Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • Do Not Say, Do

      “It is a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it.” — John Steinbeck

      “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” — Carl Jung

      Both of these quotes appeared in my media feed recently. I’m not particularly happy with that media feed lately, but such is the state of the world and the Internet we once hoped would democratize it. That the quotes appeared to me through all the noise that is social media now is another example of that other expression about the student being ready. Spring is in the air, travel is more than just a distant whisper now, and what exactly have we been doing to prepare for all that suggests itself to us?

      The thing about writing a blog every day is that it’s very easy to say what we’re going to do, much harder to execute on that vision. It’s routines that make us or break us. Intentions are a fool’s game. Who wants to hear about the promises we make to ourselves that we break? Who wants to write about that?

      In sales there’s a term for reaching out to someone regularly just to check in and see if they’re ready to work with you. It’s called a drip campaign. When the student is ready the salesperson seemingly appears at just the right time. That can be viewed as either opportunistic or pragmatic, but the prospect will eventually leave a routine they’ve grown accustomed to whether they really want to or not. A diligent salesperson will be the one they nod to in that moment.

      Life is sales. We’re either selling ourselves on the idea of change or we’re being sold to by the rest of the universe. What the salesperson has to learn is that it’s dissatisfaction with the routine that drives change. At that moment, we flip from all talk to meaningful action. At that moment we begin to do. And doing is where the magic is.

    • Practiced Reasoning

      “While we naturally understand that writing is a good way to share ideas with others, we under-appreciate just how much good writing helps us think about an idea ourselves. Writing is not only a means of communication, it enables us to practice reasoning.
      Writing forces you to slow down, focus, and think deeply. In a world where attention is fragmented into seconds, thinking becomes more reactive than reasoned. Only when [we] take time to play with our ideas can we hope to think about them substantially. Writing requires sticking with something a little longer and developing a deeper understanding.
      Writing is the process by which we realize we do not understand and the process by which we come to understand.”
      — Shane Parrish, Unspoken Expectations, Brain Food – No. 569 – March 24, 2024

      Until I read Shane Parrish’s latest newsletter, I still had it in my mind—even after a couple of thousand blog posts—that I was writing for others. I had it partially correct. I’ve been writing for myself, to better understand that which I encounter on this dash through the decades, and then to share that processing with you; the reader. I’ve talked of breadcrumbs and the processing of ideas before myself, so the idea isn’t exactly revolutionary, but he hammered it home well enough that I thought I’d practice a bit more reasoning writing about it here.

      The thing about documenting your own reasoning in a blog is that when you publish, you’ve let the world in on a bit of a secret. Deep down, you know more about who I am and how I process information about the world and my experience in it. Sure, I filter out enough that people aren’t guessing my passwords (those simple passwords are long gone anyway) or otherwise hacking my identity, but the bottom line remains clear: unless you’re writing a blog yourself, you know far more about how I think than I know about how you think. Advantage reader?

      Perhaps. But we aren’t adversaries in this game of life, are we? My reasoning, should you choose to follow along, is simply my half of a conversation. And as a writer we ought to view it as such. Otherwise what is it but a dull college lecture or a dad speaking to a table full of people staring at their phones? There are some blog posts that fail to resonate with the world, and it feels a lot like that latter example in such moments of posting into the vacuum of the Internet, but that is exactly the moment to remind myself that this blog post is one human’s humble attempt to reason with the universe and to see what comes from it.

      In a way, writing this blog is similar to playing chess with the computer. The computer always wins, often in frustratingly devious ways (like a cat and the mouse with me always the mouse), but each game is a lesson in strategic thinking for me, even in the loss. When the game is over, was it a waste of time or an incremental step forward towards becoming a better chess player (ie: strategic thinker)? So it is with this blog post and all those that preceded it. Each is an incremental step towards better reasoning, and better writing. And perhaps that’s enough to make me a better human too.

    • Who I Am

      When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
      A miracle, oh, it was beautiful, magical
      And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
      Oh, joyfully, oh, playfully watching me
      But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible
      Logical, oh, responsible, practical
      Then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
      Oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical
      There are times when all the world’s asleep
      The questions run too deep
      For such a simple man
      Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned?
      I know it sounds absurd
      Please tell me who I am
      — Supertramp, The Logical Song

      The beautiful thing about moving through a few decades is rediscovering the soundtrack of your youth well after you rejected it for the waves of more current music that followed. Supertramp was one of those late 1970’s bands that I loved for a time, forgot all about, and delight in all over again when I hear one of their best songs now. How is it a band with as many hits as they had isn’t in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame yet? Because they were surfing the wave instead of creating the next one? Spare me. Music stirs feelings deep within us, and Supertramp created some timeless masterpieces that still ring true. But I digress…

      The other beautiful thing about moving through a few decades is that sense of momentum that comes from focused living. We learn what works for us and what we’re good at. We lean into mastering a few skills that make us uniquely positioned to do well in some niche of life. And if we’re lucky, we collect a few people around us who like us for who we are.

      Who we are…. That’s the real trick, isn’t it? We spend a lifetime figuring it out, finding our way, embracing change for change’s sake, just to keep marching onward and upward. Until one day we hear an old song that makes us remember that part of us that we left behind that still whispers to us in the quiet moments.

      The thing is, most people don’t want to wrestle with such things as who they are, let alone who I am. Generation X kept all this stuff to ourselves, leaving it to these generations that followed us to put it all out there for the world to deal with. I admire that about them even as I roll my eyes at the drama in it all. Be who you are, I’ll do the same, and we’ll both agree to respect each other’s differences. It’s the provocation that irritates. It asks that we not be who we are but to reach across that invisible threshold and become something more. And sure, sometimes we need to do that too. Just meet us halfway.

      I’m not much of a musician, for I was afraid to pursue it for where it might have brought me once. But I know it’s in me still, as untapped energy put into other places. Writing was once like that for me too, but now I regularly dabble in words. The beautiful thing about moving through a few decades is we have the time to let go of the things that were holding us back from ourselves. From who we really are. Less sensible, perhaps, but possibly more wonderful. Beautiful. Magical.

    • The Emperor Has No Clothes

      “Stories appeal at least as strongly to listeners’ emotions as to their calculation. Social psychologists have shown repeatedly that the prestige of a spokesperson, the identities of a speaker’s friends and enemies, and the exploitation of nostalgia or grievances more strongly shape attitudinal change than the sheer merits of a rational argument do. When it comes down to it, the argument that carries the day may well be the one that exerts the strongest affective appeal, rather than the one that triumphs on debating points. For every Abraham Lincoln, whose speeches were more tightly reasoned than those of rival Stephen Douglas, we must countenance the possibility of an Adolf Hitler, who baldly appealed to the lowest common denominator of the German citizenry and found that he could dissolve reason by arousing passions.” — Howard Gardner, Leading Minds: Anatomy of Leadership

      The reasonable mind often has a headache in the climate we’re living in nowadays. The headache is populism fueled by the rise of nostalgia and grievances. Gardner’s argument rings true when considered against the backdrop of the rising popularity of autocrats across the globe. How does reason and rationality hold fast against the din of the chanting hoard? Is it any wonder most people just want to pretend it’s not happening? But we’ve seen this act before, and we know how it ends, and so we must stand up against it as if our lives depended on it.

      The trick is not just to learn how the game is played, but to master the game ourselves, that we may triumph over the best the worst offers. We must become better storytellers than those on the other side of liberalism. We aren’t “woke” for demanding personal freedom and the rights of the individual, and we can’t simply accept that dismissal from those who would bully us into submission.

      The pendulum feels like it’s swinging well to the autocratic side, but the further from the center it swings the more the gravity of the masses want to pull it back to center. The more friction the autocrats feel, the louder and more angry they’ll get. We must continue to tip the scales towards freedom and justice for all.

      The problem with this post is that it’s meant to be a logical argument. If reason dissolves in the face of passion, we must find a way through to common ground. Instead of logic, the better tactic is storytelling. Help others see the light with a modern parable revealed to them in such a way that they might reach the conclusion themselves. We all tend to believe the truth we stumble upon in our own mind more than that which is told to us.

      Our stories must be light and nimble enough that they penetrate the rapt attention of the hardened masses. To shame the reckless autocrat is to shatter their hold over the passionate mind. When the crowd realizes that the emperor has no clothes the illusion may finally be broken.

    • The Gospel According to This Moment

      “Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barnyard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thoughts. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,—the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time.”
      — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

      Today’s post, later than the norm, is indicative of a busy life. The writing happens when it may happen, and is published shortly thereafter. The only thing I can control is my commitment to the process. A great but full day is no excuse not to check the box, and I’m particularly happy to share this quote from Henry Miller.

      In weeks like this, when it feels like I’m rushing literally everywhere all day long and something as quaint as posting a daily blog feels like just one more burden, I pull back and remember why I’m doing this at all. These are my breadcrumbs as I become whatever I will be in this lifetime. Surely some are spaced more tightly together than others as you see familiar themes pop up again and again, but it’s been a journey nonetheless.

    • For Discovery

      “We’ve been trained to believe that mediocre obedience is a genetic fact for most of the population, but it’s interesting to note that this trait doesn’t show up until after a few years of schooling.” — Seth Godin, Graceful

      “Fear of living without a map is the main reason people are so insistent that we tell them what to do.” — Seth Godin, Graceful

      A few days ago, Seth Godin offered up his e-book Graceful as a free download. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I downloaded it immediately and read it almost as quickly. It’s a short book jammed with little nuggets of gold like the quotes above. Seth’s best books and blog posts are tiny gems that punch above their weight. Something to aspire to as a writer—perhaps I’ll arrive there myself in a few thousand more blog posts.

      Many of us wing it in certain parts of our lives, but meticulously plan other parts. I write what flows through me when I sit down to write, but feed myself with a steady diet of reading material and life experience to widen the lens. The result is an often eclectic mix of topics that are most certainly not what some sign up for. But who wants to read or write about the same thing every day anyway? Art, learning and living a full life should be a meandering progression.

      There’s something overly formal about mapping out our experiences, but there’s value in the process. I have some travel coming up this spring that I’m particularly excited about. With every trip I take, I do a ton of research and planning to optimize my time in any given place. I leave some room for discovery, but in general I live my life in the fashion the lyrics of an old Seals and Croft song, “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)”. You don’t have to look up the lyrics: that’s it right there in the title. It’s the kind of ear worm song you curse for it’s persistence, but a good reminder to be fully aware in the moment.

      We don’t venture out into the world for predictable. We venture for discovery. When we leave the rigidity and structure of the classroom, we either spiral into indifference or grow into a fascination with the world and our place in it. To be lifetime students of living seems an aspiration worthy of our remaining time, don’t you think? Our growth depends on it.

    • To Live Creatively

      “Many times, in writing I have looked over my own shoulder from beyond the grave, more alive to the reactions of those to come than to those of my contemporaries. A good part of my life has, in a way, been lived in the future. With regard to all that vitally concerns me I am really a dead man, alive only to a very few who, like myself, could not wait for the world to catch up with them. I do not say this out of pride or vanity, but with the humility not untouched with sadness. Sadness is perhaps hardly the right word either, since I neither regret the course I have followed nor desire things to be any different than they are. I know now what the world is like and knowing I accept it, both the good and the evil. To live creatively, I have discovered, means to live more and more unselfishly, to live more and more into the world, identifying oneself with it and thus influencing it at the core, so to speak. Art, like religion, it now seems to me, is only a preparation, an initiation into the way of life. The goal is liberation, freedom, which means assuming greater responsibility. To continue writing beyond the point of self-realization seems futile and arresting. The mastery of any form of expression should lead inevitably to the final expression—mastery of life. In this realm one is absolutely alone, face to face with the very elements of creation. It is an experiment whose outcome nobody can predict.” — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

      Another long quote to start this blog, and surely the SEO needs improvement. So be it. I might have doubled the length for all Henry Miller had to say. In fact, stop reading my blog altogether and go pick up the book. We are the people he had in mind when he wrote these words. Can’t you see him looking over his shoulder at us? If Miller was looking to the future with hopefulness that the world would catch up to his way of thinking, well, he may have been sorely disappointed. We all shake our heads at the madness in the world, and the inclination to dumb it all down for the benefit of the power brokers with all the fancy toys. Some things never change.

      To tag along with Miller as he wanders around Greece on the cusp of World War II is fascinating for the historian in me, for we know how the story ends but not always how the world felt about it as things were playing out. Miller found his soul in Greece just before things got truly crazy. What of us?

      Some of us write to reach self-realization and rarely go beyond it to reach for mastery. I talk a good game myself, but my default is to quiet quit on mastery. It takes a level of discipline I’ve learned I don’t want to grind out of myself to be a master craftsman at anything. I can see it in the pursuits I’ve started and let die out. If the price is to exclude everything else to reach mastery, I’ve come to realize that I won’t pay that price. There are precious few who keep going, which is why there are so very few masters of any craft.

      But there’s hope. If the goal of life is Arete and reaching personal excellence, then the journey never truly ends. Perhaps writing for self-realization is part of the journey that eventually we break through to reach for something more. The only certainty is that the creative journey continues, and so long as the blog posts reach you, you’ll know that I’m still pushing through what Steven Pressfield called the Resistance to find out what’s on the other side.

      There’s a reckoning coming. When we keep pushing ahead it’s inevitable that we’ll face more and more resistance. For us to keep going with the work that calls to us is audacious, and some might say self-serving. This too is recognized as resistance. There comes a point in our lives where we tell our quiet-quitting self that the work means more now. We may still end this trivial pursuit and go on to some other distraction. Just not today.

    • Hopeful Endeavors

      “Hours are like diamonds, don’t let them waste” — The Rolling Stones, Time Waits for No One

      “Remember that your real wealth can be measured not by what you have, but by what you are.”
      ― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

      I sat with this blog post a beat longer, deciding for just a moment to finally stop using this particular time to write and instead do something else with it. It’s an eternal theme of where and when to use one’s time. Who’s to say this is the best use of either of ours, dear reader? Yet it could surely be used in worse ways. How do we spend the wealth of our precious time? Surely, time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me… or thee.

      The answer, I believe, is to spend our time becoming. When becoming we are investing in a future self that is somehow better than the current version, assuring something of a better future. Investing is a hopeful endeavor in ourselves. It’s fair to then ask ourselves, what are we doing with our hours, and will spending them doing this improve my lot? To throw away time is one of the greatest of sins against the self, isn’t it? Yet we all do it.

      Looking back on the breadcrumbs that trace my journey to here, I see who I am and who I once was. I’ve become a better version of myself than the character I was then. But I am by no means a finished product. No, I’m a work in progress just as you are. We may be hopeful in our endeavor to become something greater than who we are now, even as we recognize that some things are best left in the past. We aren’t getting any younger, but we may still find hope in our personal growth, whatever that means to us.

    • Shepherds and Poets

      “For the shepherd the poet is too facile, too easily satiated. The poet would say ‘there was… they were…’ But the shepherd says ‘he lives, he is, he does…’ The poet is always a thousand years too late—and blind to boot. The shepherd is eternal, an earth-bound spirit, a renunciator. On these hillsides forever and ever there will be the shepherd with his flock: he will survive everything including the tradition of all that ever was.” — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

      “Describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and the belief in some sort of beauty — describe all these with loving, quiet, humble sincerity, and use, to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, and the objects of your memory. If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”
      — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

      We know great poetry, because it feels as eternal as that earth-bound shepherd. We know bad poetry because it clings to us like tree sap, cursed in it’s stickiness. A bad line of poetry haunts us for a lifetime. Great poetry feels revelatory as we discover some truth about ourselves that seems so obvious after stumbling over it. In the entirety of this blog, I’ve written one poem about a kitten who once thought she was a dog (she’s since become decidedly cat-like). I aspire to write like a poet but I save poetry for those who dare more greatly. You know who you are, and thank you for your audacity.

      For most of my life I’ve fancied myself a shepherd; tending my flock, trying not to step in it and eternally minding the weather. Aspirations of poetry are saved for moments of brevity in writing. Poetry for me is the last holdover of a time when I told myself I wasn’t good enough to be a writer, choosing history instead, where looking backwards seemed safer than facing the truth in the present.

      The thing is, Miller and Rilke were both on to something. The worst shepherds have their heads up in the clouds, paying no attention to the needs of the flock. The worst poets likewise dance in flowery prose, searching for clever instead of truth. Great poetry is earth-bound, with a bit of dirt and manure smudges showing the truth of the matter. We must live in the immediacy of the flock and write as if the wolves were just over the rise.

    • Between the Natural and the Divine

      “It is the morning of the first day of the great peace, the peace of the heart, which comes with surrender. I never knew the meaning of peace until I arrived at Epidaurus. Like everybody I had used the word all my life, without once realizing that I was using a counterfeit. Peace is not the opposite of war any more than death is the opposite of life. The poverty of language, which is to say the poverty of man’s imagination or the poverty of his inner life, has created an ambivalence which is absolutely false. I am talking of course of the peace which passeth all understanding. There is no other kind. The peace which most of us know is merely a cessation of hostilities, a truce, an interregnum, a lull, a respite, which is negative. The peace of the heart is positive and invincible, demanding no conditions requiring no protection. It just is. If it is a victory it is a peculiar one because it is based entirely on surrender, a voluntary surrender, to be sure. There is no mystery in my mind as to the nature of the cures which were wrought at this great therapeutic center of the ancient world. Here the healer himself was healed, first and most important step in the development of the art, which is not medical but religious. Second, the patient was healed before ever he received the cure. The great physicians have always spoken of Nature as being the great healer. That is only partially true. Nature alone can do nothing. Nature can cure only when man recognizes his place in the world, which is not in Nature, as with the animal, but in the human kingdom, the link between the natural and the divine.” — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

      I know: I’m breaking every rule of compelling writing. But this blog was never going to be The New Yorker. It’s a collection of observations and picked up pieces along the way. The writing isn’t the end game, merely an aspiration in a life full of aspirations. Yes, I began with a long quote from Miller, to be sure, but I didn’t have the heart to omit any one part of it. His thought process reminded me of Henry David Thoreau, his observations reminded me of Anthony de Mello.

      Enough justification: Let’s get to the point already. We are all links between the natural and the divine, the problem is that most of us live a life completely distracted and unaware of our essential position. When we reach awareness life makes more sense, our place in the universe is clear, and we live in the moment. This is the peace Miller talks of, a place we immediately understand when we’ve arrived there ourselves.

      “You and I were trained to be dissatisfied with ourselves. That’s where the evil comes from psychologically. We’re always dissatisfied, we’re always discontented, we’re always pushing. Go on, put out more effort, more and more effort. But there’s always that conflict inside; there’s very little understanding.” — Anthony de Mello, Awareness

      I write this blog not as a wise old sage, but as someone who has seen the light and struggles to linger with it. It’s not as if I don’t hear the email notifications poking at me, or feel the frustration of heavy traffic after a long week of travel, but I do put them in a place where they don’t rise to a prominent place in the moment. Peace isn’t a cessation, it’s an arrival. I know I won’t accomplish everything I want to accomplish in a lifetime, but I’m happy with where the journey is taking me. Let the lists of unvisited places be damned: I’ll do what I can in this lifetime.

      “Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barnyard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thoughts. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,—the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time.”
      — Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      Between the natural and the divine is where we reside. We navigate living in a world filled with the walking dead: those afraid to truly see the game for what it is. It’s always been about now. It’s always been about the quiet connection with our fellow travelers. To be where we are in the season, firmly in the moment. We overthink the present, feeling it ought be more complicated than it really is. Sometimes it’s as simple as walking away from a partially-written blog post to play fetch with a pup we haven’t seen in a few days, that we may get reacquainted with why we’re here in the first place. It’s surrendering to the moment and truly being at peace with where we are.