Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • What Will That Be?

      “I write to find out what I didn’t know I knew.”— Robert Frost

      Lately I’ve been playing with writing style just to see where it takes me. I’m not sure I want to dive too deeply into writing poetry, but I aspire to write as elegantly concise as a great poet does. As you can see from my first two sentences compared to the quote from Robert Frost, I still have work to do. And perhaps that should be the blog post today: Aspires for great, sentenced to better. No?

      Then again, this isn’t meant to be a diary or journal. It’s a ship’s log without the ship. Here is where the journey has taken me. Have a look around and note the state of things. What one line will mark this day uniquely on this passage? How does the first day of a new month feel compared to the last day of last month? Are we one day closer to knowing? Knowing what? Every day is learning and discovery and marking the changes.

      I stray onto social media less frequently now. We all feel it’s changed. We were collectively violated by bots and billionaires enough to be deeply suspicious of each platform. These blog posts are shared on three platforms that felt less icky when I linked to them. Is less icky enough of a reason to share content with people I don’t know? Is it all AI scanning now? I don’t do the like-for-a-like thing very well at all (sorry). Does that make me anti-social or simply selective with my precious time? Are we slowly shrinking from open to closed while we debate such things?

      We’re on the road to find out. My road happens to involve an hour or sometimes two of quiet contemplation and moving words around to make things flow better. I’m under no illusions that this blog will change the world—only its writer’s world. For that hour or two compounded over thousands of days adds up to something better than we started with. The world may be more icky, more divided, more collectively stupid than it could have been with better choices, but all we control is what we contribute to the conversation. And just what will that be?

    • Something

      “I have finally concluded, maybe that’s what life is about: there’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that’s it, an always within never.” ― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

      How so we seize what flees?
      Beyond an awareness
      of time passing by
      ritual captures
      something
      of each day.

      To do the same few things
      offers an impression
      on our dizzying days.
      To manage
      something,
      as each flies.

      No, these days are not ours,
      only each ritual—
      odd moments of beauty.
      We seize
      something,
      always within never.

    • All Else Fades

      To find the stories that we sometimes need
      Listen close enough, all else fades
      Fades away
      — Jack Johnson, Constellations

      I’ve thought about taking a walk in the woods today. Strap on the snowshoes and break new trails in the deep drifts that others may follow. Or perhaps nobody will. It’s not for me to say who follows me. There are days when I don’t like the path I’m on myself. So why follow it? Ah, but then there are the other days…

      This blog similarly has followers. Several people I know well, but the vast majority are people I’ll never meet in a lifetime of wandering the world. Then again, maybe we’ve met and neither of us knew it in the moment. Life is full of such curious miracles. Like Anthony Hopkins finding George Feifer’s own copy of The Girl from Petrovka on a bench. The only thing certain in this world is that we’re all miracles of coincidence walking through life like it’s nothing at all. Always remember that you’re kind of a big deal. You just needed someone to tell you that.

      For all the noise, we have a hard time hearing our own story being told in real time. We’d like to skip ahead a few chapters to see how things play out, and try to influence such things by eating our leafy greens and giving up on deliciously bad habits. But really, we never know, do we? We can only influence tomorrow today, not determine it. Everything else is trend analysis and educated guesses. Who really knows what comes next?

      Developing greater awareness seems to me the way to catch more miracles in our lives. They’ll slip away undetected otherwise, unless we trip over them. I mean, we look in the mirror most every day and don’t even see the one looking back at us. Listen closely and all else fades. And sure, we might just find the stories that we need. We’ve been writing ours all along, like it or not. So why not add more “like it” chapters? The trail has been ours to blaze all along.

    • Opened at Last

      That day I saw beneath dark clouds
      the passing light over the water
      and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
      I knew then, as I had before
      life is no passing memory of what has been
      nor the remaining pages in a great book
      waiting to be read.

      It is the opening of eyes long closed.
      It is the vision of far off things
      seen for the silence they hold.
      It is the heart after years
      of secret conversing
      speaking out loud in the clear air.

      It is Moses in the desert
      fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
      It is the man throwing away his shoes
      as if to enter heaven
      and finding himself astonished,
      opened at last,
      fallen in love with solid ground.
      — David Whyte, The Opening of Eyes

      Lately I’ve been missing the owls. I walk at night with the dog, assessing the latest accumulation of snow and ice, and I wonder where the owls have gone. They haven’t gone anywhere, I know, for they’re non-migratory. And yet I don’t see them. I don’t hear them. They’re here, but invisible. A whisper in the dark, like so many hopes and dreams. No doubt they’re watching the pup and me, quietly assessing the seekers. We aren’t food or an existential threat, so why bother with us? The fascination is entirely one-sided. The thing is, one doesn’t walk around the neighborhood with a pair of binoculars and remain on good terms with the neighbors. They already think me a curiosity for all the walking the pup and I do. And so it goes that the owls remain hidden in plain sight.

      We move through life meaning well, but easily distracted by the immediate concerns of the day. We all have our owls that whisper to us, waiting to be found. But how hard are we really looking for them? What seismic shift needs to happen? What triggers action towards our grandest plans? After years of conversing, when do we finally hear those whispers loud and clear?

      The answer is sometimes a jolt to the routine. Glancing up at just the right place to catch an owl staring back at us, or stumbling into the right job. But usually it’s being present with the blank page writing, deleting and writing again until just the right words come to us. Whatever that version of writing is to each of us, the ritual of staying with it until we find it is the same. Serendipity aside, we don’t find what we’re looking for if we aren’t out in the proverbial woods with our nose up and our eyes open. Discovery is nothing but being out there in it, today and every day, aware that we may just find possibility yet.

    • Bringing Ourselves to Life

      It’s hard not to notice the connection between habits and momentum. Do something once and nothing much happens. Do something every day and it gradually manifests into identity. We simply become what we do over and over.

      Every time I think I’m going to shelve this daily blog to focus on something else, I think about the streak that I would break. Sure, missing one day of thousands isn’t the end of the world (and let’s face it, it will happen one day), but it’s the end of a streak. And with it some incremental bit of identity would go with it. So it is with the things we do. They become us, and we become them.

      This year is almost two months old, and already there are trends. Forget about politics or the weather, I’m referring to the things that we can control. How many books will we read this year? How much money will we make, or invest? Where is our momentum carrying our fitness and health? Are we seeing intellectual growth or decline though the actions we take today and each day? Habits are the compound interest of identity.

      I write this knowing there’s work to be done on my own habits, even as I celebrate the fruits of some habits that manifest themselves in what appears to be good fortune. Sometimes we are lucky, no doubt, but mostly we move in the direction determined by our daily actions. So do something positive today, and then repeat it tomorrow. And then try to keep the streak alive.

      Simple, right? Life has a way of blowing up our greatest plans. But we can’t worry about all that life will bring to us, all we can do is act today to bring ourselves to life. Momentum will never develop without a start. We’re all writing our story, one day to the next. Take interest in what compounds, for it becomes our story in the end.

    • Fortune Favors

      “Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.” — Nicolas de Chamfort

      There may be time
      for contemplation
      one day soon
      enough.

      Stop thinking so much
      and go
      live your life,
      cajoled.

      This day is for doing,
      as fortune
      favors, they say.
      Boldly.

    • Get Out and Happen

      “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” — Leonardo da Vinci

      I had a conversation with someone this week who observed that Americans believe they can be anything they want to be if they work hard enough towards a goal. The inference was that this isn’t the case in some other countries. Perhaps that’s true, perhaps not. As an American it’s not for me to say what someone from another country believes. I would point towards the Winter Olympics happening right now in Milan as one counter to that argument, and read the worlds of the prominent Italian quoted above as another. I think the real point is that Americans always wear their aspirations on their sleeve. We lead with who we aspire to be.

      This blog surely doesn’t refute that statement. Decide what to be and go be it is one of the most commonly quoted lines you’ll find here (with a nod to The Avett Brothers). At this point in the blog, AI and you, dear reader, have figured out a lot about this writer. The trick in this evolving world is to never show all your cards. That ought to go for aspirations too. Don’t tell us what you’re going to do, show us with the results of your actions. This is the only truth—the rest is just talk.

      The thing is, we know that time is flying by so very quickly. The deck is stacked against any of us really doing anything significant to put a dent in the universe in the time we have available to us. The only answer to this riddle is to be audacious. If fortune favors the bold, stop being timid about what needs to happen today. Get out and happen.

    • Into the Morning

      I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
      flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
      as it was taught, and if not how shall
      I correct it?
      Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
      can I do better?
      Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
      can do it and I am, well,
      hopeless.
      Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
      am I going to get rheumatism,
      lockjaw, dementia?
      Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
      And gave it up. And took my old body
      and went out into the morning,
      and sang.
      — Mary Oliver, I Worried

      I let the pup out this morning as I do every morning. She was inclined to stay out longer, and longer still. I glanced out the window and saw she was prancing in the deep snow. There were no rabbits or mice or moles scurrying away from her, just a dog doing her dance with life. And I wondered at my choosing productivity instead.

      The world will go on. We learn this in time. And we learn to focus on getting things done. Our particular things. Productivity and efficiency become tools of our trade. We trust in our routines, rely on our habits. Growth becomes incremental. Sometimes surprisingly exponential.

      When we are focused and engaged in a life we love, we forget to worry so much. Worry is for the less busy. It’s a sign that we aren’t using our time in the way that we’d like to. We think too much instead. Do something with the time and the worry recedes. Worry tomorrow, for we have things to we’d like to do today.

      And so I’ll publish this blog. I’ll roll into my routine of being all that I can be. After all, the world is expecting me to be me today. But that dance in the snow sure looks fun. Far more fun than worrying or resolutely getting things done.

    • Every Passing Moment

      As wave is driven by wave
      And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
      So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
      Always, for ever and new. What was before
      Is left behind; what never was is now;
      And every passing moment is renewed.
      — Ovid, Metamorphoses      , Book XV

      We are forever transformed by what was. If we take this to be true, then it follows that what will be will be realized because of what we do now. Our lives are thus reinvented one day to the next, right to the end of our days. We may choose to do something with each precious moment to ensure tomorrow renews with promise, or concede our agency to fate and the whim of others.

      Each week passes by more quickly than the last. Seven days feel like three, four weeks feel like two. So what do the years feel like? Shockingly brief time capsules marking each stage of life before the next wave is upon us. Tempus fugit. Our awareness of this rapid flip through days naturally leaves us feeling like we’re forever behind, trying to grasp the moments as they fly past. To seize what flees, as Seneca put it.

      The answer isn’t to try to cram more into our moments, but to savor what we’re doing as it’s happening. Thich Nhat Hanh suggested approaching everything, even something as mundane as washing dishes, with mindfulness, that we may process our time more fully. This is it, such that it is. So what does it feel like? What are we making of it? Where will it take us from here?

      It’s easy to meditate in the garden or even while washing the dishes. It’s harder to sit in traffic and accept the minutes turning to hours. Each situation presents an opportunity to be fully aware, fully awake, fully alive. We are all works in progress, wave after wave, surfing through time. What is this moment teaching us about our place in it? What does it offer for the moments to come?

      Whenever I tell myself to stop writing this blog and use the time for other things, I’m struck by two thoughts. First, I’m a streak-based creature of habit, and I’m not inclined to break this streak just yet. But more to the point, writing is my particular way of processing each wave, for ever and new. I gently place this post in my timeline and face the next wave as it rises before me. The days and weeks and years fly by, marked thusly, for anyone inclined to follow along (I really wanted to use the word thusly in today’s blog, and there it is).

      This post will be longer than the norm. Maybe I just don’t want to say farewell to our moment together. But the next wave is rising, and we each must bring our attention to each passing moment as it renews before us. And here it is! So thank you for this time. We both know just how precious it is.

    • We Become the Sum

      “What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?” — Michel Foucault

      Walking the pup yesterday during a snowstorm, I considered turning back to slip on micro spikes. Fluffy snow over ice is never a good recipe for reliable footing. Instead I shortened my stride and the leash so the dog wouldn’t pull me down in her snowy exuberance. Some life lessons are learned from a sore backside.

      We know that we are works in progress, but sometimes get frustrated with the pace of that progress. It’s okay to paint over our mistakes now and then. It’s better to make them anyway, if only to learn which paths are not ours to take, if only to not have possibilities haunting us for not having tried them at all. As Nietzsche reminded us, that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. In this way, we may consider each day a lesson in how to live.

      The pup and I have a loop that covers the same ground twice to get us to the desired distance. Double the distance and we’re doubling the frequency of times covering the same ground. Which is noticeable when it’s snowing out and we’re leaving foot and paw prints behind us. In this way, each loop revealed the previous ground we’d covered, but our steps never exactly repeated themselves. Our strides changed with the conditions, we were pulled towards some curiosity just a nose below the snow, a car passed by that changed our path or some such thing. As the snow accumulated, the oldest footprints faded more and more into the layers building up on top of them. Each loop was the same, yet completely different. So too are our days.

      Our canvas transforms with every stroke of the brush. Each offers lessons on where to go next. Each fades further into the background with the addition of yet another. But here lies depth and progress. The richness of life is found not just in the changes we make to our days, but in the rituals that anchor them. It all builds upon itself to form the work of art that is our life. In this way, we become the sum.