Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • 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.

    • The Thing We Ought to Be

      “The ideal life, the life of completion, haunts us all; we feel the thing we ought to be beating beneath the thing we are. We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it” – Phillips Brooks

      It sneaks up on you now and then, this feeling. It’s a nagging call for action, Thoreau described it as quiet desperation, a feeling that you’re living below your dreams and see no path to reach them. But he would also remind us that it’s okay to build these castles in the air, just build the foundations underneath them.

      What do we make of ourselves when we know what we ought to be?

      How we reconcile this in our own lives is how we determine for ourselves whether we lived a successful life on our deathbed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. When you pause in a quiet moment in the day and reflect on where you are and where you’re going, do you like the answer?

      The haunting is a call to action.

    • Follow the Trail and Scatter Light

      Man dreams one day to fly
      A man takes a rocket ship into the sky
      He lives on a star that’s dying in the night
      And follows in the trail, the scatter of light
      – U2, In A Little While

      There are moments in an album or a book or an evening when you recognize the magic. Emotion wells up in you, stirring and amplifying feelings, sending you to another place. A higher place, maybe, or a darker place should the moment direct you that way. I keep climbing to higher places, hoping the view is better. Hoping I’ll become better in the process. And some of it ends up here in this blog.

      U2 hit me a few times over with All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Opening with the hit, dropping in a mournful homage to Michael Hutchence and then the heart pounding Elevation. This was the U2 I’d missed in their experimental days of the late 90’s. These were songs that stuck with you. Ear worms if you will. And then they hit you with Walk On, which grabbed me by the throat waiting for a flight from LA to Boston. When Bono starts singing “Home, hard to know where it is if you’ve never had one” while sleepily waiting for a red eye flight home… well, I’ll never hear the song the same again.

      For all that, the second half of the album is admittedly weaker. And for me, In A Little While became the unconscious end. For it was this song that got that emotion welling, that stirred and amplified those feelings. When Bono sings “Slow down my bleeding heart” I’m right with him, and I know it hit others the same way. That’s the power of a moment.

      Bono stated at one of the concerts U2 recorded that Joey Ramone’s family told him In A Little While was the song that he listened to in hospice, which changed the song for Bono, the guy who wrote it, from a hung over dolt going home at the end of the night to something bigger. Something more meaningful. I never heard the song as anything but soul-stirring, which just goes to show, art might begin with the artist, but it becomes whatever the audience wants it to be.

      I think about that as I write. About reaching moments of emotional connection in my writing. About crafting something of depth and substance, something that amplifies that nugget of desire or fear or love in your soul. Surely I’m a work in progress, but still climbing. Following the trail and scattering light. Still dreaming of flying.

    • Telling Stories

      “The true beauty of a story is not in its apparent conclusion but in the alteration in the mind of the reader that has occurred along the way.” – George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

      The more I live, the more I see the connection between success in any pursuit and the connection you make with your audience. And this connection is directly related to the gravitational pull of our stories. When I was a shy kid I’d avoid telling stories because it put me squarely in the center of attention. I no longer worry about being the storyteller, because I’ve realized over time that the attention isn’t really on me at all, but on the story I’m telling.

      Think about the last time you were listening to a powerful story. You were pulled in, compelled, maybe even fascinated. Each of us wants this kind of connection. Each of us wants a story to resonate. Each of us wants to be part of something. And when you have this level of audience engagement you’re halfway there. Just don’t let them down.

      It goes without saying that this applies to writing as much as it does to a speech or conversation with someone. When you start stacking that pile of words together, who are you doing it for? Yourself? Nobody likes to listen to someone talking to themselves. No, craft your story for someone in your mind. Decide who the audience is and craft something that creates connection and transforms and shapes ideas.

      Humans are either connected or driven apart through the stories we tell ourselves. Stories of religious and political views, ethnicity, sports and a hundred others. The best story tellers sprinkle a magic spell over the audience, drawing them in and making them a part of it. And that’s where the beauty is in a story. And a beautiful reason to master the art of telling it and then use it for good.

    • Towards Exciting Things

      “That’s the whole secret: to do things that excite you.” – Ray Bradbury

      Truth be told, there are many things we do every day that aren’t exciting, yet we keep on doing them anyway. This is the attractive rut of doing the same thing: familiar and predictable and comfortable. But does it stir the soul?

      If we agree that life is short, shouldn’t we pursue that which excites us? I know, we’ve all gotta make a living, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find the fun in both work and living. And if life is short, why waste years of it doing things that bore you to tears? Shake yourself out of the rut and dive into the deep work. The meaningful and enlightening. The exciting stuff.

      For most of us, exciting is reserved for vacations and weekends. I should think a healthy dose of exciting ought to be injected into each day. Too bold an ask? What are we here for if not to feel the thrill of stepping beyond your comfort zone? Too old? When are you going to get younger than now? If not now, when? If we’re going to slowly fade, why not use our brightest days moving towards exciting things?

      Really, this shouldn’t be that much of a secret.

    • What Dies With You?

      “Imagine if you will being on your death bed – And standing around your bed – the ghosts of the ideas, the dreams, the abilities, the talents given to you by life.

      And that you for whatever reason, you never acted on those ideas, you never pursued that dream, you never used those talents, we never saw your leadership, you never used your voice, you never wrote that book.

      And there they are standing around your bed looking at you with large angry eyes saying we came to you, and only you could have given us life! Now we must die with you forever.

      The question is – if you die today what ideas, what dreams, what abilities, what talents, what gifts, would die with you? ” – Les Brown

      You may have heard a version of this in a Denzel Washington commencement speech with something like 40 million views, but the framework for this story is older than that, and as far as I can tell, Les Brown was the first to tell it. And honestly, his version flows better than Denzel’s, and thus quotes better.

      I’ve been thinking about this lately myself. Whether to keep blogging or focus on the bigger writing I want to do. Whether to travel and explore to the level I want to or defer until some undefined, unlikely time in the future. Asking myself, what do you finish when you don’t have an infinite lifetime?

      Questions demand answers. Most of us distract ourselves from thinking about these things. Our lives are filled with white noise and busywork, but eventually we need to reckon with our ghosts.

      What dreams, abilities, talents and gifts will die with you? We can’t do everything in life, but surely we can do more. So what will you bring to life before you go?

    • Editing Our Short [Life] Story

      “Stuart Cornfeld once told me that in a good screenplay, every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way. We will henceforth refer to this as ‘the Cornfeld Principle.” – George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

      I don’t recall who recommended Saunder’s book to me. It was most certainly a podcast or blog somewhere along the way. On the face of it the book seems a bit academic, but it’s a delightful class in writing well using Russian short stories as the vehicle for instruction. If that sounds boring, I understand, but Saunders makes the stories come alive while informing us on the craft of building a story.

      Which brings me to this observation on writing a screenplay by Stuart Cornfeld. Who can argue each point when it comes to building a story? Yet so many fall flat in one or both element. And what of building a life? Shouldn’t a life be built around joy and purpose? There’s a balance there between fully enjoying this short life and making something of our short time here, isn’t there? What do we keep in our stories and what do we eliminate? This Cornfeld Principle offers a simple template, even if the application isn’t always so simple in practice.

      Stuart Cornfeld passed away last year. He’s best known for collaborations with Ben Stiller, including a joy nugget, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I don’t know much about him other than his work, but it’s clear he brought a bit of happiness to the world in his brief go at life.

      Shouldn’t we all aspire to a similar contribution? As we write our oh-so-brief life stories day-to-day, don’t we owe it to ourselves to make it both interesting and non-trivial? Whether our story becomes a page-turner of a life or a satisfying epic is up to us. Edit well.

    • To Untie the Knot

      Seek that wisdom
      that will untie your knot
      Seek that path
      that demands your whole being
      Leave that which is not, but appears
      to be
      Seek that which is, but is
      not apparent
      – Rumi

      This entire blog is a work in progress. The output is the measure of the man, but the process itself is the progress. To write daily is a challenge, and I’ve had moments when I want to just stop altogether and use this time for something else. But I recognize the knot within myself that needs to be untied, and writing every day seems to be the path to get me there.

      You learn a lot about yourself in the process of daily work, and keenly come to know that which you don’t like about yourself along with the things you celebrate. But isn’t that the point? We all persist and clear our individual hurdles, and maybe turn in new directions now and then. Writers just document it for the rest of the world to see.

      This knot isn’t quite untied. But I’ll keep working at it. Thanks for sticking with me.

    • Dancing in the Gap

      “Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career, you have a life.” – Cheryl Strayed

      “Cease to be a drudge, seek to be an artist.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

      “I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.” – Patti Smith

      Today is a Friday. which in the world of work means something to the majority of people making a living. Back in the day, Thursday and Friday night meant having a few drinks after work to wait out the traffic, commiserate about the grind suffered in earnest that week, and to talk of plans for the weekend.

      I’m done climbing that particular ladder. But I haven’t quite weened myself off being a drudge. But I fight and cajole myself towards some measure of artistry. Admittedly, it’s an odd place to reside. I know people who delight in their drudgery and shun artistry. I find that they live the rest of their lives in a similar fashion.

      We’ve built this social structure where taking one for the team and being a cog is celebrated. Cheryl Strayed is right to point out that your career is merely a part of your life, but it’s a big part. Aren’t we obligated to rise above the grind? We all know salespeople and engineers and accountants who spin delightful work out of what others might view as drudgery. Life is what you make of it, and so is your career. You can and should create beautiful art in your daily work.

      I’m particularly excited about a couple of projects I’m working on in my career. I’d like to weave a bit more art into each, and really, that ambition to raise the project to a level above the norm is where artists begin their work day. So what if it’s a sculpture or a PowerPoint presentation; make it beautiful.

      Our short, fragile lives are built on whimsy and chance and a bit of gumption. So why succumb to drudgery? Why not begin a notch or two above the norm and see how much you can stretch yourself? To dance in the gap between drudgery and art is to lift yourself beyond a job or a task to a place where the beautiful and noteworthy begins.

    • Magic is the Moment

      I have a bucket of magic carefully collected from places near and far. I scoop it out by the ladle and mix it together in jumbles of words with a twinkle of the eye and share it in conversations and social media and blog posts. Sometimes my efforts spark imagination and sometimes they fall into the void of indifference. It seems that sometimes I do a really good job of hiding the magic I’m trying to share. And I try to learn from these stumbles and find new ways for it to be seen.

      I’ve looked to refill the magic in Buzzards Bay and next to waterfalls, in quiet conversations, in books and in bits of poetry and lyrics, in experience and growth and learning. And yet I’ve noticed lately that my bucket of magic is running empty. But I’m unable to capture more of it for some reason. Blame it on a month of rain, or the smoky haze from wildfires thousands of miles away covering the northeast yet again, or the bad news on the COVID front about the Delta variant and the impact it’s having on the unvaccinated I care too much about.

      How can you capture magic when you’re so focused on the outrageous acts of the counterfeiters and conmen? How can you quench your own thirst when we encounter so many who drink a different kind of Kool-Aid? How can we possibly fill our buckets with magic when there’s so much misery in the world? When we share magic with people who try to refill our own bucket with judgement and hate and deception?

      Does sharing magic lead to a depletion of your own? We know this to be untrue. Just as loving leads to more love returned to you, so it is that magic magnifies magic.

      And here lies the secret: Magic lives in the place between where we once were and where we are going. You might know it by another name: now. Magic sparks in connection and our realization of the possibility of now. Magic lives in the moment. Magic is the moment.

      Instead of capturing magic and parsing it out by the ladle we would do better forming a bucket brigade to pass it from one person to another to fill the world with hope and wonder. A bucket brigade that might douse the flames of hate and division and selfishness. A steady flow of magic that could fill an ocean. Imagine that.