Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • Still, Here

      Silence is the language of god,
      all else is poor translation.
      —Rumi

      It wasn’t all that long ago that it was exciting to see a satellite flying overhead. Now it feels like I can’t look up without seeing one. And it will get far busier up in the sky before too long. That’s just the way it is now, and whether we like it is beside the point. Modern progress chews up beautiful simplicity for breakfast.

      I say this knowing it’s autumn in New England. I’ll celebrate the season while dreading the coming of the leaf blowers. There will be no escaping the drone of these technological wonders as they descend on quiet cul-de-sacs en masse. Envie de t’évader?

      I’m not a purist. I use Waze and Google Maps frequently and listen to satellite radio far more than terrestrial radio. I too embrace the leaf blower like an old friend when the oak leaves blanket the lawn. I play music loudly. I delight in the energy of a crowded stadium. I am thus part of the problem, but I need stillness too. It’s simply harder to find in the familiar places.

      Maybe that’s why I’m getting up earlier than ever. On average I’m up an hour earlier than I used to get up. And I love the quiet time it offers. This blog wouldn’t exist without stillness and stubbornness. Imperfect as it is—as I am, it is my quiet offering to the universe that I’m still here, doing my thing, for at least this one more day. You want stillness? Listen to the applause after that statement.

      The world will keep getting louder and more complex. This requires a more deliberate layering of quiet from which we may hear ourselves think. I’m not convinced the world wants us thinking, but isn’t that a great reason to try? Let us quietly find our way to a more enlightened place.

    • A Strange Vocation

      Poetry, my starstruck patrimony.
      It was necessary
      to go on discovering, hungry, with no one to guide me,
      your earthy endowment,
      light of the moon and the secret wheat.

      Between solitude and crowds, the key
      kept getting lost in streets and in the woods,
      under stones, in trains.

      The first sign is a state of darkness
      deep rapture in a glass of water,
      body stuffed without having eaten,
      heart of beggar in its pride.

      Many things more that books don’t mention,
      stuffed as they are with joyless splendor:
      to go on chipping at a weary stone,
      to go on dissolving the iron in the soul
      until you become the person who is reading,
      until the water finds a voice through your mouth.

      And that is easier than tomorrow being Thursday
      and yet more difficult than to go on being born—
      a strange vocation that seeks you out,
      and which goes into hiding when we seek it out,
      a shadow with a broken roof
      and stars shining through its holes.
      — Pablo Neruda, Bread-Poetry

      I’ve gone and shared the entire poem. I’d meant to be more precise with a line or two about the stars shining through or rapture in a glass, but neither tells the story. Perhaps the english translation doesn’t tell the entire story either, but here we are. The point is, in the sharing there is a story. And naturally, we are the stories we decide to tell the world.

      Do you wonder when to begin a new chapter? Or are you too busy finding rhymes for this poem to worry about something that may never be? I think that’s the thing for most of us, isn’t it? We’re too busy living to focus on what’s next. If now is all that matters, why dwell on the tomorrows? Because it’s coming for us, ready or not? The grasshopper learned too late that the ant had it right, but in the end it was the grasshopper who made music. The real lesson is to find time to build a life and to thoroughly live it too.

      How much is enough to share? Each word published is released, never to be mine again. Perhaps that’s for the best; these words were only looking to fly free from me that they may dance in the light. I’ll click publish and go about my day, looking for as much meaning in the grind as I found in a few moments of creative output. Which work will live beyond me? It isn’t for us to decide, but to offer the best of ourselves in whatever we give our lives to.

    • Naturally Next

      “Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.” ― Leo Tolstoy, The Emperor’s Three Questions

      What next? I’ve heard the question over and over again since summer ended. Is it because I’m asking it myself? Or because we reach the same point in life where such questions become increasingly important? I think if I ask one more question in this paragraph I’ll lose a few subscribers in rapid succession. What’s next is blessedly the next paragraph.

      We navigate our place in the world, run into obstacles we learn to get around or stall behind indefinitely. Habits are obstacles, and so is a closed mind. Sometimes we get so focused on the obstacle in front of us we don’t step back to see the many ways around it. When writing stops flowing I simply walk away for a few minutes, make a coffee or throw the frisbee to the pup and the obstacle drifts away.

      I think Tolstoy had it mostly right with his focus on the present moment, and the most important person being the one we’re engaged with right now. But is our most important pursuit making that person happy? I think this itself becomes an obstacle, for happiness is a fickle thing, and serving the whims of another’s state is slavery.

      We’ve all got to find our own path to whatever is next for us. Helping others to see is a fine thing indeed, but they must learn to reconcile their obstacles in their own life. Maybe that obstacle is us. To give space and time for others to find their own way may be the most generous gift we can give them.

      What’s next? The sky filled with migratory birds noisily chatting about the commute. Maple leaves turning yellow and orange and red as the sun gradually reminds them that their time is almost over. Montauk Daisies budding so very long after the rest of the garden fades. Cherry tomatoes bursting in the autumn sun because we cannot possible keep up with the harvest. Next is always right in front of us, showing us the way around whatever we imagined was impossible to get beyond. Dare I say we must pay attention to now? Or is that one question too many?

      Then how about this? Answers come from doing. Stop worrying about the obstacle and simply do what calls for attention today. Like writer’s block, simply doing something pulls us inevitably to possibility. Look around, it’s all around us—everywhere except that place we were stuck in. We may simply do what is naturally next, and see where it takes us.

    • Brahma Muhurta

      “Brahmamuhurta (Sanskrit: ब्रह्ममुहूर्त, lit. ’time of Brahma’) is a 48-minute period (muhurta) that begins one hour and 36 minutes before sunrise, and ends 48 minutes before sunrise. It is traditionally the penultimate phase or muhurta of the night, and is considered an auspicious time for all practices of yoga and most appropriate for meditation, worship or any other religious practice. Spiritual activities performed early in the morning are said to have a greater effect than in any other part of the day.”
      — James G. Lochtefeld, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism

      I don’t practice Hinduism, but based on the definition above it’s apparent that I’m an active seeker of truth and meaning during Brahma Muhurta. We each tend to fall into a rhythm of life that works for us, and my auspicious time for writing and the deep contemplation that sometimes accompanies it is this period of time before the dawn. That it is precisely 48 minutes (muhurta) is interesting. My writing usually lasts much longer, and often in a state of flow, not contemplative. Does that mean I’m not properly harnessing the optimal time for a deeper dive into the soul? Should I save my writing for after Brahma Muhurta? Perhaps, but it seems to work for me.

      Creativity isn’t so rigid a process as to be wrapped into a 48 minute window of time. Nor is spirituality for that matter, whatever spirituality means to you or me. The point is to consistently put ourselves in a state of openness and to see where it brings us. If that’s prayer or meditation or madly scribbling on a pad of paper, we are using the time of Brahma actively engaged. What washes over us in that muhurta is for us to come to know.

      Here’s the thing, I think it all comes back to what Cheryl Strayed’s mother told her about putting ourselves in the way of beauty. When we show up consistently open to hear what the universe or God or the muse or that nugget between our ears has to say, eventually something is going to whisper back at us, if only to get us off their back. We don’t get a sunrise or sunset, a brilliant idea or spiritual enlightenment if we don’t place ourselves in a position to receive these blessings of the moment. Since we’re up before the dawn anyway, we ought to be open to receive whatever comes next. And to then do something with it before it drifts away like the stars fading with the morning light.

    • Always Mine Time

      “When I paint a picture, the time it takes will always be mine, or I get something out of it; time doesn’t end because it has passed. I feel sick when I think about the days that are passing—interminably. And I don’t have anything, or I can’t get at it. It’s torture; I can get so furious that I have to pace the floor and sing something idiotic so that I won’t start crying with rage, and then I almost go crazy when I stop again and realize that meanwhile time has been passing, and is passing while I’m thinking, and keeps on passing and passing. There is nothing so wretched as being an artist.” — Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

      When we stumble across that which captures our move through time, traps it in amber as Vonnegut put it, we realize the infinite—that which is timeless. Timelessness is itself an illusion, as is time, we simply capture our passage through it with something that will outlast us.

      Do you doubt this? Look at an old photograph from a moment in the past and feel what stirs within. Read an old letter, when people still wrote those, and see what is captured in amber. I write this blog post, as with all the rest of them, knowing that once I hit publish it becomes always mine time—this moment of thought and emotion and intellectual momentum (or perhaps inertia) are now captured. I move on to the next thing in my day, and the next; passing and passing. What of the rest is captured? Precious little, but these words remain.

      What artist hasn’t felt swept up in the moment of creation? What artist hasn’t felt the emptiness of uncreative moments? We must be productive in our time, or watch it drift away like so many empty days. The only answer to the coldness of time is to do work that matters, and to strive towards mastery in it. Personal excellence (arete) may be forever out of reach, but to reach for it is to make something more out of… time.

    • Framing the Day

      Come, read to me some poem,
      Some simple and heartfelt lay,
      That shall soothe this restless feeling,
      And banish the thoughts of day.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day is Done

      This blog may ultimately stand for something, or perhaps it will simply be a lifetime of favorite poetry, lyrics and prose quoted as prompts for the words that follow. We all write for our own reasons. To share it at all is the audacious act. The words, cherished while embraced, are simply allowed to float away into infinity, where we will one day join them.

      I’ve grown weary of debate. It doesn’t matter a lick when each side is dug in and unwilling to consider common ground. To reach across the aisle is considered weak. So we learn to ignore each other’s radical ideas. And we are collectively the lesser for closing the door on each other’s most passionate pleas. Instead we get bland exchanges about the weather. How lonely is a life devoid of meaningful engagement with the larger world?

      I may have it all backwards. I begin my day with hopefulness and close it with resignation that the work didn’t change much of anything. That’s no way to end the day. We must bookend our days with aspiration and hope. The trivial thoughts of the day will not be remembered—they will dissolve as all the rest have before them. It is only the way we frame our days that will have the structural resilience to hold together the story of a lifetime. Choosing the right material for that frame thus becomes a critical affair.

      And so I build my frame of poetry and song. I glue it together with philosophy. I make it rigid through engagement with the world, beginning in the garden and venturing outward as far as the travel budget allows. All of this living means something, I’ve come to understand, mostly to me. But that doesn’t make the frame any less solid. Or any less a part of someone else’s frame for having shared at all.

    • Our Box of Stories

      I spent a few minutes scanning the Substack of a clever hipster with far more subscribers than I have on that platform and really all of my platforms combined. She stated that blogging is long dead, and Substack was getting there itself. And I smiled to myself, knowing just how uncool I’ve become for still calling it a blog. Why not simply call it writing? Or a daily newsletter? Or the complicated ramblings of a self-absorbed passenger on this ship of fools we call now? It’s all just the great conversation, in whatever way we dare to put it out there. The rest is positioning ourselves as close to relevance as we can get, if we choose to. Some of us forgo influence for deeper, calmer waters. It all matters, and none of it matters, all at once. We do the best we can where we are, with what we have.

      Our box of stories is that which surrounds us, holding us in place so we don’t stray too far into reckless places. My story is telling me to be responsible today and go to work after writing this [whatever we want to call it] and doing a few chores around the homestead so it’s still in one piece when I eventually return. There’s more to the story than that, but why bog down your story by going long with mine? Let’s keep it real, and really concise.

      The thing is, we know we ought to re-write our stories now and then, just to change the box we find ourselves trapped in. We’re all running out of time to experience all that lies outside our box. That’s the underlying story, no matter how we write it. We don’t have to ruin all our stories, but we ought to stretch the box beyond the limits those stories have given us. Today is as good a day to try something new as any. What are we currently writing? Make it fresh and a little bolder than the box can contain.

    • Applied Exuberance

      “He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.” — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

      “Exuberance is Beauty.” — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

      I write for creative expression (no shocker there), and also for the realization of a desire to write. To honor Mr. Harding’s proclamation in front of the entire class that I would be a writer one day while reacting to a bit of prose about balloons I’d handed in for an assignment in class. I don’t remember the names of most of my teachers in my K-12 education, but I will always remember Mr. Harding. Years have flown by since that slightly embarrassing, highly thrilling moment. I believe Mr. Harding would be pleased with my development as a human, but he’d likely wonder when I was going to finish the hero’s journey he set me out on that day long ago.

      Journeys happen at their own pace. I’m a late bloomer and an early riser. That means I always feel two steps behind and eager to get a good start to the day to try to catch up to where I perceive the rest of the world already is. Looking around, I know this is largely an illusion, but it’s a useful story to tell myself anyway. I’m farther along in my development than I otherwise would be. Still, there’s so much more to do.

      There’s a trendy movement on social media called “5 to 9 before 9 to 5“ that must be popular for me to have heard about it at all (so intently do I follow trends on social media). It’s simply a clever phrase for what many of us have been doing for years: lean into meaningful productivity early in the day, before the world wakes up and drags us into its agenda. Create, exercise, read, meditate, pray… whatever wins the early hours helps us win the day. The early bird gets the worm. Nothing new here, just great marketing of a great concept I happen to subscribe to. Tempus fugit. Carpe diem.

      The thing is, our days get away from us pretty quickly. The modern world wants us outraged, medicated, subscribed to multiple streaming services and dutifully paying our taxes. We must wrestle back our time if we wish to accomplish anything we truly desire. If we dare to strive for personal excellence (Arete), we must act, and carve out time for ourselves to do it. Exuberance, like excellence, isn’t reached by going through the motions. So we must apply ourselves to the task. Hurry now: for our time is flying by.

    • A Shared Experience

      “The Scripture rule, “Unto him that hath shall be given,” is true of composition. The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      Give and it shall be given. A bit of Luke for the casual Bible reader. The more we give of ourselves, the more flows through us. Generosity is an infinite game, derived out of an abundance mentality. Over and over again, we learn that we get what we give (You’ve got the music in you).

      A friend invited me back to Substack with a gift subscription. I appreciate the generosity, but I’m in a place where I favor analog over digital consumption, and am thus keeping most digital content at arms length. Is it ironic that I blog daily, thus creating the very digital content that I’m currently attempting to trim from my unrelentingly large information diet? Perhaps. But our hand is more complex and nuanced than the up card that is showing. This paragraph is not who I am, just who I was in the moment I wrote it. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

      When the words flow with abundance, all sorts of things come out. We either filter vigorously, knowing our spouse and mother and daughter will read it, or we simply accept the consequences of an open dialog and write what comes to us. But we become what we focus on, and this blog, scattered as it may seem at times, focuses on the fine art of becoming what’s next. Life is a shared experience, and what is a blog but the sharing of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen?

      Thought breeds thought. We are here to write our story, made rich by the vigorous application of full days. Do more, experience more, learn from it and see where it takes us next. Then share it with others. Life grows in abundance to the level with which we engage with the world.

    • Release the Dancers

      “He was weary of himself, of cold thoughts and intellectual dreams. Life a poem! Not when you perpetually went around inventing your life instead of living it. How meaningless it was, empty, empty, empty. This hunting for yourself, slyly observing your own tracks—in a circle, of course; this pretending to throw yourself into the stream of life and then at the same time sitting and angling for yourself and fishing yourself up in some peculiar disguise! If only it would seize him: life, love, passion—so that he wouldn’t be able to invent it, but so that it would invent him.”
      — Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

      There’s a fine line between imagination and invention. We dream big dreams, or perhaps simply a wee wish or two, and they each dance about happily in our imagination until we do the work to realize them or eventually get sick of being teased by the dancers and find something else with which to fancy for awhile. Life isn’t meant to be a dream, it’s meant to be a gradual realization of our potential. It’s a matter of turning imagination into reality through deliberate and purposeful work. That line is crossed through action.

      “Decide what to be and go be it.”… —The Avett Brothers lyric that lives rent free in my head.

      Incremental experience—the experience that Jacobsen’s character Niels is pining for—in turn forever reinvents us. The person we’ve become is far more capable of doing this next thing than the person we were then. We imagine possibilities we couldn’t imagine from our previous vantage point, and we move along a timeline of steady progression.

      It’s natural to chafe at the limitations of our current level of experience. This discomfort is a catalyst for change—if we allow it to be anyway. Unless we’re forever paralyzed by inaction and low agency. We must develop our voice over time and learn to use it to realize possibility:

      Alas for those that never sing,
      But die with all their music in them!
      — Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Voiceless

      We are forever inventing ourselves or settling into the stasis of an under-developed character. We must raise our voice and sing! This life is flying along with or without our active participation. By all means, step away from the mirage of dreams and do something with this day. Release the dancers!