Alexandersmap

    Category: Travel

    • Possibility

      “Wanting things to be simple can become a kind of prison, it really can, because you end up staying trapped inside how you want things to be rather than embracing how they could be. You end up closed. You end up shutting doors to so many possibilities.”
      — Matt Haig, The Life Impossible

      There is a tendency to move towards simplicity as we get older and more settled in our ways. The young think in possibilities, the old embrace safety (let’s not age before our time, eh?). What is certain feels safe. Yet nothing in life is certain—certainly not our position in it. The only certainty is the end, and we shroud that in mystery and superstition too.

      Our path through uncertainty, I believe, lies in awareness and receptivity. When we are fully aware of where we are, of who we are and where we’re going, we begin to see everything as perfectly imperfect. We know that this little dance with life has its share of stubbed toes and slips. One answer is to get back up and start dancing again. Another answer is to find a new dance floor, or dance partner, a new soundtrack to dance to, or maybe a new dance altogether. Being receptive to change opens us up to possibility.

      What is possible for our lives is rarely aligned with what is probable. We must become pattern-breakers to reach possibilities. To explore the world we must leave that which we’ve grown comfortable with, if only for a little while. Having left, we won’t come back the same person. If we come back at all. So why complicate life by leaving at all? Keep it simple, the prison warden in our heads tells us. Simplicity is safe. But it makes everything beyond impossible. At least until we break free of that mind trap.

      This is not an inditement of simplicity (I’m rather fond of it myself), but an encouragement to finding more possibility in each day. Our routines save us by keeping us on track towards our goals, which are themselves possibilities. On that road to find out, it’s always worthwhile to ask ourselves if this is the path we want to be on in the first place. Often, the very next question tends to be, what else is possible? We reaffirm our direction or we refute our belief and move on to something else. Possibility is forever an open question leading us towards a more complete answer to our why.

    • Cats and Dogs

      There are people out there who love cats, and people who love dogs. I know some say that there are people who love cats and dogs equally, but they’re just saying that to be contrarians. That’s like saying you like all Girl Scout cookies the same when we all know there’s only one truly great cookie (Samoas, now known as Caramel deLites solely for the delight of the Girl Scouts marketing department).

      So why can’t we love both cats and dogs the same? Because they’re completely opposites. Dogs are ruled by affection first, and the stomach second. With cats, the stomach rules all. Any signs of affection are meant to cater favor for more food, and of course to lower our guard that they may gouge our eyes out. Never lower your guard with a cat. I believe it’s the only reason I still have my eyes to see just how manipulative these furry eating machines really are.

      We have a cat and a dog. The dog lives in constant fear of the cat, as cats are inclined to have it. The cat walks around knocking things over, scratching furniture and people, and looking for snacks (not necessarily in that order). The cat knows that I’m on to her trickery, and works to separate me from the herd, that I may be murdered in the night. She’s been working on the dog to be an accomplice, and angrily voices her displeasure that the pup would rather just snuggle with us, as a proper pet does.

      Since the cat hasn’t figured out how to take me out immediately, she’s doing it slowly by messing with my sleep score. Each night she waits until I slip into REM and then pounces on my feet to wake me up. Each morning she stealthily climbs atop the nightstand at eye level and begins meowing an hour before I generally get up. For those keeping score, that’s in the 4:30 AM range. We begin a ritual of pushing her off the nightstand, having her climb back up to be pushed away again, until sleep is no longer an option.

      My helpful bride, one of those people who says that they love dogs and cats the same, set up an automatic feeder to pour some dry cat food into a metal dish timed to release the food before the cat starts her morning wake up ritual. In theory this is a great idea. Right. Instead, the cat scrambles from her sleep position between us to get to that bowl in seconds. And that scrambling? You guessed it, it happens right across my, uh, midsection. Which does wonders for my sleep score.

      I mention all of this because I am not one of those people who say they love cats and dogs the same. I’m firmly on one side of this debate. In fairness to our two pets, I won’t mention which side I’m on. I do try very hard not to make it obvious. But seriously, they’re both a joy to have in our lives… in their own ways.

    • Leaving a Mark

      “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” — Anthony Bourdain

      Some travel requires a day or two just to get from Point A to Point B and back again. It definitely isn’t always pretty. It’s a mistake to view travel as simply what you do at your destination. Travel is the whole bundle, from booking a trip to unpacking when we return. It took me years to fully realize this.

      I saw a t-shirt while navigating a gift shop a couple of days ago (some of our most treacherous travel). It said, “Scars are tattoos with better stories”. All travel leaves a mark, and maybe a few scars too. The trick is to find the great stories as they unfold.

      I write this a little sorer from my current travel (not yet concluded), both in the creaky parts and in the bank account, but that’s all part of travel too. Travel (to me) is part of living a full life. Perhaps one may live a more full life not traveling anywhere—plenty of people never leave the immediate vicinity of where they were born and eventually die—but that’s not fulfilling for the nomad. We must move to live, and acknowledge all that we encounter on the journey. It becomes part of our story, scars and all.

    • Transformation

      Don’t just learn, experience.
      Don’t just read, absorb.
      Don’t just change, transform.
      Don’t just relate, advocate.
      Don’t just promise, prove.
      Don’t just criticize, encourage.
      Don’t just think, ponder.
      Don’t just take, give.
      Don’t just see, feel.
      Don’t just dream, do.
      Don’t just hear, listen.
      Don’t just talk, act.
      Don’t just tell, show.
      Don’t just exist, live.
      — Roy T. Bennett, Don’t Just

      Spring is the season of transformation, and it has surely been on my mind. Go to places like Disney World or Las Vegas or anywhere where people don’t know your name and you’ll witness people being transformed into someone else. Look in a mirror or inward and you might just see it in yourself.

      We all want to be some better version of ourselves in some way or another. Transformation is our ticket to making our vision a reality. It doesn’t have to be limited to some Jedi character we turn into with a plastic lightsaber and a cape. It can be a compass heading we steer our lives towards. Decide what to be and go be it.

      To be transformed is simply to shift our belief in what is and what will be into something entirely different. We owe it to ourselves to make that shift more inspiring, and dare we believe, more thrilling. To spring forward towards some exciting new idea of what’s possible. Can you see it? What are we waiting for?

    • Too Silent to be Real

      Oh, there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
      When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
      Long before the white man and long before the wheel
      When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
      When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
      And many are the dead men
      Too silent to be real
      — Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Railroad Trilogy

      Isn’t it funny how a song firmly sticks in your head when it has no business being there at that particular moment in your life? I’m about as far from majestic mountains and silent dark forests as one can be, and yet this is my ear worm. I can think of far worse. Welcome to my head Gordon.

      I subscribe to the theory that wherever we are, we ought to be there, and I’d like to believe I’m fully present where I am now, doing what I’m doing, no matter what the soundtrack is playing in the background. Presence is simply awareness and appreciation for the world as it unfolds. And here we are.

      Presence (for me anyway) also demands that we are aware of and appreciate all that brought us here. The sacrifices of previous generations that built the world we currently live in, the people in our lives who have surrounded us with love and inordinate patience, the beauty of the natural environment and the courage of those who defend it against those who would exploit it.

      For all the noise in this maddening world, there is still serenity to be found wherever we are. Writing this obscure little blog post that you’ve somehow finished reading (no doubt to figure out the connection between the lyrics and all that followed), I found the silence I’d been looking for. It was here all along, awaiting my attention. Real is what we focus our attention on. So be here, now.

    • Pattern Breaking

      “If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself.”
      — Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

      Breaking from routine creates space through disruption. I write this out of ritual, and yet I am transformed by change simply by being somewhere else than I normally am. Perspective changes because there is change all around us. We can’t help but change as a result.

      That is the power of travel, or job change, or simply deciding that the routine that so firmly established our identity is simply not what we want anymore and forcefully inserting a new routine in place of the old. Pattern breaking begins when we lift our head out of the fog of routine and see where we’d rather go.

      Routine, and the rituals of habit that make up our days, deserves scrutiny. Is this who we have become? Is this where we want to be? What has a greater hold on us than our habits and routine? What leads us to something greater than awareness and the willingness to change?

      Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not insisting that you change, or even that I change. The ask here is simply to be aware of where autopilot is carrying each of us. Beyond that, the choice is ours whether the pattern suits us or not.

    • The Imaginative Life

      “Millions long for eternity who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” — Susan Ertz

      We have enough time. We simply don’t know how to use it. I’ve been accused of being a productivity geek in this blog, but that’s not it. I’m more of a life optimization geek (surely a geek either way). To optimize our time does not require a Franklin Covey planner, a slick new app or some self-help book, it requires a creative imagination and the boldness to set a dream in motion. Move it or lose it applies equally well to our creative use of time as it does our fitness.

      To do something interesting with each day is in our power. So be powerful with thy time. And thy time deserves our most imaginative creativity. When we are imaginative with our days, and string enough creative moments together, we build something special.

      We may choose to be as creative with building a day as we dare—but don’t dare take the opportunity for granted. Each day squandered is lost. Each optimized is a stepping stone to a greater life. Just imagine that.

    • Be Yourself

      “La plus grande chose du monde, c’est de savoir être à soi.(The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself)” — Michel de Montaigne, Essays

      If I were to put a name on a boat (I have no boat), a strong candidate might be “Rester soi-même”, or “Be Yourself”. Then again, it would be hard to explain it to people over the VHF, it would be forever misspelled, and really, who am I to tell people following me to be themselves? So even before I’ve bought a boat I’ve changed the name. But it was great while it lasted.

      I talk a lot of boats. It would be great to have one again, better to actually use it to move from points known to points unknown, that they may become known too. The vagabond within nudges for action. The practical boy raised to be responsible and present in the lives of others resists. Which exactly is myself? Usually the one that dominates the conversation.

      The thing is, we get to reinvent ourselves all the time. Decide what to be and go be it. Life is long enough and all too brief, all at once. But only if we act when it’s time to act. Go forth and become what’s next for you. There will never be a better opportunity than now. Simply be yourself.

    • Around the World

      Fly the great big sky
      See the great big sea
      Kick through continents
      Busting boundaries
      Take it hip to hip, rocket through the wilderness
      Around the world the trip begins with a kiss
      — The B52’s, Roam

      This song was always about sex, but the other side of that double entrendre was the possibility of roaming. Travel lust, if you will. Permission to explore the world, with that bubbly, joyful B52’s beat.

      The world isn’t all that easy to roam around, and yet it’s incredibly easy if we take the right steps beforehand. A passport, a hint of a plan, and some money to meet the type of travel we’re heading off on. The risk-averse among us will be quick to add health and trip insurance, reservations and all that. But really, that’s just swimming in a roped-off sea—only roaming as much as we feel we’re allowed to. Swim away from the resort and out into the wild sea.

      Spring fever brings with it a desire to roam again. To escape our winter hibernation and getting back out into the world. But the thing about roaming is we’re either talking a good game or we’re putting our plans in action. Don’t we all want a little more action? So let’s roam (if you want to).

    • Something Much Larger

      “Your passions should fit you exactly,
      but your purpose in life should exceed you.
      Work for something
      much larger than yourself.”
      — Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

      Some days things larger than ourself grab hold of us and dominate our attention. There have been a lot of such moments this year in my life, and I bet in yours too. We must recognize the moment and meet it. Sometimes it’s just our time to get to work on something far exceeding the self.

      What is purpose but striving toward some worthy goal far beyond the selfish goblin endlessly crying “Me! Me! Me!” between our ears? When we stop paying attention to our ego and start looking for ways to contribute to the far-beyond-us, we learn and grow and become more useful for the universe. And in the process, we become something greater than who we were before.

      The answer is simply to work, not whine. See the need and get to work addressing it. But our call to service is only heard when we shut up and listen to those calls for help. It’s amazing what we can see and hear when we stop singing our own tune long enough to understand what’s being said all around us.