightenment. The curious mind is alive, vibrant and accretive, the disinterested mind is on life support, dull and diminishing.

      Hobbies like gardening and photography aren’t going to get me invited to do a TED talk mind you, but they do make the world a little better, move some electrons around in the brain, and hopefully give me something more to contribute than someone less interested in opting in. If you’re still talking about your conquests in college when you’re over 50 or freeze up when the conversation goes beyond last week’s game you aren’t really growing, are you? Writing for me is no longer a hobby, but not [yet] a profession. Blogging, fueled by travel, reading and curiosity, is my apprenticeship; Teaching consistency, discipline and the art of putting words together from the mind to the screen. I’ll never use this blog to make money, but hope to enrich myself in other ways in the process of daily, consistent writing. I owe that to myself.

    • Now… or Never

      Reading has a way of pulling material out for us.  I fully intended to write about the Battle of Lake Erie today, but it will have to wait just a bit longer.  Instead I came across this poem last night while thinning out the bookshelves.  I have books stacked on books, and it’s time to clean out a bunch of them.  Fall yard sale or donate to a library or sell to a used bookstore?  Their fate is to be determined.  But back to that poem.  It speaks of young lust to be sure, but also calls out across the centuries, warning us to get on with it already (so to speak), for time is short:

      “Had we but world enough, and time,
      This coyness, lady, were no crime.
      We would sit down and think which way
      To walk, and pass our long love’s day…

      But at my back I always hear
      Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
      And yonder all before us lie
      Deserts of vast eternity.
      Thy beauty shall no more be found,
      Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
      My echoing song; then worms shall try
      That long preserv’d virginity,
      And your quaint honour turn to dust,
      And into ashes all my lust.
      The grave’s a fine and private place,
      But none I think do there embrace.”

      – Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

      Who doesn’t smile at the game old Andrew was playing here?  That the game was played in the 1650’s, but published posthumously, as if our hero were reaching out from the grave to remind us that time is short, and to do what we must do….  now.  Carpe Diem.  Marvell was apparently a real player, and I spent some time getting acquainted with a few of his poems this morning before writing.  I may revisit his work sometime, but I can’t ignore the call.  I dance with a lot of ghosts after all, and so should everyone.  They know things we don’t yet know.  History speaks, and so does literature.

      Interestingly, the first time I read the first and last two lines of the poem wasn’t in some English class, but in a business book written by Felix Dennis called How to Get Rich.  I’d picked up his book back in 2006 at the height of my lust for business success.  Back when I read it the first time I ignored the urgency of his call.  I’m less inclined to do so now.  Dennis died in 2014, joining Marvell in calling out from the grave.  Seize the day!

      The grave’s a fine and private place,
      But none I think do there embrace.”