Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • The Changes You Take Yourself Through

      Everybody needs a change
      A chance to check out the new
      But you’re the only one to see
      The changes you take yourself through
      – Stevie Wonder, Don’t You Worry About A Thing

      In New England, October is the time of tangible, visible change. The world transforms around you in such strikingly obvious ways that even the most inward-facing among us look up and see it. The days get shorter and darker, the air crisp and demanding of attention, and of course the leaves paint the landscape in an explosion of color. No wonder this is the time of year most people who live here point to as their favorite.

      It seems a good time to celebrate change. The incremental changes we see around us are also happening within us. We grow incrementally better or worse, depending on our focus and applied effort. And because we’re humans you might make tangible progress in one area while you slide a bit sideways in another. Such is life.

      When you write and publish every single day you force yourself to become a keen observer. And you become more efficient in putting thought to paper (or onto the screen and whatever database in the Cloud they take up residence in). Sometimes you’re the only one to see the changes you take yourself through, and sometimes a percentage of the world takes notice. The only part that’s important is that you take yourself through it to see where you go next.

      Change. We get so caught up in getting there that we forget to celebrate here. Dance in the moment that you recognize that life is this short wonderful eruption of thought and emotion and transformation. Maybe turn the volume up a bit more today. For there’s urgency in the air. Celebrate where you are. You’ve come so far already.

    • From Scratch, Daily

      Every morning I glance at a blank page and begin to write from scratch. I’m sure your own writing process is different in many ways, but for me the act of beginning to type is a signal to the brain to get to it already. Often I’ll delete entire paragraphs that ultimately don’t make the cut, but Stephen King told us to kill our babies, didn’t he?

      That last paragraph may ultimately disappear into bits and bytes of what might have been. This one too, may pay the ultimate price for being in the early stages of a thought. Or maybe not, should I be so bold as to believe an idea is worth putting out there as it is when it dances off the fingertips. Time will tell.

      The easiest blog posts to write are about places I’ve been to or things I’ve experienced. The hardest are about things I process in my brain in the early morning hours as I contemplate whatever ideas I’m toying with at the moment. But isn’t that the way conversation works too? We enthusiastically jump into conversation about things we’ve experienced, but are more reluctant to dip a toe into deep philosophical or abstract waters. Want to ice the waters even more? Make it deeply personal.

      This blog about places I visit in the northeast corner of North America evolved into a deeper dive into waters I didn’t expect to swim in. But a blog is meant to evolve as its writer does, and this writer is ever-so-slowly evolving into something better than the person who started writing it. One book or one experience leads to another, which opens the mind to new ideas, which end up in the blog when they’ve properly steeped in the brain for a time. That’s life, isn’t it? A bunch of people figuring things out lumped together and occasionally bumping into each other.

      The easiest path to a blog post is to drop in a quote or poem that inspires deeper exploration. I use this frequently, and have a stack of drafts awaiting further exploration. Likewise, I revisit highlighted passages on the Kindle or pull old favorite books off the shelf now and then to flesh out a thought that sits in limbo a beat too long. Like that conversation you have in a coffee shop or on a quiet walk, contribution from others opens up new ideas in your own mind.

      A blog ends up being a mostly one-sided conversation, as one person figures things out in this strange and complicated world we live in. But nothing is more complicated than the human brain, reacting and adapting to the changes, both within and without. We’re all a work in progress, and a blog offers you the chance to place it out there for all to see. I wish a few more people I know would start writing their own.

      Until tomorrow….

    • You Only Need to Know

      “Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” – Washington Irving

      Washington Irving was right on the mark with this observation. Imagine if he’d lived to see people staring at their phones all day? There are so many distractions today, and never enough rising above them. So it seems anyway.

      But there are plenty of people living with purpose. People who are driven to succeed in the path they’ve chosen for themselves. The trick is to find that purpose and focus on it like your very life depended on it. For in so many ways, it does.

      You know it’s up to you, anything you can do
      And if you find a new way
      Well, you can do it today
      Well, you can make it all true
      And you can make it undo
      You see, ah-ah-ah, it’s easy, ah-ah-ah
      You only need to know
      – Cat Stevens, If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

      You only need to know what you want to do, your purpose, and then, well, you can do it today. At least begin to do it today. And isn’t that the tricky part? To stop telling yourself stories about what you are and go write a new story. Rise above the wishes and distractions and misfortunes that life stirs in our little pot and see just how far you can take this purpose of yours.

      Injecting clever quotes and catchy tunes into your day is one thing, but finding purpose and following it are another. The point here is that there’s so much noise in our lives that we never really listen to hear what our calling is. If you aren’t listening, you aren’t focused. And you miss the purpose as life noisily passes you by.

      Listen. Focus. Find a new way (yes, you can do it today).

    • Visiting a Legend in Sleepy Hollow

      “To look upon its grass grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.” – Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

      There are two Sleepy Hollow Cemeteries of note. There’s the one up in Concord, Massachusetts with it’s Author’s Ridge populated with the bones of Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott and others. And then there’s the one here on the shores of the Hudson River, where the wealthy vacated the city for one last time and tried to one-up each other in death with grand mausoleums as their final statement about how rich and powerful they were.

      Those rich folks can wait in their eternity. For there’s really only one name that matters when you talk about Sleepy Hollow, the guy who put it on the map: Washington Irving. Irving wrote two of the most familiar short stories in our cultural memory: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle.

      It’s that tale of the headless horseman that inspires people to visit his grave at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Irving is buried in the oldest section of the graveyard, with unpaved roads crisscrossing un-mowed plots with headstones protruding up in neat columns. That walk up the hill to visit his grave seemed perfect. Like walking back in time to visit those who came before us.

      I didn’t visit out of some ghoulish fascination with his short story, but for the whispers you hear at their resting place. Cemeteries generally hold the lay of the land as it was on the day they buried someone, and Irving’s resting place nestled amongst his family on a hill overlooking the Hudson River Valley seems a lovely place to spend eternity.

      Of course, Irving doesn’t need to whisper, for he wrote plenty for us to draw on. His stories will likely outlast every gravestone in Sleepy Hollow. Does that make him a legend?

    • The Widest Helpful Influence

      “There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.” – John Ruskin, Unto This Last

      It’s no surprise to learn that Gandhi was strongly influenced by John Ruskin when you read something like this. The ripples of Ruskin continue to reverberate in Liberal thought. By Liberal I’m not speaking of foolish political labels, but in the concept that life and liberty for everyone matter. Matter, in fact, more than the political ambitions of some autocrat or profiteer.

      Think about this: who has the loudest voice in the room? Does that person hold the most influence? It seems so, doesn’t it? But it’s generally the person that influences them who has the most power. It’s the person behind the spotlight who has the power, not the person who the light is being cast upon.

      So how do we develop the widest helpful influence over the lives of others? The obvious answers are to build wealth, a powerful network, and a base of followers. And there’s no doubt that these will reverberate the loudest. But nothing is more powerful than developing the right story and the commitment to having it heard. And that starts with us.

      Gandhi, Ruskin, Thoreau, Nietzsche, King, Emerson, Seneca, Aurelius, Carson, Oliver, Goethe, Montaigne… all are just people who developed a story and a voice. All found an audience over time. So why not us? What story will we tell?

    • Let Us Go Forth

      “What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident? And are there not moods which need heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less than this dilapidated earth? Nay, are there not moods which shall find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.” – W.B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

      There is still a schemer in you and me, plotting escapes to faraway places and magical hidden nooks closer to home. There are still stories percolating in our heads, looking to escape into the world in mischievous stacks of words. For everything exists, and we do too for such a short time as this. We must explore it with the urgency that this brief life demands.

      We’ve all learned a hard lesson the last few years. The world isn’t fair, doesn’t care about your hopes and dreams, and far too many people believe whatever Machiavellian story someone else is spinning for them. Is there not worthier magic in this world that needs expression? We must explore the physical world, and swim the sparkling waters of the ethereal within our imagination while there’s still time.

      Have the mettle to rise above the dismal din. Fly, while we may, for the world is only a little dust under our feet. Go forth and bring its wonder back for all to see.

    • Aspired Greatness

      “I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don’t mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.” – John Ruskin

      If we agree, and I hope we do, that there’s a divine spark in each person, then each of us has something to offer. I know there some particularly hideous exceptions to that rule, but in general most people in this world are trying to do the right thing. The outrage we feel when some dark soul erupts in the world demonstrates our shared faith in humanity. Outrage originates out of a feeling of betrayal of shared beliefs.

      To reach greatness in the world doesn’t require the most followers or likes on YouTube or a particular net worth. Really great people have an aura of positive energy exuding from them. Really great people lift those around them up. Really great people strap themselves to the helm to steer the ship through the worst of storms. There are plenty of really great people in the world, and you’re probably thinking of a few examples right now.

      “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” – Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire

      Divinity isn’t within us, it runs through us in our chosen pursuits, our relationships, our empathy and our sacrifice. It’s a calling, a purpose, that demands us to give of ourselves so that others may feel the Divine Spirit as well. That spirit may mean something religious to you (capital D, capital S), or simply something far greater than ourselves.

      I humbly write in pursuit of the divine – not to capture it, but to channel it through my writing. I’m a long way from greatness, but I see the path grow incrementally shorter with every hour devoted to the craft. Writing hasn’t been my life’s work to this point, but it’s woven in everything I’ve ever done. A modest, often futile attempt to share the divine that I’ve encountered in this world with you. Does that make it a purpose or a pursuit? I think the latter, but I hear the call of the former.

      And shouldn’t we aspire for greatness and a way to share it?

    • Every Setting Sun

      “Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.” – John Ruskin, The Two Paths

      You see the difference in the days now. September brings that perceptible tilt of the earth, shrinking daylight hours and with it a persistent tightening up of that time between sunrise and sunset. Soon the trees will react and the world will turn a kaleidoscope of colors. In the northern hemisphere we’ve turned the corner from the laziness of summer and you can feel the quiet insistence of the harvest season upon us.

      There’s work to do, meaningful work, and it must begin in earnest while there’s time. It’s funny how September does that. Deeply engrained in our souls, this feeling of bringing all your work to a satisfactory conclusion. A harvest. Like the setting sun you can feel when one chapter is ending, with a bold suggestion that something new might begin. But we’re fools to focus on that which isn’t promised to us.

      Sunsets are lovely, but you earn the sunrise. And when you greet the day your thoughts turn naturally to what you might do with it. Life is best lived in the urgency between sunrise and sunset. When the sun sets this evening, what will we have harvested in these brief hours? For the days grow shorter with every setting sun.

    • Work and Love

      “The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

      Today is Labor Day in the United States, a day of rest for many (not all), and an opportunity to reflect on this thing called work. If you’re doing work you love, then Gibran’s words will resonate. If you’re doing work that grinds your soul to dust, you might think his words are ridiculous. But to live a fulfilling life, shouldn’t that which we labor in be loved?

      Piecing words together isn’t hard labor, but any writer knows that it’s work. Paradoxically, if writing every day is work, it must reverberate with love to be enjoyable for the reader. The jury is still out on this writer.

      In my working life I’ve done everything from sweeping up broken glass to managing salespeople in a Fortune 500 company. I took as much care removing every sliver of glass from the ground as I did managing the emotional response to a quarterly review. Work is love made visible, otherwise it’s self-immolation.

      So on this rare day of rest in our hustling culture, what do we celebrate? A break from the grind or a moment to recharge before leaping back into the joy of a meaningful career? Especially now, somewhere between a pandemic and normal, work should be celebrated for where it brings us in our lives, and for what we may give back to others.

      What can we be great at? Shouldn’t we put our heart and soul into that which transcends work? To rise above the daily grind to joyful, purposeful labor seems the only path to a full life.

    • What We Create, What We Leave Unfinished

      We create ourselves by our choices. – Søren Kierkegaard

      In my house there are a hundred half-done poems.
      Each of us leaves an unfinished life.
      – Mary Oliver, Thinking of Swirler

      It’s an oddity in my character, admittedly, that I linger with poetry and well up with emotion over words. After a particularly stunning pink swirling sky at sunrise I could think of nothing better to do with my morning coffee than pair it with Mary Oliver. Life is a series of choices, one quietly laid upon the other, carrying us to eternity. I’ll regret many, but not this one.

      What will we create in our time here? What will we leave unfinished? These are the questions of a lifetime, and the questions of each day.

      I’ve mentally cast aside this blog dozens of times, but each morning I wake up and write anyway. It isn’t the writing that challenges and mocks me, it’s measuring up to the words. Knowing what’s unfinished, knowing the choices that make up a lifetime. Waking up with a chance to measure up once again.