Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • A Wee Bit of Stubborn Attention

      “People think it’s about self-indulgence or selfishness or something like that. But it isn’t really. It’s about, where is your attention? Where does your attention want to be? … in a world where everything is trying to claim your attention to sell you something or to get you to vote for something or to believe in something, what your attention wants to do is important. And it just is constantly bombarded by other demands.
      Hold on. What is it I liked? What is the thing that really mattered to me? … you really ought to be the shepherd of your own attention. You can’t let that be stolen from you. I think that one of the primary qualities of the artist is stubbornness. And that is what stubbornness is about. It’s about refusing to have your attention stolen.” — Brian Eno, Inside Brian Eno’s Studio | Zane Lowe Interview

      There’s a lot to be distracted about at the moment. Perhaps that is one reason this interview with Brian Eno resonated so well with me. But there’s always distraction—a lifetime of it swirling around us at all times, with the promise of much more to come. This planet has become very distracting indeed. We still ought to do something with the time we have.

      What is that thing? Why is it hiding behind the chorus of obligations and distraction we call a life? Drag it out on stage and let’s hear what kind of voice that thing has. Too shy for a spotlight? We must remember that nothing else matters in our days than bringing that voice to the forefront (I gotta have more cowbell!). It’s now or never for our essential work.

      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

      There are a few ways to hear that voice. We may try to amplify it, by placing ourselves in an environment where the voice is prioritized above all, or, if that’s not enough, we can remove all the other noise, that we may finally hear what that timid voice is whispering to us. But there’s another way, and that’s to find a chorus that works with our voice to find a truth that we might not have found otherwise. In such moments, the choir soars to new heights.

      Whatever our path to creative expression, our time grows short. We ought to do what we can with what we have. That begins with being a little selfish with our attention. Sure, we may let the world speak to us, for it’s not shy with its demands, but really, what was that thing that really mattered most to us? Why not give that a voice today? If only to discover where a wee bit of stubborn attention may bring us.

    • Up and Away

      “I think the misconception people have about artists is that artists walk around with sort of unrealized things in their head. And the process of being an artist is making those become real. But I don’t really know any artist that works that way. You might have an idea of where you want to start, but the process of making something is the process of starting to understand it as well… You find your way through making it.”— Brian Eno, Inside Brian Eno’s Studio | Zane Lowe Interview

      I can feel every artist nodding in understanding when Eno said these words. I certainly felt the truth in it within my own work. Every day I sit to write and get swept up and away by the process of finding something to say. The work takes me where it will. My job is simply to show up and to stay politely focused. Eno emphasized his thoughts on this process by referencing the famous Picasso quote about it during this interview:

      “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” — Pablo Picasso

      It’s a relief to step into Eno’s studio in such a loud, jarring time in our collective history. Doesn’t the world need more thoughtful immersion in art? Now more than ever. And that’s where we come in, friend. We are here to do the work, however it comes to us, and to find out just how far we might go.

      This all transcends art, of course. We’re all just channeling life through our work, whatever that work is. Inspiration sweeps us up and away in a state of flow to someplace we hardly imagined when we began. And when the work is done, we have a quiet moment of realization with it where we discover what we have created before releasing it to the wild and beginning again.

    • Little Flower

      “The little flower that opens in the meadows lives and dies in a season; but what agencies have concentrated themselves to produce it! So the human soul lives in the midst of heavenly help.” — Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

      Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was a teacher and a publisher, born in Billerica, Massachusetts, tutored in Greek by Emerson, the first to publish Thoreau, a leading voice in the education of children and the philosophy of transcendentalism. A little flower who moved with the giants and made her mark in her season.

      We are moving through time, together for this brief moment and then apart. Perhaps we’ll meet again on our timelines, perhaps not. We may savor the moment for all it offers or leave it grateful for the lessons we’ve accumulated.

      Learning is a lifelong mission, honed through self-awareness that in turn stirs a belief within that we must become more than this. May that feeling last a lifetime. For that which is not growing is dying, and we have more to do in this world, you and I. Grow and produce something of consequence. Our season is not over yet, little flower.

    • Creating Amongst the Foolish

      “Are these sandcastles my triumphs? Of what divine substance are castles that are not sandcastles made?” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

      “A child knows that the doll is not real, and yet he or she treats it as real, even weeping disconsolately when it breaks. The art of the child is that of making things unreal. Blessèd is that mischievous stage in life, when love is negated by the absence of sex, when reality is negated by play, treating as real things that are not. Let me return to childhood and stay there forever, caring nothing for the values that grown men give to things or for the relationships that grown men establish between them.” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

      There are many ways to navigate the world. We can feel in control of our fate or feel like it’s all meaningless anyway and float through life without agency. Existentialism vs. nihilism (with an assist from nihilism’s close friend absurdism). Pessoa leaned closer to nihilism and absurdism for my existentialist tastes, but I know that the truth lies somewhere in between our strongest beliefs on either side. So two quotes from Fernando to kick us off.

      We may believe that the world is currently being run by children playing with toys. That the adults have been kicked to the curb and we’re entering a regressive period in our collective history. Looking around, it’s easy to get caught up in the childish absurdity of people in positions of power. We must recognize that they’re building their sandcastles and one day they will all be swept away like the grains of sand that they are. Planet Earth and the universe beyond it will continue indifferently without any of us.

      The existentialist in me believes we ought to carry on discovering our own meaning and purpose anyway. To create beauty in a world craving it, even as the nihilists work to tear down those old castles. Where they favor chaos, we may find deeper meaning in creating order within our own lives, or at least within our own minds. Remember Viktor Frankl:

      “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

      As I was writing this, I thought I’d see what artificial intelligence would do in this instance. ChatGPT offered an answer so aligned with my way of thinking that I thought I’d simply quote it verbatim. Here it is:

      “An existentialist in a world dominated by nihilists would likely focus on three key things:

      1. Personal Meaning and Authenticity – While nihilists might argue that life is inherently meaningless, an existentialist would counter that meaning is something individuals must create for themselves. They would emphasize living authentically, making choices that reflect personal values rather than succumbing to the indifference of nihilism.
      2. Freedom and Responsibility – Existentialists believe that individuals are free to shape their own lives, but with that freedom comes responsibility. In a nihilistic world where others may see no reason to act ethically or strive for purpose, an existentialist would insist that each person is responsible for defining and upholding their own values.
      3. Engagement and Action – Rather than retreating into despair or apathy (which nihilism can sometimes encourage), an existentialist would advocate for active engagement with life. Whether through art, relationships, or personal projects, they would see action as a means of affirming existence despite the lack of inherent meaning.

      Essentially, where nihilism sees a void, existentialism sees an opportunity to create.”

      The thing is, I don’t believe the world is full of nihilists. I do believe that they’re dominating the conversation now, having ascended to positions of power where they can kick down the castles built by others. It’s best to take the long view in such moments as this. Instead of focusing all of one’s energy on reacting to the castles they’ve kicked down, build a new one, stronger than the one before.

      Remember Whitman’s poem amidst the nihilism and strife of his time:

      Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
      Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
      Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
      Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
      Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
      Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
      The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
      Answer.
      That you are here—that life exists and identity,
      That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
      — Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life!

      Here we are, the existentialists amongst the endless trains of the faithless and foolish. What are we to do in such a world? Create, friend. Create beauty in this maddening world. Carry the torch, that others may find their way too. For this too shall pass. The powerful play will go on.

    • Sublimity Above Scorn

      “Scorn trifles, lift your aims: do what you are afraid to do: sublimity of character must come from sublimity of motive.” — Mary Moody Emerson

      We’ve all pondered some variation of the question, “who in history would we most love to have a conversation with?” We can easily come up with our short list of fascinating characters. One can easily derive who tops my list by the frequency with which I quote them in this blog. But not all. Consider Mary Moody Emerson, the aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson and by all accounts a delightful, energetic and fascinating woman who could talk circles around her nephew and the thought leaders of the day residing in or around Concord, Massachusetts.

      She was born in Concord at the beginning of the American Revolution and passed away in the middle of the American Civil War. She saw a few things in her time, and was an avid reader and practitioner of commonplacing, which is essentially the format of this blog for the last several years. For all the bitterness that those two wars represented in our history, she sought enlightenment and sublimity through reading and conversation to better understand the great thinkers of the time. One can easily say she played a strong part in the rise of transcendentalism.

      The America of today is again splitting apart on ideology and scorn. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the ugliness of the moment, and I’m not advocating ignoring it (we’ve seen what happens when authoritarians are unchecked). Awareness and resolve are essential characteristics of the resilient mind. But we must be aware of the cost of participation in the war of words. Perhaps we should listen to someone who saw the worst and the best of humanity in her time and chose to lift her aims. We too may seek sublimity over scorn, knowing it will not easy, but nonetheless essential work.

    • Says I to Myself

      “To-day you may write a chapter on the advantages of travelling, and to-morrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not travelling. The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another, I fear a less ethereal and glorious one, to him who has. That blue mountain in the horizon is certainly the most heavenly, the most elysian, which we have not climbed, on which we have not camped for a night. But only our horizon is moved thus further off, and if our whole life should prove thus a failure, the future which is to atone for all, where still there must be some success, will be more glorious still. ‘Says I to myself’ should be the motto of my journal. It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      The thing about writing a blog every day is that it can feel like a journal pretty quickly. That’s not the intention at all, especially given the number of wonderful people in my life that read the blog. Sure, I’ve made this bed now I’ve got to lie in it. But it will never be a journal, even if people occasionally comment on it as if it was.

      We reach a place in our lives, look off to the horizon and see another mountain to climb. We reach that one and it all starts again. A life lived in pursuit of personal excellence is a constant process of seeing the next goal and setting out for it. When do we get to rest? In our graves? But so goes the journey of becoming. It will always be action-oriented, it will always be a climb. But oh, the view!

    • Where Am I?

      “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ― Lao Tzu

      I was prompted to look at an old blog post I’d written back in 2019 because it showed up in my statistics. That one post has garnered hundreds of views, which isn’t exactly Seth Godin numbers, but it was one of the ones that got more traction than most. Historical, introspective and curious. I’d like to think I’m still those things, even if my focus has changed a bit.

      Back then I was traveling a lot more, we hadn’t had a pandemic yet, and life hadn’t thrown a few more gut punches our way. We all accumulate experiences over time—the good, bad and ugly. In general, I liked the way I wrote back then, I just hadn’t experienced the changes that would wash over me yet.

      The thing is, back in those days exploring place, I was asking the same questions I’m asking now: Where am I? What happened here and what can it teach me?

      Everything changes, and so must we. Each experience accumulated changes us in some way minutely or profoundly. It’s like that river analogy, where both the river and we are not the same each time we visit. And flow we must, always having been somewhere, always on to the next, and yet right here in this moment. What have we learned this time?

    • The Optimal Moment for Yes

      “Time and energy are limited. Any successful person has to decide what to do in part by deciding what not to do.” — Angela Duckworth

      I recently stirred the pot in my community of friends by questioning the viability of outrage. One person’s call to action is another’s endless distraction at the latest assault on what’s good in this world. I choose to put all outrageous acts into the same bucket of atrociousness and simply focus on what I can control. Acknowledge they’re bastards doing bastardly things and don’t let them drag us down into the time-suck abyss. To do otherwise concedes effectiveness. Use that emotional energy for useful productivity.

      Deciding and doing necessarily demand deciding what not to do as well. As I write this, I have notifications pouring in on my phone, a long list of priorities written out to check off today and a lingering awareness that time is rapidly ticking away. And that’s exactly why we must learn to say no. We only have so many grains of sand to work with, so why waste it being unfocused on the things that will matter most in the end?

      Case in point: I postponed writing this blog post until some essential work was completed. It quietly gnawed at me knowing that I deferred writing for other work, but the work was important enough for me to say yes to it, while the writing of the blog wasn’t a “no” (!) but a “not yet”. Will the work matter in ten years? Maybe. Will the blog post? Again, maybe. But both are are important enough to me to warrant prioritization. In the end both will be completed and I’ll move on with my life knowing I’ve honored a commitment to myself.

      Everything essential has its time, and all the rest distracts us from focusing on optimally meeting this moment. What feels essential today may mean nothing when we’re on our deathbed. Yes, there are some things we can say yes to now that we’ll never be able to say yes to again. But what are we saying no to to attain it? Which is more optimal for a yes in this moment? Perhaps that’s the ultimate filter for what we say yes and no to. Because those grains of sand are flowing oh so fast and we may never pass this way again.

    • Floating Off the Edge

      “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      May your hands always be busy
      May your feet always be swift
      May you have a strong foundation
      When the winds of changes shift
      May your heart always be joyful
      May your song always be sung
      May you stay forever young
      — Bob Dylan, Forever Young

      I rewatched The Last Waltz last night, secure in the knowledge that I could turn up the volume as loudly as I wanted to with my bride on the other side of the country (she may still have heard it playing). I was struck by how young each of the performers were. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, and even Director Martin Scorsese—they all looked like kids because really, they still were. And The Band, every last one of them gone now, all were at the height of their productive youth. How quickly it all flies by… Tempus fugit.

      That film was the amber of that moment for them, and they’re locked in time. So it was fitting for Dylan to sing Forever Young, and for Scorsese to provide the amber. The Band knew what they were walking away from—the grind of the road, true, but also their youth. There’s lingering sadness at what was left on stage revealed in conversations with each member, especially Rick Danko. No, we aren’t Peter Pan, forever young and living the life of adventure, we all must grow up one day. And so it is that each of the performers have aged and faded away one-by-one. Memento mori.

      Why did I rewatch this film? Maybe it was the music, or maybe to have my own look back on a different time. An industry friend passed away this week. He was twenty years my senior and cancer took him away with a mind as sharp as someone twenty years my junior. Age is just a number—health and vitality are our true currency in life. The body or the mind will surely fail us all one day, so be bold and dance today. And while we’re at it, turn up the volume as loud as we dare. Carpe diem.

      “We’re all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world” — The Band, Life is a Carnival

      Maybe I write to capture my own moments in amber, or maybe I’m just leaving breadcrumbs of where I’ve been. We all have our body of work and our faded photographs (or increasingly, lower resolution JPEG’s) that whisper of who we once were in the height of our own productive youth. The trick is to keep producing, to keep dancing, and to lock some particularly shiny moments away in amber while we can, until one day this boat floats off the edge to join all the stars in infinity.

    • Run to Simplicity

      “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      Do you wonder why the most beautiful people in this world seem so placid and steady? There’s an inner calm like a still pond; clear and deep and surrounded by hushed beauty. Isn’t that something to aspire to in our own lives? Not for the shallow goal of being beautiful, but of living beautifully? Our lives must be more than a puddle in a rut, waiting for a truck to thump into us and drag our essence down the road. Get off that damned road.

      “There is nothing that the busy man is less busy with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.” — Seneca

      The thing is, we’re all so very busy and distracted by life. It’s hard to go deep on anything when we barely have a moment to understand things at a surface level. But surfaces dry up quickly when the drought comes. We’re taught to stick to the surface—to hack our way through the hard stuff, seeking shortcuts and a way out of anything that holds us back from the next. That applies equally well in our education, our work, and our relationships with others. Is it any wonder why so many are unsettled and distracted? There’s no substance to them because they keep running away from it.

      To skate through life without ever lingering long enough to truly know the world and our place in it is the path of mediocrity accepted by the masses. Choose to be the exception—for there lies extraordinary. To truly master anything in life, especially the living of life itself, requires immersion and stillness. We must learn to turn off the spigot and develop a thirst for deeper waters.

      “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” — Bruce Lee

      I believe I keep this blog going to force myself deeper. The times when I want to simply shut it down and miss a day are when I’m running shallow—spread thin and beginning to dry up emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I remind myself to run deeper, to eliminate distractions and to find stillness. Sure enough, the inclination fades away and I begin to write with clarity once again. Like a shallow stream building into a flowing river that steadily moves to the sea, building momentum in a deeper channel carved out of persistence.