Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • Developing Insight, Courage and Endurance

      “Jung observed that the work of being an evolved human being consists of three parts. Psychology can bring us insight, but then, he insisted, come the moral qualities of the individual: courage and endurance. So, having potentially come to consciousness, to have embraced insight as to what a dilemma is really about, one then has to find the courage to live it in the real world, with all its punitive powers, and to do so over time in the face of opposition both external and internal.” — James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

      We’re all evolving at our own pace, becoming what we will, sorting out our individual lifetime feedback loop as it becomes apparent to us. We might have a clear idea of what we are becoming, and then again we might not. There’s no doubt that a strong compass heading offers focus and purpose to an otherwise meandering life, but that doesn’t mean a bit of meandering isn’t essential as we find our way down the path.

      Hunter S Thompson, surely more evolved at 22 than I was at that age, wrote an extraordinary letter to a friend who had asked for advice, replying that one reason he might be struggling to know what to do with his life was that “he’d lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than a horizontal existence.” There’s merit in expanding horizontally, for it develops in us this insight that only comes from meandering a bit off our upward climb. Insight may lead to dissatisfaction with our current path, which in turn might stir enough courage within to make the changes necessary to climb a different path.

      Some of Thompson’s sage advice in that letter to his friend was to “decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.” But the universe doesn’t just bow to our wishes, we must fight for the life we want to live. Inferred in that “see what you can do to make a living” nugget is finding the courage to push for what you want your life to be, not just externally, but especially, internally. Finding the gumption within ourselves to tell that internal voice inside of us to piss off and go for what we want is the real trick to a fulfilling life.

      I finally got around to reading Band of Brothers recently after re-watching the series for a third time. The paratroopers who made up Easy Company in the 101st Airborne Division who jumped behind enemy lines on D-Day didn’t just strap on a parachute and jump out of an airplane for the first time that day. How could anyone find that level of courage to do such a thing? They took small steps, first jumping off a small platform harnessed to a cable, then a higher platform, and progressing to a jump from a plane above their base. It took five of these jumps to earn their silver wings, which indicated to the world that they were paratroopers. Even then, it wasn’t until they parachuted into France under fire that they became combat veterans and earned that nickname “Screaming Eagles”.

      How are we to be expected to just jump into the thick of it in our own chosen life path? We must pay our dues, apprentice and stumble through the learning phase before we can gain any measure of expertise, let alone develop the courage to leap into the unknown and the street smarts to stand up again unscathed. Our lives are a work in progress, built layer upon layer, and the work never stops. And that’s where endurance comes in. We must strategically sprint now and then throughout our lives, but we can’t forget in our rush to get past the pack that most of life is steady state. If we don’t find a pace that we can sustain that pack will reign us back in and leave us far behind.

      It’s easy to write that we need to develop ourselves, but much harder to get out there and tackle it day-after-day. For me, reading, writing this blog (and other things better left unpublished) and generally sorting through life as it comes at me offers the necessary “chart time” to figure out both my current and future place. I’m by no means an expert at this business of living, but I’ve found that this routine levels off the highs and lows of daily living by offering and reinforcing perspective. This is my steady state between the mad dashes of life.

      So there are the three legs of the our evolutionary stool, according to Carl Jung: Insight, to help us understand what we want out of life. Courage, to pursue what we want most. And endurance, to sustain the long, arduous slog through a universe that always has other plans for us. Our daily rituals develop all three, and help to keep the dream alive with the proper fuel and maintenance. Those rituals then help us set our course for wherever we dare to take ourselves next.

    • This Milky Sea of Mystery

      “Whether you show up as you in this brief transit we call life or are defined by history, or context, or shrill partisan urgencies substantially depends on you. No greater difficulty may be found than living this journey as mindfully, as accountably, as we can, but no greater task brings more dignity and purpose to our lives. Swimming in this milky sea of mystery, we long to make sense of things, figure out who we are, wither bound, and to what end, while the eons roll on in their mindless ways. It falls then to us to make sense of this journey.” — James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

      This business of living offers plenty of opportunities to fall in line, blend in, and simply do what’s expected of us. Far more interesting to go our own way. Somewhere along the way this blog transitioned from documenting who had the best fish and chips to more a trail of breadcrumbs documenting my wade through, as Hollis so eloquently describes it, this milky sea of mystery. That doesn’t mean you’ll never see me celebrate a great meal now and then, but we become what we focus on, as much as what we eat, and a blog on becoming will leave its breadcrumbs du jour.

      The question is, where do we go from here? What exactly are we wading into anyway? One way or another it seems to come up in conversation after publishing, and doesn’t that influence what’s written next? Surely fish and chips are less of a leap.

      Hollis reminds us that the task itself is noble. Trying to make sense of this journey is bound to lead us up the wrong trail now and then. Those breadcrumbs might come in handy should we ever need to double back. If all they do is indicate where we’ve been, well, that’s okay too. Just remember that by the time you read this I’m already thinking about where I’m going next.

      Wading in

    • Our Legacy of Previous Work

      Our previous work lingers, either nagging us for where we didn’t measure up or offering a standard to exceed in what we do next. It ought to be the latter, and as we grow we learn to accept that we’ve generally improved upon our previous selves.

      Walking around the yard, I scrutinize the hardscape, for it leaves a lasting impression. I remember a particularly hot Father’s Day laying the brick patio, and a particularly challenging fence post hole when erecting the fence. I remember having the excavator I’d rented getting stuck in wet loam and having to call the rental place to help me tow it out, then scolding me for not renting a different tractor that could handle the conditions I was putting that Bobcat through. Life is a series of lessons.

      Writing is the same. I have posts written long ago that receive likes today, prompting me to reflect on what I was saying at the time. Despite our best efforts we try not to repeat ourselves too often, but there are clearly themes running through this blog that regular readers may rattle off readily. Writing every day requires a steady consumption of new experiences, reading books of substance and a willingness to put it out there. Some posts were clearly works in progress when I click publish, some are more polished. All were my best available in the moment I had with you.

      We can’t linger with our previous self when there’s so much living to do ahead of us, but we can glean lessons from our past. We can also celebrate the things that we did well. That brick patio turned out pretty well, and so did that fence (so long as you don’t look too closely). Some blog posts stand the test of time, while others fade away.

      Our legacy is our work. It reflects who we were and the tools we had available at the time. So long as we did our best, we shouldn’t judge it too harshly. In our work we see the progression to where we are now. And maybe find insight into who we might become in the future.

    • Beyond What We Avoid

      “One must consciously ask each day: In what way am I so afraid that I am avoiding myself, my own journey?” — James Hollis

      My bride has a strong fear of heights, and I have a nasty habit of challenging her to try things that test that fear. Examples are rattled off in conversations with friends of times I pushed her beyond her comfort zone: helicopter on to a glacier, zip-lining through an Alaskan forest, The London Eye, driving the narrow, twisting switchbacks on the Pacific Coast Highway or the Italian roads to the Dolomites and then riding the cable car to Seceda. There is a pattern of seeking experience beyond her comfort zone, and I greatly appreciate her willingness to put fear aside just a bit to give it a go. In every case the end result was worth it.

      She asked me the other day what I’m afraid of. We’ve been married for almost 27 years, so for her not to know outright was interesting to me. But then again, I also have a hard time thinking of something I’m afraid to try. I can think of many extreme sports that I’d never do, but it’s not for fear but a healthy respect for keeping my body in one piece that keeps me from trying them. There’s a reason most people aren’t surfing 26 meter tall waves like Sebastian Steudtner or attempting Alex Honnold’s Free Solo climb of El Capitan. These are the very definition of extreme, because in the entirety of recorded human history nobody has ever survived such a feat. And yet they pushed through their own fears and did it.

      My own fears aren’t challenged in extreme sports or public speaking, but in putting my work out there for all to see and having it measured. There’s a reason my early blogging was anonymous, for it took me some time to want to have my name tied to it. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar in your own writing. This fear first expressed itself in college, when I chose to avoid creative writing classes where my work would be judged by my peers and chose classes where I simply analyzed other people’s writing. A few decades later I still regret the lack of courage to simply put it all out there right then and there. But regrets aren’t productive unless we burn them as fuel for becoming something more.

      My greatest fear is leaving my best work on the table before I check out of this world. To develop the talent and the habits necessary to produce something of consequence but never actually putting it out there for the world to judge for themselves nags at me. Blogging is a necessary hammer and chisel chipping away at that block, but deep down I know it isn’t enough. It is absolutely a necessary part of the journey, but it must never be the journey itself. Blogging daily can be a form of avoidance—as if I might quench my thirst for doing more simply by putting out a blog post every day.

      There’s much more to do, friends. Much more on the table that needs to be put out there. And that’s the comfort zone I need to push beyond. If life experience tells us anything, it’s that the end result will be worth it.

    • Emptying the Noise Bucket

      Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
      It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
      that I do not want it. Now I understand
      why the old poets of China went so far and high
      into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
      — Mary Oliver, The Old Poets of China

      We’re all busy, and compounding our generally hectic lives, the world wants our full attention. It throws attention-grabbing headlines, distressing developments, and plenty of opinion about all of it at us and wants us to join the maddening chorus. Surely these are troubling days that shouldn’t be ignored. And as citizens of the world we must pay attention and work to improve our general lot. But, like our mobile devices that long ago became an extension of our brains, we should never forget to recharge our batteries regularly.

      “To become empty is to become one with one with the divine—this is the Way.” — Aza Kenzo

      When our focus turns to the noise outside we don’t hear our inner voice. We lose our compass heading. We miss a beat. And in that lapse our best work—our purpose, suffers. We must empty the bucket of noise and fill the void with silence. Luckily, solitude is just a walk or a garden full of weeds away. Simply leave that phone behind, step away from the noise and listen to yourself for awhile. We don’t owe the world all of our time, no matter how much it insists upon it.

      “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      The thing is, that bucket of noise is going to keep filling up, no matter how much we try to empty it. As Mozart structured his symphonies, we ought to structure the music of our own lives. The magic isn’t in the noise at all, but in the silence in between. If we wish for more magic in our lives, if we wish to compose something that transcends the chatter of everyday life, if we simply wish to reset our jittery compass, then we must empty the noise bucket and dance with the silence left behind.

    • The Nerve for Excellence

      “A New Yorker essay that fall noted that mathematicians do good work while they are young because as they age they suffer “the failure of the nerve for excellence.” The phrase struck me, and I wrote it down. Nerve had never been a problem; excellence sounded novel.” — Annie Dillard, Afterword of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

      Take that New Yorker example of mathematicians and apply it to rock stars. How many Paul McCartney or Elton John or Joni Mitchell songs written in their 40’s or later resonate as much as those written in their 20’s? They may be good or even great, but they aren’t classics. Excellence requires the nerve to go for it.

      As someone who is no longer in their twenties, I remember the audacity of youth as much as I appreciate the pursuit of safer routes as we age. After all, we’ve got bills to pay and mouths to feed and a 401(k) to nurture, right? So what does that mean for those of us who aren’t kids anymore? Should we hang it up after we hit 30? Of course not. But we have to stretch beyond our comfort zone if we want to achieve anything beyond the average.

      Sure, when we’re young we have less to lose, so it becomes comparatively easy to jump in to the deep end. But there are other ways to reach the deep end. We can methodically wade in one step at a time. Or to flip analogies, when everyone around us is slowing down to savor the view, we still have the choice to power up the hill.

      Nobody reaches mastery without tenacity and drive. Surely there’s a case for perseverance. For incrementally—relentlessly—applying accumulated knowledge towards our goal. Will that lifetime work become a masterpiece? Few ever do, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the nerve to try.

      Go deeper. Climb higher. See what we might make of our best work.

    • Mastery is a Beacon

      “Besides, isn’t it confoundedly easy to think you’re a great man if you aren’t burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?“ — Stefan Zweig, Chess Story

      My mind is still in Vienna as I write this—a city that’s had its fair share of high achievers walk her streets and contribute to humanity’s Great Conversation in their life’s work. Big names roamed those same streets, and you might feel a need to raise your game when you walk with that level of ghosts—I surely did. And shouldn’t we feel this compulsion to close the gap between the masters and where we currently reside?

      The world offers precious few brilliant shining stars. Most of us burn less brilliantly. And yet we burn just the same, and cast our own light on the darkness in the world. We may recognize that we aren’t quite at the level of a master in our field yet still have something to offer anyway. And knowing that there are more brilliant lights in human history, we may choose to stoke our fire—feed it with the fuel necessary to one day burn more brilliantly still.

      What provokes us towards greatness but comparison? We may never reach those levels, few do, but knowing there are heights we haven’t reached yet ought to inspire more. For mastery is a beacon.

    • Where Our Heart Takes Us

      “I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness and misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

      I was thinking about Goethe after my traveling companion asked me why I was so happy to come across a statue erected in his honor in Vienna. I suppose this quote offers some insight. Goethe distinguished himself as a deep thinker in a city jammed full of them. We all seek knowledge in our quest to become something more, but our heart points the way and determines how far we actually go. Our knowledge quest isn’t unique to us, many of us seek amelioration. The heart ultimately tips the scales for how rich and fulfilling our lives will be.

      Absorbing knowledge is helpful when we do something with it. The homeless man asking me for money in the park easily pivoted from German to English when I responded with my basic skills in his native language. Which of us has more knowledge? Which of us can read Goethe without translation? We are what we either seek or ignore. Knowledge is but a starting point for becoming what we might be.

      Traveling, reading, learning a language, and trying to capture experiences in words are each forms of seeking knowledge. Goethe’s hard stare and his translated words remind me that I have work to do. Do I have the heart to get it done?

    • Vienna, At Last

      Slow down, you crazy child
      And take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
      It’s all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
      When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      A traveler seeks magic in places big and small, and in mountains and cities alike. Two weeks of trains, planes and automobiles carried us to some of the most beautiful places in the region, but we had to come to Vienna before we felt our trip was complete. Maybe it was Billy Joel’s reminder that the city—the world— is out there waiting for us to stop the madness and seek out the magic that inspired a visit, or maybe it was a voice inside. Vienna, like Paris or Budapest or Prague remains a myth until you reach out and meet it.

      The first impression a visitor may have of Vienna is that the city is far bigger than one might expect. The larger city looks and feels like the working city it is. Cranes all over the horizon indicate it’s still growing, and quickly. But for all its bigness the Old City itself is very walkable.

      Where do you go first when you visit Vienna? For me the choice was obvious: St Stephen’s Cathedral. Seeing the massive and ornate structure of the church itself was a goal, but climbing the 343 steps up the South Tower for the incredible views of the city was my underlying goal.

      Having seen the city from a high vantage point, it was time to find the details that make Vienna unique. One must walk an old city and find that which hides from casual visitors. This city offers something around every corner.

      When you’ve heard about Vienna your whole life don’t just skip across its surface like a stone, sink in! One should visit the palaces and museums and cafés to know Vienna, but you should also seek out the nooks and crannies where the place reveals its magic. Those who built this place leave a bit of themselves for us to discover, should we only look for it.

    • Beyond the Same Place

      “For I assure you, without travel, at least for people from the arts and sciences, one is a miserable creature!…A man of mediocre talents always remains mediocre, may he travel or not–but a man of superior talents, which I cannot deny myself to have without being blasphemous, becomes–bad, if he always stays in the same place.” — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      There are forces that work on you when you’re in the middle of travel. Time flexes, and the clock you’re familiar with slips off-kilter. Truthfully, it’s us that slips off-kilter, the clock remains indifferent. Travel forces adaptation and change. Those who stubbornly hold on to their routine aren’t rewarded with the benefit of transformation. Let the world wash over you and the old ways of thinking are swept away. You’re carried to new ideas and lifted to new places.

      In one evening of wine-fueled conversation I practiced German with Austrians, French with a well-travelled Frenchman and discussed the origins of Christian names with an Irish woman. Moments like that remain locked in your mind, even as it releases you from your previous way of looking at the world. We can never stay in the same place, we must reach beyond to grow.

      We’re all on a path of becoming something more than we might otherwise be. Travel done well is a shock to the system, allowing us to get past ourselves. It can’t help but make us better at our work, for it surely transforms us as people.