Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • Habit-Forming

      “I am playing the long game. I am inculcating habit. I am deepening my practice and my commitment, day by day, day after day. I’m training myself and reinforcing myself every day.” — Stephen Pressfield

      All of this writing builds on the reading and living that led to it. Each day reminds us that we have a long way to go still. May our timeline meet our lofty goals.

      Habits develop simply, but they form our identity by becoming embedded within our being. I may say I’m an early riser or an avid reader or possibly a little better than the average as a writer, but I believe these things to be true because I do each every single day. What completes us? I believe it is that which we wrap around ourselves—our relationships, rituals, routines and yes, our beliefs.

      So we are either delusional or devoted to our craft of identity-building. We may feel that we’re on the right path but sense that our pace is all wrong. To ask where we’re going with all of this is essential, because the path lasts a lifetime and it grows shorter by the day. So just where is all this habit-forming taking us?

    • Our Few Things

      “Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie. You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.”
      — Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

      We believe we have all the time in the world, and with that belief, take on more than we should. The most effective people are those who say no to most everything thrown at them, and yes to a precious few. We are thus as effective as we choose to be.

      This blog post began early, lingered in the back of my mind during a long, full day, and awaited me when I returned. By all accounts, I should have simply let it go today to focus on the crush of other things that want my attention today. But the thing is, writing is one of those precious few for me, and so deserves the measure of time I have available to give it. We must know what our non-negotiables are, along with the bit players who fill the gaps. We shouldn’t ever confuse our precious few with a gap filler.

      So what are we okay with seeing slip away today? If we can’t be exceptional at everything, what thing is truly an exception? Focus on the few lest we see them lost in the many.

    • Expression

      The reason we’re alive
      is to express ourselves in the world.
      And creating art may be the most
      effective and beautiful method of doing so.

      Art goes beyond language, beyond lives.
      It’s a universal way to send messages
      between each other and through time.
      — Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

      Walk through a museum and inevitably some work calls to us from across the room. We’re drawn in, connecting to the human who created it who may live next door or lived a thousand years ago on the other side of the world. Human connection through art, literature and poetry, music, photography, architecture and engineering or really any expression that is mined deep within and brought to the world binds us now and through time. Artistic expression is thus a time machine.

      It follows that one who makes art may wonder whether their particular expression is enough. Sure, it’s our verse, but why are we making this and not something else? Why do I write a blog post every bloody day, no matter what? Why does a hiker I know spend every free moment redlining the trails of New Hampshire? Why choose a certain career path over another, potentially more profitable career path? We do it because something within us demands that we do it. Each pursuit fulfills something within, making us whole. And in turn we express that outwardly as part of our identity. This is who we are, doing this, at this moment in time. We are trading our precious time to express this pursuit, but feel more alive for having chosen it.

      Throughout life we acquire skills, develop muscle memory, navigate triumph and tragedy, age and learn and grow through the years that we’re given. All of that changes our perspective about what it is to be a human being. If we choose wisely we maximize our experiences along the way, and if we aren’t wise with our time we accumulate regrets for not doing certain things in the time we were given for it. Our reward is perspective. We grow as people and as artists to the level that we open to the experiences of a lifetime.

      The work that we produce is a time stamp of our experiences, created one after the other, indicating who we were when it was created. Our lens of now is forever altering our perspective, and thus alters our expression. When we think back on the person we were ten years ago, do we smile or shudder? The work that we produced, the routine we built our life around at the time, the people we surrounded ourselves with, all brought us here, to this place and time, where we may express ourselves yet again with this newfound perspective. Expression is a gift of our time and perspective to those who choose to use their time to connect with it (and in that connection perhaps alter their own perspective). We owe it to ourselves and our audience to draw out the best we can in the moment.

    • There Was Happiness

      “And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.” ― Stephen King , The Dark Tower

      Did you watch Stranger Things? Did you care about it at all? The answer to both of those questions was yes for me. Not the emphatic yes! of a super fan, but most certainly a yes. Like Game of Thrones and a few other select shows, it grabbed many people and wouldn’t let go. And the ending was about as good as it could have been. So bravo to the entire crew that put it together, beginning with the Duffer brothers.

      So many stories try to end perfectly, with all the answers sown up neatly to satisfy everyone. Life isn’t so tidy. Sunshine and roses may please the masses as the credits roll or we close the book, but we all return to the reality of life in all its complexity. There are no happily ever afters, but there will be happiness. And that may just be enough. We are as happy as what we choose to focus on in our lives. Mostly it’s mindset that determines our outcomes.

      We simply cannot have all the answers to our questions. Life is full of contradictions. It’s unfair yet seeks balance, complicated yet simple, and of course joyful and devastatingly tragic all at once. No storybook endings, but an end with many questions. We learn and grow and do the best we can along the way. Maybe that’s not enough, or maybe it is everything.

      It may help to remember that every ending is a new beginning. We wake up to a new day and have a choice as to how we react to it. If we hated how yesterday ended, we may write a better story today. If we loved it, build on it. The only way to live is to rise to meet each day as best we can, having learned from the last one. It was never about a happily ever after, it was about rising to meet the future one day at a time.

    • Dreams, Friends and Beginnings

      The sun was in his bathing suit,
      the moon in her pajamas.
      They played all day
      until the two
      were called in by their mamas.

      The sun went home and climbed in bed,
      his mama sang a tune,
      and soon the sun
      was fast asleep
      and dreaming of the moon.

      The moon decided not to go;
      instead she stayed outside.
      She danced and played
      and laughed and sang
      and stayed awake all night.

      When morning came the sun arose
      and went outside to play,
      but could not find
      his friend the moon,
      who slept inside all day.

      So now these two are best of friends,
      apart in dark and light.
      The sun turns in
      at evenfall —
      the moon stays out all night.

      The shining moon sees no sunlight,
      the sun sees no moonbeams,
      but when they each
      are fast asleep
      they’re in each other’s dreams.
      — Kenn Nesbitt, The Tale of the Sun and the Moon

      The ringing of the New Year necessitates staying up late. We early birds struggle, and must choose whether to sleep in or begin the New Year with a decent night’s sleep. The alternative is to simply go to bed early like it was any other night of the year. Whatever the choice, we often resolve to make changes to our routine going forward. Forever improving, forever seeking better things for our selves, forever optimizing. Such is the curse of the modern soul.

      I begin the year with a poem that delights me to read. Does it offer a hint of what’s to come? Perhaps, but sometimes simply finding things that delight us is enough for any given day. Why not kick off an entire year with a bit of magic, a bit of wonder, a bit of delight? We have tomorrow to be stoically focused on productivity and key performance indicators and such things that sound awful to mentioned when we began with friends and dreams. Can we resolve to simply live joyfully aware of the blessings around us?

      I will write more this year, I can feel that it’s all still there within me, bursting at the seams, awaiting release to fly away in fully-formed verse. The words keep coming to me—more sometimes than a blog post can contain. Time will tell whether dreams come true or if they simply fade into memory, like old friends we don’t see anymore but we smile when thinking about. To embark on a New Year is either an adventure or simply another day on a limited timeline. Isn’t it up to us to decide which it will be?

    • Part of Us

      George Malley: You know, if we were to put this apple down, and leave it, it would be spoiled and gone in a few days. But, if we were to take a bite of it like this,
      [bites apple]
      George Malley: it would become part of us, and we could take it with us, forever.
      [offers the apple to Glory, who takes a bite. Al refuses]
      George Malley: Al, everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything.
      — Gerald DiPego, scene from the movie Phenomenon

      The last few days of the year are meant for reflection of what has been, blended with anticipation for what may be in the New Year. The places we go to, the books we’ve read, the things we’ve done or not done all accumulate and become our identity. We are here because of all of that, layered into who we are. It’s all a part of us, carried for our evermore.

      Reflecting on what we’ve added to our identity, what we’ve subtracted from it, leads one naturally to consideration of what one might add to our identity going forward. Just who do we want to become next anyway? What, like that apple George Malley bit into, will become a part of us forever and always? We ought to make it the juiciest and most delicious apple we can find.

      We are all on our way somewhere. Forever accumulating, subtracting, showcasing or burying deep within. Life is what we carry, but also what we build from the blocks we’ve gathered together in our lives. Want a more magical life? Gather bits of magic and make something of them (those magical bits are everywhere when we train ourselves to be aware of them).

      What will tomorrow bring? Who knows? But eternity will surely show its indifference to our plans either way. This is our verse to write, beginning forever today. What in the world are we waiting for? Take a bite already.

      Happy New Year!

    • The World Within

      “There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.”
      — Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

      How many countless worlds within are never realized? The tragedy of Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” is its prevalence. Living an unreal life is a tragic consequence of ignoring what’s been calling to us all along. But in a world so relentlessly distracting, who has time to stop and listen? The easy path is to simply do what is expected of us.

      We may choose to stray into expression. To learn to release that which is locked within and create reality from a dream. Imagination is a powerful ally when given given room to grow, fed with attention and allowed to manifest into something real.

      Realizing our masterpiece is a long way down the road from a first draft, begin anyway. It will be incrementally closer than what we did yesterday. Leaps are pretty things, but don’t happen without sustained momentum. Tap in to within, and make the imagined real. Reality is only asking for us to assert ourselves, once and for all.

    • Friends and Adversaries

      “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      We work hard to avoid being critical of others, but the thoughts are there just the same. We develop a good filter as we grow, keeping some thoughts to ourselves, finding that polite way to say something that must be said, and practicing active-avoidance when absolutely necessary. The last few years there’s been a fair amount of active-avoidance as chaos ensued in the world at large. This is a survival skill, garnered from a keen value for the preciousness of time.

      My opinions are generally known by my closest friends and adversaries(the people who pay the most attention). Who has more at stake in knowing who we really are? If I’m learning anything as I move towards another decade checked off on this planet, it’s to stop working so hard to be an adversary and accept the path that I’m on myself. Let others take the prizes once coveted, my quest now is to learn and grow. And this shift in attitude, this shift in focus, is itself growth.

    • To Be Productive and Daring

      Give winter nothing; hold; and let the flake
      Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms.
      All flawless hexagons may melt and break;
      While you must feel the summer’s rage of fire,
      Beyond this frigid season’s empty storms.
      Banished to bloom, and bear the birds’ desire.
      — James Wright, To a Troubled Friend

      Winter is thriving. The darkest day of the year is almost upon us, and then Christmas, and New Year’s, and before we know it we’ll be looking ahead to spring. At least that’s the hope of winter days. We look ahead, placing ourselves in some future place, brighter and perhaps warmer than where we are now. But now is the gift we forever ignore at our peril.

      I want to make something of this day—to be productive and daring. To do the things I promise myself I’ll do in the earliest hours, before the sun rises, before the first coffee bolsters my courage, before this blog post is captured and released for your consideration. Before is now for the productive mind. Now is the time to write and create something, now is the time to do that workout that mocks us. Now is before we get to those things. After is like another season altogether for the busiest mind.

      It’s all a blur of restless productivity towards something beyond here and now. Simply do what must be done next, and beyond will be there waiting. How we like to believe it so! Do with today what we only dream about for tomorrow. For all flawless hexagons may melt and break.

    • The Crooked Path

      “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”― Immanuel Kant

      We are all imperfect beings. Perfectly so, we might add. And it follows that to look for perfection in others or ourselves is a foolish pursuit of what will never be. It’s a false peak that excites us for a brief moment before we recognize that we haven’t arrived yet. For every step forward in one part of our lives, we seem to take two back in some other part. Such is life.

      We may embrace our imperfections while still pursuing better. I write every day whether anyone else reads it or not, but I’ve read it over and over again before I publish it because the first draft is crap, the second is still clunky but flows a little better and by the third I’ve swapped out redundant sentences and moved entire paragraphs around. Inevitably, I’ll click publish, scan it yet again and find all the mistakes that were staring at me the whole time. Frustrating, but not entirely unexpected when we are our own proof-reader. Those who read this in email get to share in my late discoveries.

      Yesterday I received an email from a customer who was responding to a large group of recipients. He was driving at the time and using some AI-driven tool to compose and send his email. And naturally what was sent to the entire group was a hot mess of run-on sentences, incorrect, “best-guess” words and such. The composer of that email corrected it when he arrived where he was going, and even then it was a rough go. Emails and texts already tend to be the first draft thoughts of the masses, add an AI tool that doesn’t understand nuance or company product names and what is churned out is far more confusing than simply abstaining from a reply to all.

      The thing is, artificial intelligence will get better, but it will always be a tool in the box. We imperfect humans are the ones who make connections, discern intent and build consensus. To worry about AI is a distraction. We ought to be more concerned about what the real peak is on our own climb. Where are we going? What skills and knowledge and trusted relationships must we accumulate to get there? The climb to perfection will never be a straight line carrying us to the top. It’s always a crooked path. We’ll run out of time before we reach our version of perfect anyway. So all we can do is our best today before we click publish for one more day, and celebrate the effort towards the goal.