Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • To Be Witnesses

      “We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are — as far as we know — the only part of the universe that’s self-conscious. We could even be the universe’s form of consciousness. We might have come along so that the universe could look at itself. I don’t know that, but we’re made of the same stuff that stars are made of, or that floats around in space. But we’re combined in such a way that we can describe what it’s like to be alive, to be witnesses. Most of our experience is that of being a witness. We see and hear and smell other things. I think being alive is responding.” — Mark Strand

      We are stardust, billion year old carbon, as Joni Mitchell put it. To be made up of the same stuff as the universe but with consciousness is a miracle, really. We ought to celebrate that miracle with each breath. More likely, we might at least wake up in the morning embracing the gift when we’ve been granted another day.

      There haven’t been as many mountain peaks or waterfalls in the blog this year, and I plan to remedy that in the near future. Our lives are as big or as small as we make them. Blessed with good health and a sound mind, we ought to make the most of the opportunity. This blog was never meant to be solely about what I’ve read recently. It was derived from a bias towards action and the desire to see as much of this world as possible while here. Stasis should never be the goal in a life so very brief, let alone for a blog designed to convey highlights of the journey.

      This is our time to experience and bear witness to what we encounter. More, we should be active participants in living a full life, for this billion year old carbon we each walk around in will someday return to the universe. It ought to have a few stories to tell.

    • This Is the Way

      “I believe that above the entire human race is one super-angel, crying “Evolve! Evolve!” Angels are like muses. They know stuff we don’t. They want to help us. They’re on the other side of a pane of glass, shouting to get our attention. But we can’t hear them. We’re too distracted by our own nonsense. Ah, but when we begin….we get out of our own way and allow the angels to come in and do their job. They can speak to us now and it makes them happy. It makes God happy. Eternity, as Blake might have told us, has opened a portal into time. And we’re it.”
      — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

      “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

      Being too distracted by our own nonsense is something we all deal with. It’s like seeing our goal just on the other side of a rushing mountain stream, meandering rock-to-rock looking for a way forward, every step a risk of being swept away. Some choose to just let the current take them where it will. Others seem to get across with ease. We, the would-be writers and artists and craftswomen and men, struggle for tangible forward progress one small step at a time. Swept now and then downstream, we get back on our feet and begin again.

      Pressfield invokes the Muse to see him through. Beginning the work is a bold leap to that first stepping stone. Doing the work every damned day is the next stone and the one after that. We do the work or we get swept away. It’s really no secret at all, is it?

      And yet we all struggle at times to find our meaningful routine. This blog is one routine of many for me, you surely have similar routines yourself. Surely I focus too much on the stream, I’ve used this analogy before but still reconcile myself with the current. I won’t pretend to have it all figured out, but the blog indicates the path I’ve taken. Perhaps it’s folly, this self-absorbed pursuit of becoming something more, but we see the changes in ourselves by tracking our progress. All with an eye forward.

      The point is to listen to those angels crying out for us to evolve. Break through the Resistance and cross the chasm between our ears. Listen and see! Forget the current and just take the next step across. For this is the way.

    • Imagining What’s Next

      “Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can.” ― Danny Kaye

      We’ve all seen enough musicians creating songs out of thin air to know there’s something to the process of fiddling around. We’ve seen cooking shows where a jumble of random ingredients are turned into an incredible plate. We’ve all seen improvisation where the cast builds from whatever cue they were left with and creates magic with it. This figuring it out with what we’ve got as we do it is part of the creative process, yet we don’t always give ourselves the same license to do just that. We simply never begin.

      Some days you look at the blank canvas and go blank yourself. Some days you can throw everything you’ve got in yourself at it. The trick is to just begin. and be open enough to let what’s next flow out of you. We shouldn’t get so caught up in the imaging what’s next part. We ought to just start, awkwardly perhaps, but still a start. And do it with gusto. We forget we can paint over mistakes. We can delete entire scenes. We can move on and start anew. Life demands only the start. The next can change as we do.

      Beginning with the finished work in mind may seem the logical starting point, like setting your destination into the GPS. But a creative life doesn’t always work that way. When we face the blank canvas in art and writing and building a new life a step away from our old life, sometimes simply working with whatever ingredients we have in our personal pantry and figuring it out as we go along is our way past blank. Do the work enough and we may just realize that blankness is nothing but a point of progression towards what’s next.

    • The Beautiful Changes

      One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
      The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
      On water; it glides
      So from the walker, it turns
      Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
      Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

      The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
      By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
      As a mantis, arranged
      On a green leaf, grows
      Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
      Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

      Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
      They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
      In such kind ways,
      Wishing ever to sunder
      Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
      For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
      — Richard Wilbur, The Beautiful Changes

      Emotionally, logically even, I’ve come back to my home recently. I never left, really, but it feels more like home as we’ve spruced up the place during the pandemic. We strayed in our minds a few times, seeking more adventurous living, yet we always return to this place. That blanket of familiar is comforting, even as it acts as a foundation for more adventurous acts. Blankets might feel suffocating at times, if we feel that our whole life is encumbered beneath. But isn’t that blanket simply our identity? We are what we surround ourselves with. That in turn and time either feels right or it doesn’t. The choice was ours all along. And so it will be.

      We each enter into long relationships that evolve over time. Live with someone for a few decades and you join the club of understanding. The same can be said for the very place we live as well. The landscape changes as the community changes. The very homes we live in change too, as things and people and pets come and go from our lives, and as we ourselves grow older. Life is change. Change can be untenable or wonderful, sometimes at the very same time.

      We each write our stories, choosing what to add or edit out of that hero’s journey. Characters come and go, the scenes change, so too does the author. Everything changes over time, and we live with these changes or reject them. To think we can control anything but our reaction to change is folly. But we can wrap ourselves in our identity, and let this be our guide as we face whatever comes next. Sometimes that next is beautiful.

    • The Payoff

      “The Muse does not count hours. She counts commitment. It is possible to be one hundred percent committed ten percent of the time. The goddess understands.” — Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be

      Every morning I write for an hour or two, publish this blog, store a few collected bits for another day, and mentally flip the switch back to active participant in the rest of my life. That blog, Alexandersmap.com, is admittedly clunky, heavy on WordPress coding that I don’t really want to understand, and probably the opposite of cool. It’s the equivalent of a DIY project at home, that professionals politely nod and smile at when you invite them over. I can only hope for retro vibes if I hold out long enough.

      I’ve been slowly slogging through three books of philosophy. They’re heavy because they aren’t page turners, not really, though each is filling in the blanks for me in a life mostly focused on not wrestling with philosophical questions. We get busy, don’t we? But some things are worth our time and effort. I read a few pages of each book each morning, and attempt the same at night. I’m locally famous for my night reading, and acknowledge that it’s not my most effective time to wrestle with heavy books. Still, I persist.

      The thing is, we know the small habits that make up our lives pay off in the end, but there are days when we wonder if it’s worth the effort at all. Incremental progress is hard to get excited about. We all want the big payoff when we do something important to us, but forget sometimes that the payoff is who we are gradually becoming in the process of doing the work.

    • Stepping onto the Mastodon Path

      Admittedly, social media can be a dark place, pretending to be about community and connection, but really just an echo chamber of accusation, antagonism and positioning. It’s not a quiet conversation with friends sharing stories and pictures, yet that’s what we all signed up for. Or, if we’re being honest, was it to become an influencer? Being a voice of moderation doesn’t earn you followers, you must shout louder than the rest to get attention. And herein lies the problem.

      Alternatively, we might step away. Find a place that makes more sense. Wade into the waters of something new and see how it feels. To be fully alive means to experience change and make the most of it. Change isn’t so bad, it’s how we react to the possibility of change that scares people. We each ought to decide what to be and go be it.

      This blog is now linked to a Mastodon account. You can still find it on Twitter if you want to, at least until that platform implodes and sinks. That’s unlikely though, isn’t it? Too many people rely on doing the same easy thing every day. But diversifying the distribution of this blog seems logical to this writer. If nothing else, I’m calling my own bluff and embracing the unknown. And it was surely unfamiliar territory. At first glance, Mastodon was confusing. Blogging once felt confusing too. Going to a new job once felt confusing. There are plenty of blogs and YouTube videos to help make sense of it all.

      After lingering with it a few days, it seems a lonely place, comparatively, to Twitter or Facebook. Loneliness is also good for us, sometimes. It means we’re building something new, and eventually, together. Consider it an adventure. Isn’t it so? Like starting something new. That loneliness is a sign that we’ve stepped off the old block and are entering the wilderness. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of elbow room while we sort things out. The pioneers get all the streets named after them.

      Follow me on Mastodon, if you’d like. Currently @nhcarmichael@universeodon.com unless another server or instance tempts me. See what I mean? Different. But who wants the same thing all the time anyway? Let’s jump in, shall we?

    • Not Just to Pass Through It

      “I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.” — Joan Didion

      The thing about beginning a blog post with a Joan Didion quote is that she’s a tough act to follow. How do we not just let her words stand on their own and call it a day? But that’s not what a blog is, is it? We must press on, inspired thusly, awed slightly, and make a go of it.

      We ought to get out there and live in the world while we can. Embrace these moments together and sprinkle something memorable on top. We ought to play the songs that bring us joy and turn off the noise that drags us down. We forget sometimes that this is our moment in the sun. Choose to remember.

      Didion passed away earlier this year, honored appropriately, and shifted from active participant at the adult table to somewhere else, just out of reach. But her voice still echoes in the room even as she vacates it. My quoting her is yet another echo. See how this works? We live on through others, whether we know them in our lifetime or not. We just need to live a life large enough that we reverberate ever so slightly in our absence.

      So how do we reverberate? It’s simple, really: Choose to make a small splash. Speak up in the moment. Get up on the dance floor first. Tickle someone’s fancy. Seek adventure and live to tell about it. Serve others. Make a difference in someone’s life just when they need it the most. Be bold. Be humble. Live.

    • Creating Irreplaceable

      “Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.“ — André Gide

      [Quick aside: I’ve used the two quotes in this blog before, but feel there’s more to be said about them. Perhaps more still, even after this post. Forgive the repetition. We are what we repeatedly do?]

      It’s fair to ask ourselves, as we begin each day enabled or encumbered in our routines, just what it is we’re up to. Where exactly is this day bringing us on our journey? For that matter, what is the destination anyway? Big questions, to be sure, but life is full of big questions deftly dodged. When we avoid answering our deepest questions how can we possibly expect to reach our potential? We can’t succumb to distraction when we’re creating irreplaceable.

      A few weeks ago a friend planted a seed in my brain about finally hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. I’ve contemplated doing this for years, and deep down I knew it was going to slip away like so many other dreams. Until I decided to realize that particular dream. Now don’t get me wrong: it’s still unrealized, but it aligns with my identity, lends itself to other life goals, and is attainable with applied focus, time and effort. For better or worse, I’ve also just announced that intent to everyone who reads this blog, breaking a rule about announcing what I intend to do instead of informing about what I’ve just done. But sometimes you need to add peer pressure to reach your goals in life.

      A year or ten ago, I began hinting at a novel I was writing. I had no business writing a novel when I first started talking about writing one, because I didn’t believe I had any business writing it. Naturally the novel never was written, but the desire to write it remained. So I started blogging every day as a step towards writing better, applied daily through my commitment to post something every day. My blog posts are written the day they’re posted, which is why the time is variable, because I finish it when I finish it. You might add that the quality of the post is also highly variable, but the point is to ship the work, ready or not.

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
      No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your identity.
      This is why habits are crucial. They cast repeated votes for being a type of person.”
      — James Clear

      We all wonder what the future will bring, but don’t always see we’re building it with each action. We have more agency in our lives than we give ourselves credit for, and often overthink things instead of just taking another step. That which is irreplaceable cannot be realized without consistent effort. We must choose our direction and do the work to realize it. Fate decides the rest.

    • But for Now

      Some fine day when we go walking
      We’ll take time for idle talking
      Sharing every feeling as we watch each other smile
      I’ll hold your hand you’ll hold my hand
      We’ll say things we never had planned
      Then we’ll get to know each other in a little while
      But for now let me say I love you
      Later on there’ll be time for so much more
      But for now meaning now and forever
      Let me kiss you my darling then once more
      — Jamie Cullum/Bob Dorough, But for Now

      The bird feeders were irresponsibly empty yesterday, distracted by life as I’d been, what with elections and wars and billionaires behaving badly (another reason to not win the lottery). I’d simply let them run empty. When such things happen the birds move on to the neighbor’s feeders, or pick through the fallen leaves for leftovers. Birds deal in the reality of the moment—there’s either food or there isn’t, and act accordingly. “Since it is what it is, what will we do with it?“, they stoically chirped and got on with their collective now. When the feeders were full they returned in earnest, and the cycle repeated once again. I suppose we can learn a thing or two from birds.

      There’s something about November that demands intense focus on immediacy. Lyrical phrases like “these are the days”, “this magic moment”, and “but for now” drift into my head and prompt reflection. Reflection is lovely, but the feeders and fallen leaves remind me that there’s work to be done. This blog might be to blame for making me so very attentive to the business at hand, but then again, it’s just a way to share what was whispering in my ear all along. Is it itself a distraction, or a way to sort through the progress of becoming something more?

      Perhaps, the birds suggest, we think too much and do too little. We shouldn’t relinquish our magic moment but get straight to the point and say and do what must be done. Later, maybe when we actually become what we’re becoming, there’ll be time for so much more. Life isn’t about its little distractions but a sum of what we produce in our days. For we aren’t just feeding birds here, are we?

    • Keep Thy State

      “To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice.” — Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

      “At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—’Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

      Being an advocate for solitude doesn’t mean one is antisocial, it means embracing the potential of the moment. We ought to embrace our time alone, and stop reaching for distraction at any sign of discomfort with the practice. Solitude isn’t the same thing as loneliness, they’re quite the opposite of one another. We can be alone and be productive with the circumstance, or retreat into the comfortable friction of others. We aren’t bait fish, friends, there may be anonymity in numbers, but that isn’t safety, merely avoidance.

      Writing requires solitude—there’s no getting around it. We must wrestle with our thoughts without interruption if we hope to mine anything of consequence from ourselves. Most of us don’t have the luxury of a cabin in the woods in which to dream and scheme. We seek the edges of the day and make them ours. Some of us thrive early in the morning, others late at night. The time is inconsequential, it’s the willingness to tap into the moment that matters most.

      Solitude is a productive state of being in a world intent on drawing you back to the pack. Solitude isn’t retreating into our selves, it’s a deep conversation with an old friend, the one who knows all our traits and sticks with us anyway. We only have so many such moments in a day or in a lifetime, and ought to explore them fully. The best thing about writing is sharing a wee bit of that with a few interested collaborators. In that respect, we transcend aloneness completely.