Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • Purpose Coming to a Head

      The Universe is but the Thing of things,
      The things but balls all going round in rings,
      Some of them mighty huge, some mighty tiny,
      All of them radiant and mighty shiny.

      They mean to tell us all was rolling blind
      Till accidentally it hit on mind
      In an albino monkey in a jungle
      And even then it had to grope and bungle

      Till Darwin came to earth upon a year
      To show the evolution how to steer.
      They mean to tell us, though, the Omnibus
      Had no real purpose till it got to us.

      Don’t you believe it. At the very worst
      It must have had the purpose from the first
      To produce purpose as the fitter bred:
      We were just purpose coming to a head.

      Whose purpose was it? His or Hers or Its?
      Let’s leave that to the scientific wits.
      Grant me intention, purpose, and design —
      That’s near enough for me to the Divine.

      And yet for all this help of head and brain
      How happily instinctive we remain,
      Our best guide upward further to the light,
      Passionate preference such as love at sight.
      — Robert Frost, Accidentally on Purpose

      A hard frost last night had me thinking about Mr. Frost, which had me looking through some poems and quotes, that delivered this delightful nugget. The poem above was published in the March 1961 edition of The Atlantic, well before my time on earth began. But the universe opens up for those who seek more, or at the very least for those who have a subscription to a magazine that offers its entire archive online simply for the asking. We ought to support independent voices for all they offer, not just in complicated times such as these. As we are reminded of when chaos rules, consistency matters a great deal in our march through a great life.

      I spent entirely too much time ignoring poetry as a younger man. I was simply too busy with clever pursuits—or maybe foolish pursuits, it hardly matters. It was when I began writing every day when I was instinctively drawn to poetry. Call it an aspiration for brevity, or a delight in the dance of words, or simply a logical turn towards that which awes. Whatever it is, I saw what I’d been missing and decided to miss as little as possible.

      What is our purpose? We spend too much time dwelling on it, and not nearly enough time pursuing it. Sure, we ought to think about the heading of the compass, but we must set the sails and get moving before the wind dies and we’re left adrift on a cold, dark sea. Sure, that’s a well-worn analogy tossed deliberately into the mix, but heck, what are analogies for but to use in the most obvious moments?

      That digression aside, the question lingers about intention, purpose and design. Poetry prompts such questions, just as art and prose and science do. Humans reaching for some greater truth than what to should have for lunch today naturally evolves over time to form some philosophical core that snowballs into something approaching sublime.

      We might look around and see that the majority isn’t exactly inspiring awe, they’re simply following the easiest path to get through their days. We all fall into that trap now and then, we just can’t allow it to become habitual. Reaching towards our greatest potential is also habitual. It demands that we transcend the limitations of self and strive for a level of perfection and beauty far beyond the limits of our lifetime. That’s on each of us in our time.

    • A Trouble of Excitement

      “I think you write only out of a great trouble. A trouble of excitement, a trouble of enlargement, a trouble of displacement in yourself.” — Eleanor Clark

      Do you feel that restlessness, that trouble of excitement, that comes with being fully alive? To do and be more naturally lends itself to conflict, both internal and with people who want to treat us as who they’ve grown to believe we are. Without realizing that maybe that’s who we once were and nothing more. Of course, we ought to recognize this in ourself as well.

      I was talking to an automotive shop owner who replaced the previous owner, since retired. I asked if he still saw the previous owner, and he told me, all the time. He was bored in retirement and visited the shop to stay connected with who he once was. We know many people, don’t we, who are simply repeat who they were day-after-day until one day they’re expected to leave that another may take over and do the same. Human history may be thought of as generation-after-generation of people taking their turn in a job, a home, a relationship, or a voice of reason in the latest chaotic moment in history. We are simply taking our turn at this thing we do today, and then we will take our turn at something else tomorrow. Trouble begins when someone can’t or won’t follow the natural order of things. Does that mean that trouble is a bad thing, or simply recognized as change?

      What are you going to do when you retire? I have no trouble imagining the answers myself. One day, when I’m done with all of this, I will travel and garden and spend time with people inside and out of my current orbit. Perhaps I’ll be a grandfather who disrupts the fabric of a child’s proper upbringing. Perhaps I’ll follow through on bold claims of long hikes and longer passages on a boat that hasn’t been adopted into my current lifestyle yet. Perhaps all of these things or things not yet imagined in the current state of creativity an interesting life demands of us. I believe that whatever the future brings, I will write something about it for as long as my mind and body allow.

    • Each Hard Thing

      “Unless the lake was actually frozen, I would go out on it.” On winter days, he adds, “The first four kilometres are hard because you can still feel your hands. After that it gets easier, because your hands are numb.” — Oliver Zeidler, Reigning Olympic and world champion in the men’s single sculls, article “What Makes a Champion?” from Flow

      Ever wonder at how hard it is to row a single scull against elite athletes for 2000 meters? Row 2000 meters on a rowing ergometer for time and see how you feel. It dents your soul in hurts so much. So I laughed when I read Zeidler’s quote, because “numb” applies to more than overcoming the cold. Elite athletes push aside levels of discomfort that sideline the rest of us.

      I write this fresh off a kettle bell circuit that made me question my own sanity. I made it through the workout, rested long enough to manage typing, and began typing this blog post. My rest involved reading the article quoted from above. We tend to be most open to positive action when we’ve already done something good for us. The opposite is also true, of course, so avoiding one bad habit helps us avoid a string of other bad habits.

      And this brings me back to doing hard things. Each hard thing done makes it more likely that we’ll do another hard thing, and another, and soon we’re surprising ourselves with all that we’ve accomplished in a day, a week, a year… and onward to a lifetime. That’s one reason I tend to write and publish every day, because it feeds the next hard thing I want to get done. What have we done today to make us proud of our effort? There’s still time to add something to that list.

      Ironically, the kettle bell exercise that makes me feel most alive is called a gravedigger. It will get your heart rate up quickly, and reminds me of the rhythmic swing of rowing, without the cold hands. That workout was fresh on my mind when I read the interview with Zeidler, and surely influenced my decision to seek it out in the first place. Reinforce the positive, whenever possible. Momentum ensues.

      We probably shouldn’t aspire to numbness in our lives, but pushing through discomfort to perform at a higher level is a worthy aspiration. Today’s discomfort is tomorrow’s excellence. And why wait any longer than that?

    • Resonance and Depth

      “It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.” — James Wright

      Poems are like friends: find the right one and it will change your life. And like people we encounter throughout our lives, they serve as stepping stones between who we were prior to landing on one and who we become as we launch towards some other insightful plateau.

      So what is reading a great novel, if not more time with something of substance? Like a marriage that carries us on a journey of discovery? We may find a resounding truth in a few words, or one that unfolds over the course of a lifetime. A resolve towards discovery is the thing.

      I started reading The Count of Monte Cristo again. And in reading it, I came across a business card from a decade ago that I’d stuck between the pages as a placeholder marking the last time I’d passed this way. Have I mentioned that I’ve started and stopped reading this novel a few times over the years? Perhaps this time I’ll finish it. Twenty pages a day and it will be wrapped up by Thanksgiving. I can surely outpace that metric, given enough time… and the inclination.

      We are the sum of all that we layer atop the foundation we venture out into the world with. No doubt a solid foundation helps a great deal in reaching a higher potential. Isn’t that why we strive to put our children in the best neighborhoods and schools we can afford? But a solid base means nothing if we don’t grow from it. We may shore up our own foundation, and fill gaps through a regimen of lifetime education. This is our duty to ourselves, to reach for that elusive arete in our time. Or we could simply coast into a lesser version of who we might have been. The choice is ours.

    • The Forever Regimen

      “21 days? 30 days? 66 days?
      The honest answer is: forever. Because once you stop doing it, it is no longer a habit.
      A habit is a lifestyle to be lived, not a finish line to be crossed. Make small, sustainable changes you can stick with.” — James Clear

      James Clear had it right; the answer is forever. At least when the question is about how long we should do something for it to be deeply-engrained in our identity. This applies equally well to fitness and nutrition, writing, reading, disciplined action at work or any other habit we wish to sustain for the rest of our lives.

      Nothing affirms this more than taking a break from our routine for more than a few days. Suddenly what was simply who we were and what we did becomes a task we must add back into our day. Nature abhors a void, and the time we spent doing a weight circuit or writing a blog post is seized for reading a book or watching Schitt’s Creek. The new habit dominates our muscle memory and we have to force ourselves back on track.

      The regimen is who we are, forever. Until we stop, and then we are this other person who used to be more consistent with that positive habit we’ll one day we wish to get back to. Begin again today, if we must. But stick with it this time. We’ll thank ourselves later.

    • Passing, and Preserving (RIP Annie)

      ‘Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me. This is easy to write, easy to read, and hard to believe. The words are simple, the concept clear—but you don’t believe it, do you? Nor do I. How could I, when we’re both so lovable? Are my values then so diametrically opposed to those that nature preserves?” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

      I woke up to the news that Annie Dillard passed away yesterday. That triggered me to look back on her most famous book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, for which she won the Pulitzer in 1974. Having read it, I’ll never think of creeks or barnacles the same. In that way, she will live on forever in my mind, and in the minds of countless others who read her books. Creating something is to dance with infinity, or at least for the duration of recorded memory.

      Writing is one form of creative output. Apparently Dillard grew weary of the life of a writer and turned to painting in her retirement. The output isn’t the real point, it’s honing awareness through listening and observation, and interpreting those encounters into something tangible that we might share with others. We will all pass from this earth one day. What will be preserved of us? The creation of something beautiful, in whatever form it takes, is a whisper of who we are, and one day too soon, who we once were.

      I’ve quoted Dillard in this blog several times over the years, but her quote that resonates the most with me serves to shake me from complacency and force me to focus now. We all need someone to remind us that today matters a great deal in the big scheme of things. Because the scheme is the thing. Structure and productivity matter, when we have something we want to do with our time here. It’s the most stoic of reminders:

      “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” — Annie Dillard, The Writing Life: The Classic Essay Collection on the Creative Process

      Thanks Annie.

    • Following Your Own Way

      If you want, then start to laugh
      If you must, then start to cry
      Be yourself, don’t hide
      Just believe in destiny
      Don’t care what people say
      Just follow your own way
      Don’t give up and use the chance
      To return to innocence
      — Enigma, Return to Innocence

      This blog is inching along again. Inching towards what, exactly? Proficiency in writing? Show up and create something every day and see where it takes you. If nothing else, we become better at shipping the work, and there’s a lot to be said for doing what we tell ourselves we’re going to do. Keeping promises to oneself matters a great deal in a world of broken promises and shattered dreams. We may not be able to rely on everyone, but we can learn to rely on ourself. The trick is to up the ante with those promises. What got us here is great, but it won’t get us there—and there is where we’re trying to get to.

      Enigma is on my life soundtrack, and when I hear a song like Return to Innocence, I remember exactly where and who I was at the time. It turns out I’ve come a long way since then. We don’t generally leap from untapped potential to arete, we show up every day and incrementally drag ourselves through the good days and the bad, until one day we look around and realize we’ve done what we’d told ourselves we wanted to do and then some. Suddenly, that song means something completely different than it did then. Or maybe it’s us that’s completely different.

      So have we arrived at the place we aimed for when we started? Are we even aiming for the same thing? More likely, we’re still a work in progress, with different goals now than we had then. We are likely better from where we were but with some work still to do towards where we are going. We humans are always moving the goal posts as we grow.

      Don’t care what people say, just follow your own way. We learn that following our own way is a tough grind. Well-meaning folks and more timid souls everywhere are quick to curb our enthusiasm for what they perceive as reckless behavior. Thank you for your concern; but I call BS. Nothing meaningful ever happens without risk. The lesson is always the same: be bold today to reap tomorrow’s rewards.

    • Delight Is in the Details

      “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” — William Morris

      Our level of interest in the details of life dictates how much we get out of it, and yes, how much we are delighted in the living of it. Case in point, I am as interested in the proper capitalization of the title of this blog post as I am with the view out the window I find myself next to as I write this near a bay alive with choppy fetch, bouncing boats and hunting birds soaring above.

      Why should we care about every little detail? Because it’s the stuff of life! More precisely, the stuff of our life. This, friend, is it. And making something of it is our purpose. Indeed, the devil is in the details, so draw delight from the lot of them. That is the recipe for an expansive life.

      We are each collectors of days, with a stack of them making up our lifetime. Within each day in turn are a collection of moments and minutia that are the stuff of life. Paying more attention to that stuff allows us to appreciate all that we have or have held as uniquely ours. Gratitude and delight follow closely behind awareness of all that is.

    • The Impeded Stream (RIP Wendell)

      It may be that when we
      no longer know what to do
      we have come to our real work,
      and that when we no longer know
      which way to go
      we have come to our real journey.
      The mind that is not baffled
      is not employed.
      The impeded stream
      is the one that sings.
      — Wendell Berry, Our Real Work

      It’s been a rough year for poets and singers. It seems the beautiful souls slip away from this chaotic place where the ugliest thrive. Or is it that we just care more when the light goes out? And when a light goes out, who will carry the torch next? Why not us, friend?

      Which leads to the question, what will we do? For all the confusion and obstacles that life throughs at us, we work our way through it all, somehow. Persistence and belief in our direction are the keys to growth. A stream carves more deeply with persistence and time. So it is that we ought to keep the work flowing, despite all that is thrown at us along the way.

      Beauty doesn’t die, it simply finds another place to grow.

    • We Are What We Do

      “Our dreams betray us” — Anton Myrer, Once An Eagle

      What do our dreams actually say of us, but who we desire to be? For all my talk of productivity and purpose, I dream of boats and faraway places. Polar opposites, I can here the maternal characters in my life say. So which is me, and what is simply talk?

      We dream of being writers or pro athletes or travel lifestyle YouTube influencers. We dream of washboard abs and marathon finishes. None of that is who we are, it’s nothing but what we wish for until we pay the price of greatness; the daily, consistent, habitual work that lifts us up from our dreams and carries us to our destiny. Do or do not, there is no try, as Yoda put it.

      Dreams betray our aspirations and desires. They hint at a possible future, but simply hoping to hit the lottery leads to a life of dashed dreams and lingering regrets. Making the intangible tangible begins with doing the hard things that a dreamlike life demands. So wake up and get on with it.